Maps are slippery customers.

"Deconstructing the Map", J.B. Harley

Listening to these ghosts can quickly become a cacophony of demands and seemingly irreconcilable desires.

Life on Ice: A History of New Uses for Cold Blood, Joanna Radin

Small worlds: I was lucky enough to get to curate Joanna Radin into a conference I organized in 2017 (she gave a talk about Michael Crichton!), and now I'm reading her book for my history of science class. Other sentences I enjoyed very much in this book:

It has long been regarded as both a biological and a social fluid.

(That sentence is about blood!! Very funny.)

Without the appropriate kind of planning, the future might not ever arrive.

Grief fogs the glass between dreams and real life.

"‘The Boy and the Heron’ Review: Hayao Miyazaki Has a Question for You", Alissa Wilkinson for the New York Times

Submitted by Robin; thanks for including an archive.ph link and reminding me I really should be doing that for this newsletter.

I saw The Boy and The Heron at Angelika this week. It is beautiful, weird without over-explaining itself, and poignant. In Miyazaki tradition there are cute round magic spirit-type critters who kind of just bop around, three kinds of adult women (a demure ingenue lady, an extremely cool butch, and ancient crone), and at least one unbelievably beautiful-looking animation of some food that you will desperately want to eat. At one point someone explains that a character "read too many books and went insane" like that's a normal thing that happens to people, which has been haunting me.

Science fiction was the gateway drug, but it can’t really be blamed for everything that happened later.

"What OpenAI shares with Scientology", Henry Farrell's newsletter Programmable Mutter

Of course, Hint of Lime Flavored Triangles have the advantage of being food, which humans do need to survive.

"Everybody Knows Flo From Progressive. Who Is Stephanie Courtney?", Caity Weaver for The New York Times

The hidden ghosts of war haunt the imperialist drama.

Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War, Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini

Submitted by Katie.

Their stories can’t be told when the narrators are dead.

"Journalists in Gaza deserve protection—not death", Rumana Hussain for the Chicago Sun-Times

Submitted by Paul.

Before the group is a harried-looking man with flushed skin and pale clothes that suggest an unidentifiable spring vegetable in a CSA basket.

Wrong Way, Joanne McNeil

Submitted by Ranjit.