don't forget where you belong
"The oldest hotel in Los Angeles turned 90 this year, which means there are people living in the city who have been here longer than it has. I guess this is what they mean when they say this place has “no history”: It’s not that nothing has ever happened here, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it just by looking.
It’s appropriate, right? That L.A. appears so much younger and fresher than it actually is.
In fact, the land has been here as long as New York’s has. There have been people living here since there were people living in what would eventually become Boston. It’s just that they weren’t white people; it’s just that their houses and towns and centers of worship are no longer around to remind us of them, which facilitates the forgetting that living here comfortably requires.
There is a difference between history and monuments, but it’s not uncommon for people to confuse that point. That’s especially true if the history that’s unmemorialized is also precolonial, from a time so many of us want to think doesn’t count—or don’t know how to account for, anyway."
That's the opening to the first essay in a series I'm writing for Medium, which is called Personal Geography. It's mostly about me and Los Angeles and trying to situate your imagined self in a physical place, one you can't hold onto or control, but this little piece of it, at least, feels more widely relevant this week, when we're talking about the extremely made up ideas of citizenship and borders, who "belongs" in America (not white people actually!!!!!)-- even the law, right, is not necessarily the law because it should be, but often only because it is.
Speaking of what is: I also wrote a big piece on the state of modern astrology, which came out yesterday, just as Mercury stationed direct. I don't know that astrology works the way that Susan Miller does, but lately I've been feeling it all over my body: the weight of the planets. All of the things moving around in space, and moving me around with them. The moon pulls the tides. The universe is full of shit I don't understand. Sometimes you just get held under by it for a little while. Sometimes it's nice to surrender to the pressure, to say, you know what, I bet if I stop fighting it, eventually whatever this is will spit me back out again.
It’s appropriate, right? That L.A. appears so much younger and fresher than it actually is.
In fact, the land has been here as long as New York’s has. There have been people living here since there were people living in what would eventually become Boston. It’s just that they weren’t white people; it’s just that their houses and towns and centers of worship are no longer around to remind us of them, which facilitates the forgetting that living here comfortably requires.
There is a difference between history and monuments, but it’s not uncommon for people to confuse that point. That’s especially true if the history that’s unmemorialized is also precolonial, from a time so many of us want to think doesn’t count—or don’t know how to account for, anyway."
That's the opening to the first essay in a series I'm writing for Medium, which is called Personal Geography. It's mostly about me and Los Angeles and trying to situate your imagined self in a physical place, one you can't hold onto or control, but this little piece of it, at least, feels more widely relevant this week, when we're talking about the extremely made up ideas of citizenship and borders, who "belongs" in America (not white people actually!!!!!)-- even the law, right, is not necessarily the law because it should be, but often only because it is.
Speaking of what is: I also wrote a big piece on the state of modern astrology, which came out yesterday, just as Mercury stationed direct. I don't know that astrology works the way that Susan Miller does, but lately I've been feeling it all over my body: the weight of the planets. All of the things moving around in space, and moving me around with them. The moon pulls the tides. The universe is full of shit I don't understand. Sometimes you just get held under by it for a little while. Sometimes it's nice to surrender to the pressure, to say, you know what, I bet if I stop fighting it, eventually whatever this is will spit me back out again.
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