[Poe, enjoying a rare warm afternoon on the front porch.]
The current state of things is a constant mental tinnitus eating up valuable brain space which could be much better put to use reading, writing, and appreciating the small moments of beauty which surround us. I have a great many, very negative thoughts about the current state of politics and economics, but those will have to go into their own posts. For right now, the weekly updates will be more about creative pursuits and simple pleasures.
Reading
I have three books open right now: Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, and China Mieville’s The City and the City. All three of them are blowing my mind in different ways. I can see that I will need to switch from concurrent to consecutive reading if I am to make it through them and retain something of what I have read.
Writing
Much to my surprise, I wrote something this week! As of this writing, I have most of a short story based on a writing prompt from a couple of weeks ago. It’s called “The Other Up” and I think it has legs. We will see when I finish the draft, hopefully this weekend.
Weekly Writing Prompt
Subject: Politics, Dreams
Setting: Battlefield
Genre: Adventure
Listening
They Might Be Giants, “Your Racist Friend” from their 1990 album Flood. Seems apropos of the times.
Interesting Links
- “The Dark Enlightenment: the Tech Oligarch Ideology Driving DOGE’s Destruction” (Thom Hartmann, Common Dreams)
- “This is China Discusses Feudalism & Technofeudalism” (Karl Sanchez, karlof1’s Geopolitical Gymnasium)
- “CONSPIRACY” (Contrapoints) – Superb video dissecting how conspiracy theories work and how people can be susceptible to believing conspiracies.