Over the course of the last week I got some fairly high-stress news that isn’t exactly terrible, but does introduce some new chaos into my work life and finances. The news is partially related to the ravages of New American Authoritarianism (need to think of a better term here as this suggests a dictatorship of moderately upscale restaurants guaranteed to have truffle fries), though the situation I find myself in could have just as easily occurred in another timeline. I do wish that some of it hadn’t unfolded on my birthday, though.
All of this may affect the quantity of sentences collected week to week in the coming months. As always submissions are appreciated. Poetry and perfect sentences will not singlehandedly destroy the fascists, but it has to hold some utility if fascists are so insistent on crushing creative expression.
I wouldn’t piss on him if his heart was on fire.
Matewan, written and directed by John Sayles
It was a real treat to get to see one of my favorite movies on the big screen at Metrograph. This line is said by Sid Hatfield (played by David Strathairn) in reference to one of the heads of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency.
Schmitz is bringing in animatronic dinosaurs.
“Zeppelin pushes back against receiver efforts to sell RiNo building”, Thomas Gounley for The Denver Post
Submitted by Chris.
It feels a bit like inhabiting a Piranesi etching.
“Windows on Washington”, Shannon Mattern on her blog Words In Space
I was at the Bay Area Discovery Museum wondering why I felt so angry, when I looked down and it hit me: all the other dads were wearing the same shoes.
Charlie Macquarie in the “Views” section of the San Francisco Review of Whatever
A sea of, usually, very bald men in tight shirts that want to hurt the world and be celebrated for it.
“UFC and the beating heart of Trumpism”, Ryan Broderick in his newsletter Garbage Day
Submitted by (a different) Chris.
its impossible to take computers seriously because everything is a bit
It’s men who make laws, and enforce them, and break them, and think the whole performance is wonderful.
“The New Atlantis”, Ursula Le Guin in Lightspeed Magazine
Submitted by Bill.
Hordes of people listlessly roaming the flat planes of our networks trying to shake sensemaking out of random posters like ducklings who imprinted on a woodchipper
I’ve had people tell me that they’re listening to the words they’re singing for the first time.
“‘You can yodel and don’t have to be conservative’: the Swiss feminist choir rewriting traditional songs”, Kaja Šeruga for The Guardian
Submitted by Andreas.
No longer able to persuade, Zionists and their allies will be content to punish.
"Mahmoud Khalil Is the Target of a Desperate Agenda", Samer Kalaf for Defector
Submitted by Joe.
You become attuned to the nuances of dust.
“The Meaning of Everything”, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, in Shaper of God (monograph by American Artist, editor Zainab Aliyu)
Empathy with an expiry, a payment date looming large, and us cartoonishly pulling out our pockets, showing we aren’t good for it.
"Empathy's expiry date", Katie Heindl in her newsletter Basketball Feelings
Submitted by Joe, who included another very good sentence from the same:
Does knowing how much the cartilage around his knee has deteriorated in granular detail — is it bone on bone, does he feel the sensation of his body grinding away on itself each time he pivots and cuts — extend my upper limit for sympathy two months into next season instead of two weeks?
Also it carried a lesson about power (as opposed to material strength, with which power may or may not be enforced): It is always located with the people, no matter the claims of an administration, and may be defied as easily as pristine ignorance's stroll across a bar's dark floor planks.
The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, Samuel R. Delany
Submitted by Bill, with the context that in this sentence Delany is “reflecting on the story an acquaintance told of inadvertently becoming the first woman in a hundred years to be served at McSorley's Old Ale House.”