The Primo Levi section is so right now, sadly. Recently, just after the election, read Lore Segal's Other People's Houses, which felt prescient. The final sentences are, "Every day there are hours when I can write, and we have our friends. My husband is Jewish, too, but he was born in America, and accepts without alarm this normal season of our lives; but I, now that I have children and am about the age my mother was when Hitler came, walk gingerly and in astonishment upon this island of my comforts, knowing that it is surrounded on all sides by calamity."
You always make me look at the ordinary with new eyes. I wouldn't miss one of your essays, if that's the word, not for worlds. You encourage me to take off my skin and be available to the air, no matter that it hurts. I have known all these things for a long time. But it is so easy to - step around it into some kind of anesthesia. Thanks for the wake up.
I didn't know the term GISS, but I was thinking about it just yesterday. What I was remembering was this thing that happened the time I had Covid, on my way back from a Folk Festival.
I wrote: "Later I saw a large black bird sitting at the edge of a mown cornfield. Bird identification is a split-second cross-referencing of information: location, size, colour, shape, movement, behaviour. If that doesn’t work you have to think about it more and it’s like, not this, not that, not the other. The strange bird was at the fenceline, and suddenly I saw that it wasn’t a bird at all: it was a black cat, sitting neatly with its back to the yellow stubble."
"It doesn’t matter if you lose, because the point is the casino"—how i love this line (among so many great ones in today's post). reading it just now makes me think about how much pleasure and surprise your writing gives me. i feel delight and can forget about all the outside crap in these moments. i wish i could have a drink and croissant with you both at banque!
And not to get too political, but people are resisting being ground down. Trevor Noah in The New Republic: "I guarantee you it is not hard for the people who are going to be making court challenges to these individual actions because each action has a different constituency that is focusing on a particular topic and is at the ready to take Trump to court when he does something illegal."
Regarding the liberation of Auschwitz by Ukrainians: "Soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates of Auschwitz Concentration Camp on January 27, 1945" - the camp was liberated by Ukrainian soldiers in the Red Army, a fact that Russia likes to minimize, or erase, for obvious reasons. My source: https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/liberation/day-of-liberation/
The Primo Levi section is so right now, sadly. Recently, just after the election, read Lore Segal's Other People's Houses, which felt prescient. The final sentences are, "Every day there are hours when I can write, and we have our friends. My husband is Jewish, too, but he was born in America, and accepts without alarm this normal season of our lives; but I, now that I have children and am about the age my mother was when Hitler came, walk gingerly and in astonishment upon this island of my comforts, knowing that it is surrounded on all sides by calamity."
Wonderful. xxL
You always make me look at the ordinary with new eyes. I wouldn't miss one of your essays, if that's the word, not for worlds. You encourage me to take off my skin and be available to the air, no matter that it hurts. I have known all these things for a long time. But it is so easy to - step around it into some kind of anesthesia. Thanks for the wake up.
xxL
❄️ thoughtful, bizarre, exciting. Totally unique piece. Thank you!
Ah history repeats itself but never in the same way. Thanks for your work.
I didn't know the term GISS, but I was thinking about it just yesterday. What I was remembering was this thing that happened the time I had Covid, on my way back from a Folk Festival.
I wrote: "Later I saw a large black bird sitting at the edge of a mown cornfield. Bird identification is a split-second cross-referencing of information: location, size, colour, shape, movement, behaviour. If that doesn’t work you have to think about it more and it’s like, not this, not that, not the other. The strange bird was at the fenceline, and suddenly I saw that it wasn’t a bird at all: it was a black cat, sitting neatly with its back to the yellow stubble."
(The whole piece is here: https://rosiewhinray.substack.com/p/on-hamsterfest )
Fascinating and thought-provoking as ever -- and the cat! Is s/he yours? S/he is so like my own cat x
A friend’s cat.
I could taste that croissant, the one drizzled in rich chocolate.
Their pastries are on their own planet.
"It doesn’t matter if you lose, because the point is the casino"—how i love this line (among so many great ones in today's post). reading it just now makes me think about how much pleasure and surprise your writing gives me. i feel delight and can forget about all the outside crap in these moments. i wish i could have a drink and croissant with you both at banque!
You will. Can't wait to bring you there. Much love, L
"I don’t think you can return to the feeling state of believing something you no longer believe. It’s a one-way door." Love this.
The day you realize you can never return to the wonder of childhood. Cast out of Eden.
Or childhood.
I loved it would have swallowed the excitement in one gulp.
I liked reading the whole thing.
"I like the indeterminacy" seems like the T-shirt slogan.
I also recommend the Gary Tigerman song "Seduced," as sung by the Chenille Sisters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbJtNhbp3zM
And not to get too political, but people are resisting being ground down. Trevor Noah in The New Republic: "I guarantee you it is not hard for the people who are going to be making court challenges to these individual actions because each action has a different constituency that is focusing on a particular topic and is at the ready to take Trump to court when he does something illegal."
https://newrepublic.com/article/190929/transcript-trumps-chaos-strategy-already-blowing-face
Regarding the liberation of Auschwitz by Ukrainians: "Soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates of Auschwitz Concentration Camp on January 27, 1945" - the camp was liberated by Ukrainian soldiers in the Red Army, a fact that Russia likes to minimize, or erase, for obvious reasons. My source: https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/liberation/day-of-liberation/
Levi writes about Russians soldiers on horseback speaking to the prisoners.