let's get you home
slap a band-aid on those bruises
this week’s Thought (singular)
what’s the mood for today? are we more worried about not being kids or about being adults?
hi
i’m about to say a lot of words.
consumption of problematic media doesn’t make you problematic. agreeing with sentiments expressed by problematic individuals does. that doesn’t mean you shut yourself off to all the art that’s been created by controversial people - if you did that, you’d listen to a song a month and read a book every five years. it’s impossible to a) consume content created exclusively by those who aren’t knotty, and b) know everything about every creative who has ever made something that shows up on your radar and whose work you end up pursuing.
the point is not to avoid these works, but to be critical of them. to be critical of all the media you consume, obviously problematic or not. both sides of the spectrum are equally harmful - refusing to engage in any work that has a suspicious source, and refusing to believe that the sources you place on pedestals can never fall off. it’s a tricky obstacle course, full of hidden pits and red lasers, but the only way to get past is to blaze through. critical analysis, not complete avoidance or blind devotion, will save us all.
celebrities aren’t our friends (unless you actually have a celebrity friend, in which case, good for you). artists can do stupid and deplorable things, things that can sometimes be excused as mistakes and sometimes simply cannot. believing that your favourite filmmaker can do no wrong is setting yourself up for future disappointment. doxxing an actor for being out of line without researching the context just makes you hot-headed and, quite frankly, a bit annoying to be around. we do not know celebrities and what they’re capable of.
at the risk of dipping toes in the fathoms-deep ocean of the artist v/s art debate, the era of completely unproblematic media is over. “celebrities, they’re just like us!” has never been more true. they contain greys and squiggly lines, and their social media presence is inescapable. but to view them with equanimity will ensure we don’t end up disappointing ourselves. always be prepared to be pleasantly surprised or terribly shocked, and we won’t have to deal with either of those things.
English Recitation Competition
I want to stop smoking because I want to live, I can only love my comrades if I live, and I want to clean my room, I want to clean my room every week and make my bed and put peppermint in my hair to stop needing my inhalers
Being a Self Part I, Julia Fiedorczuk (translated from the Polish by Bill Johnson)
I awoke and was a woman from my feet to my hair, in which a mass of good spirits were tangled, since I had had good dreams that night. I rose and had feet and for some reason ten funny little toes. the cold rain of the air the blue mug the rectangle of the world clouds, cars, even the wind all were about me and I came to tell you because this is splendid news—
Advice from a Raindrop, Kim Stafford
Think you’re doomed to disappear, just one small voice among millions? That’s no weakness, trust me. That’s your wild card, your trick, your implement. They won’t see you coming until you’re there, in their faces, shining, festive, expendable, eternal.
Special Feature - Some Clouds™
Middle School Book Review
The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Amichai (translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell)
i don’t read a lot of poetry, but every once in a while, i’ll read a collection that makes me wish i did. love how he writes in that sweet spot between whimsical and real.
The Good Side of the Internet
It forced me to reconsider how I present myself online, and therefore how I am able to see myself. I had already begun to think along a new line for some time. The way that I experienced the attention of strangers had changed from feeling exciting and moreish to ambivalent and sometimes disturbing. I had begun to think: what would my life be if other people couldn't see it?
In the Court of the Liver King (tw: graphic images of various forms of meat)
From the medieval trappings of his Texas mansion to his raw organ-meat diet, the TikTok star and supplement magnate promotes living like a caveman in all aspects of life.
Lol, jaja, xaxa, and all the other ways people laugh around the world
Thus, laughter is universal, but that ends when we attempt to put that sound into words. Then, as demonstrated by this map, the Tower of Babel effect kicks in. The map was made by Preply, an online language learning platform. They examined how 26 of the world’s major languages transcribe laughter online.
this week’s Song
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3