The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 208, May 5, 2024 (V4 #52) – 4th Anniversary Issue!
The pen will never be able to move fast enough to write down every word discovered in the space of memory. Some things have been lost forever, other things will perhaps be remembered again, and still other things have been lost and found and lost again. There is no way to be sure of any this.―Paul Auster
I don’t want to be that woman. Any part of whose existence is sacrificed to war. Whose brother is made into a killer by historical tradition. Whose country slaughters foreigners. Who must always appease a stupid deity, follow the dictates of a benighted even stupid male leader. And survive. And take it, take it, take it.—Alice Notley
We are all equal in the eyes of the stove.—Jacques Pepin
Books, Music, Art, Culture
Jerome Rothenberg, Bronx-born poet whose ‘ethnopoetics’ inspired scholars and rock stars, dies at 92, Jon Kalish, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 4/29/24: “His work is luminous and it will be meaningful to people in future generations,” said Charlie Morrow, a composer in Helsinki, Finland who has collaborated with Rothenberg for 60 years. “I like to think that he’s come up with a big cookbook and that people will be making things from these recipes for a long time.”
‘I can say things other people are afraid to’: Margaret Atwood on censorship, literary feuds and Trump: At 84, The Handmaid’s Tale author is as outspoken as ever. She talks about aging, culture wars - and why “the orange guy” can’t be allowed back into the White House, Lisa Allardice, The Guardian, 5/4/23: “A lot could happen between now and the US election. Either one of these people could just fall over.”
It Was Me and Not Me All the Time: A Conversation with Eileen Myles, Lydia Eno, LA Review of Books, 5/1/24: “I talk to people in my head all day long. There are a lot of people in there. I know who I share certain kinds of a sense of humor with. And who will be appalled.”
Minority Rule review: rich history of America’s undemocratic democracy: From an absurd Senate where California and Wyoming are equal, to Republican voter suppression, Ari Berman covers it all, Charles Kaiser, The Guardian, 5/5/24: “Five of six conservative justices on the supreme court have been appointed by Republican presidents who initially lost the popular vote and confirmed by senators representing a minority of Americans.” Book: Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People--And the Fight to Resist It
Teens see social media algorithms as accurate reflections of themselves, study finds, Nora McDonald, The Conversation, 4/29/24: “Teens we spoke with say they prefer a social media completely customized for them, depicting what they agree with, what they want to see and, thus, who they are.”
Is America’s oldest Chinese restaurant in a tiny suburb of Sacramento? Historians investigate: Researchers visited the Chicago Cafe to find out if it’s really 121 years old – and entered a chop suey parlor filled with memories, Claire Wang, The Guardian, 5/2/24: “After analyzing historical records in the Yolo county archives, including business directories, newspaper clippings and fire insurance maps, they concluded that the Chicago Cafe might have opened earlier than Pekin Noodle Parlors in Butte, Montana, which is widely recognized as the oldest existing Chinese eatery in the US.”
Academic Freedom Under Fire: Politicians despise it. Administrators aren’t defending it. But it made our universities great—and we’ll miss it when it’s gone, Louis Menand, New Yorker, 4/29/24: “Academic freedom is an understanding, not a law. It can’t just be invoked. It has to be asserted and defended. That’s why it’s so disheartening that leaders of great universities appear reluctant to speak up for the rights of independent inquiry and free expression for which Americans have fought.”
How to write jokes when nothing is funny: An essay about craft and survival, Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me, 5/1/24: “I think humor begins with tears. Tears from loneliness and tragedy. Tears from the exhaustion of it all. It begins by seeing the contrasts, really seeing them. The darkness in the light. The light behind the dark things. It begins by letting it all break your heart.”
The children who remember their past lives: What happens when your toddler is haunted by memories that aren’t hers? Caitlin Gibson, Washington Post, 5/2/24: “…since the 1960s, more than 2,200 children from across the world have described apparent recollections from a previous life, all documented in a database maintained by the Division of Perceptual Studies within the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.”
When Poetry Could Define a Life: The close passing of the poetry critics Marjorie Perloff and Helen Vendler is a moment to recognize the end of an era, Adam Kirsch, Atlantic, 5/1/24: “…the loss of these towering scholars and critics feels like the definitive end of an era that has been slowly passing for years.”
On Being Warlike, Joyelle McSweeney, Paris Review, 4/29/24: “[Alice] Notley assigns to the reader her Disobedience while also distributing her infinitude, her stamina, her resourcefulness, her munificence, to the mind of the reader herself. Under the aegis of Disobedience, we oar away from war, by night, through dream, then into light.”
Breaking from the Pace of the Net: Less is more...human, Douglas Rushkoff, Rushkoff, 5/3/24: “What I value most and, hopefully, offer is an alternative to the pacing and values of digital industrialism. That’s what I’m here for: to express and even model a human approach to living in a digital media environment.”
The Battle for Attention: How do we hold on to what matters in a distracted age?, Nathan Heller, New Yorker, 4/29/24: “When I look at the world, I feel that something is being lost or actively undermined. Sometimes it feels like attention. Sometimes it feels like imagination. Sometimes it feels like that thing you wanted when you became an English major, that sort of half-dreamed, half-real thing you thought you were going to be. Whatever that is: it’s under attack.”
Frank Stella, influential American artist, dies aged 87: His constantly evolving works have been hailed as landmarks of the minimalist and post-painterly abstraction art movements, AP, The Guardian, 5/4/23
Paul Auster has died at age 77, Jonny Diamond, LitHub, 5/1/24: “Auster, also a poet and translator from French, brought a distinctly Gallic flair to both his writing and his life, employing a deftly beautiful postmodern mixture of the lyrical and the hardboiled, borrowing as effortlessly from American genre as he did from continental formalism.”
He takes a book down from his shelf & scribbles across a
page of text: I am the final one. This means the world will
end when he does.
—from “A Paradise of Poets,” Jerry Rothenberg
Politics, Economics, Technology
Breaking the Law: Trump Is the Means, Not the End: The Federalist Society coup, in 16 charts, Michael Podhorzer, Weekend Reading, 4/30/24: “While it’s accurate to say that the Court is protecting Trump, doing so misses greater stakes, and obscures the motivations of at least a few of the Federalist Society justices, which is to secure for at least a generation what could eventually be called the Dobbs Court.”
The Age of Cloud Capital: Capitalism is finished. What's replaced it is even worse, Yanis Varoufakis, Persuasion, 4/29/24: “…the thing that has killed capitalism is… capital itself. Not capital as we have known it since the dawn of the industrial era, but a new form of capital, a mutation of it that has arisen in the last two decades, so much more powerful than its predecessor that like a stupid, overzealous virus it has killed off its host… profit, the engine of capitalism, has been replaced with its feudal predecessor: rent. Specifically, it is a form of rent that must be paid for access to those platforms and to the cloud more broadly.”
The Billionaires Didn't Need to Write Project 2025: They could have just pointed to states like Missouri where we are already running the pilot...Jess Piper, The View from Rural Missouri, 5/1/24: “Missouri has been under the boot of a GOP supermajority for 22 years.”
Should President Biden Take a Lesson from FDR about SCOTUS? An entire series of outrages from the radical Republicans on the Supreme Court have ginned up calls for President Biden and Congress -- to “pack” or expand the size of the Court, Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 4/30/24: “Roosevelt asked Congress for the authority to appoint one justice for each justice over 70 who would not retire. The justices on the Court could remain, but each would be called “justice emeritus” and collectively they would have only one single vote.”
Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook Groups: After lying low for years in the aftermath of January 6, exclusive reporting shows, militia extremist groups and profiles have been quietly reorganizing and ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook, Tess Owen, Wired, 5/2/24
The tech billionaires who helped ban TikTok want to write AI rules for Trump: The tech moguls and defense contractors behind the Hill and Valley Forum aim to expand their impact, prepping an executive order that would dismantle the Biden administration’s rules on artificial intelligence, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Drew Harwell, Cat Zakrzewski, Washington Post, 5/1/24 (Gift article)
Frogs Continue to Ignore Rising Temperatures, Carol Vance, Civil Discourse, 5/2/24: “There are many voters and potential voters around us who are not firmly wed to Trump but still need facts to be persuaded that he must not be reelected. The information about Trump’s intentions bears repetition and emphasis, and we all have an important role to play. Let’s get to work.”
Trump’s Polling Lead Just Got Scarier. This Dem Has a Plan to Stop Him: If Donald Trump loses Wisconsin, he almost certainly won’t win the White House. The state’s Democratic Party chair explains how years of hard work are laying the groundwork to stop him there, Greg Sargent, New Republic, 5/2/24
The positive case for Joe Biden: It's not just about being anti-Trump, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 5/3/24: “So on the daily issues that affect Americans the most, Joe Biden has generally been an effective and responsible leader. And he has done this at the same time that he has strengthened U.S. alliances, halted Russia in its tracks, and begun a needed transformation of U.S. economic policy. Not bad for an 81 year old, eh?”
Why Israel Should Declare a Unilateral Cease-Fire in Gaza: A Chance to Turn the Tables on Hamas and Iran—and Advance Normalization With Saudi Arabia, Dennis Ross, David Makovsky, Foreign Affairs, 5/1/24: “…a new reality may be taking shape in Israel, one that could change how it approaches defense, deterrence, and the region.”
Can You Be Anti-Zionist but Pro-Israel? The Jewish studies professor Shaul Magid thinks it’s possible to resist Zionism without rejecting the state. He calls this “counter-Zionism,” Ben Metzner, New Republic, 5/3/24: “Today, liberal Zionism is really part of an American Jewish imaginary. There is no Israeli liberal Zionism.”
Israel: The Way Out: If Israel is to survive, physically and spiritually, it needs to undergo, collectively, a sea change in its vision of reality and face some unpleasant though obvious facts, David Shulman, NY Review of Books, 5/9/24 issue: “Palestinians are human beings, no different from the Jews or anyone else. (They have a rotten political system, but so do we.) They are not going anywhere.”
Zionism can – and must – be about liberation of Jews and Palestinians: We are entwined and must be liberated together. We must work to end the war and bring safety and security to both peoples, Jo-Ann Mort, The Guardian, 4/29/24
Gaza Trails of Tears (Oct.23–Feb.24), Scottie Addison, Free Assembly Project, 4/14/24: “ As a Jew I am shamed, outraged and endangered. I am betrayed in our core teachings of justice, of learning as a value in-itself, of truthtelling and acting responsibly in accord. Then in witness of brazen atrocities, I am duty-bound by this knowledge, can no longer consent to brute violence and denial in our names, or abide euphemisms in the guise of political analysis. Israel has to stop the carnage. The U.S. has to pull the plug.”
I was Arrested at Columbia University in 1968: I am Cheering on the Students of Today, Bob Stein, Informed Comment, 5/2/24: “To the students who had been Hamilton Hall at Columbia and to the young people all over the world who are taking action . . . THANK YOU.”
Inside the Occupation of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, 1968 Version (from “1968 in America”), Charles Kaiser, LitHub, 5/3/24: “To the white middle class, the Columbia uprising was even more disturbing than inner-city riots. Here there was no economic explanation for the uprising; at Columbia, the rioters were their children.”
When Free Speech Turns Into Harassment: Universities are navigating a minefield. But there are right—and wrong—answers, Cathy Young, Persuasion, 5/3/24: “A few schools such as the University of Chicago and Wesleyan have come up with solutions that emphasize viewpoint neutrality, freedom of non-disruptive expression and respectful dialogue. For this approach to be effective, the protesters, too, need to be open to compromise and respectful dialogue.”
Protesters aren't always right, Isaac Saul, Tangle, 5/3/24: “This story — of how politicians, police, and presidents of colleges are responding to a protest movement — strikes me as far more unsettling than the movement itself.”
There’s a Sniper on the Roof of the School Where I Studied Authoritarianism: On student protests and principled defiance, Sarah Kendzior, Newsletter, 4/29/24: “When I watch the protests, I see students refusing to surrender their morality, even if it means risking their safety. I see administrations so frightened by the prospect of principled defiance that they overreact and resort to violence.”
It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
—from “For What It’s Worth,” Stephen Stills
Science, Environment
First ever planet-wide analysis shows conservation work is making a measurable difference: All the money and effort spent on biodiversity conservation is not just a little bit better than doing nothing at all, they found, but many times greater, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 5/1/24
Startup mimics nature to produce zero-carbon cement: Prometheus Materials is creating a cement made from algae, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 5/3/24: “We then combine that with aggregate and sand to create a zero-carbon bio-concrete. … It’s extremely efficient and very low cost to produce.”
A Major Technology for Long-Duration Energy Storage Is Approaching Its Moment of Truth: Hydrostor Inc., a leader in compressed air energy storage, aims to break ground on its first large plant by the end of this year, Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, 5/2/24
A Company Is Building a Giant Compressed-Air Battery in the Australian Outback: Hydrostor, a leader in compressed air energy storage, aims to break ground on its first large-scale plant in New South Wales by the end of this year. It plans to follow that with an even bigger facility in California, Dan Gearino, Wired, 5/4/24
What will it take to get companies to embrace reusable packaging? Inside the effort to standardize the design of returnable containers, Joseph Winters, Grist, 5/1/24: “To realize the full benefits of return systems, a fundamentally new approach is required.”
Get Ready for Monster Hurricanes This Summer: Scientists are forecasting 11 North Atlantic hurricanes this year, five of them being major. Here’s what’s turning the storms into increasingly dangerous behemoths, Matt Simon, Wired, 5/2/24: “…climatic conditions, particularly near the coast, are becoming more conducive for storm intensification.”
Tyson Foods dumps millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into US rivers and lakes: Nitrogen, phosphorus, chloride, oil and cyanide among the 371m lb of pollutants released by just 41 plants in five years, Nina Lakhani, The Guardian, 4/30/24
Across Farm Country, Fertilizer Pollution Impacts Not Just Health, but Water Costs, Too: Overuse of fertilizer means nitrates are on the rise in water supplies, and rural areas bear the brunt, Nina Elkadi, Civil Eats, 5/1/24
When Extreme Drought Becomes Commonplace: As drought becomes a more regular occurrence, a new study looks at the U.S. Drought Monitor, the nation’s preeminent drought classifier, to see how it has reflected climate change since 2000, Aaron Sidder, Eos, 4/29/24
Three takeaways about the current state of batteries: Batteries can unlock other energy technologies, and they’re starting to make their mark on the grid, Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review, 5/2/24
Inside the quest to map the universe with mysterious bursts of radio energy: Astronomers still don’t know what causes fast radio bursts, but they’re starting to use them to illuminate the space between galaxies, Anna Kramer, MIT Technology Review, 5/1/24: “No one knows what causes fast radio bursts. They flash in a seemingly random and unpredictable pattern from all over the sky.”
While holding this ignominious
pose I have seen and
I have learned and
I am beginning to think
there is no escaping
history. —from “An American Poem,” Eileen Myles
Health, Wellness
Found: the dial in the brain that controls the immune system: Scientists identify the brain cells that regulate inflammation, and pinpoint how they keep tabs on the immune response, Giorgia Guglielmi, Nature, 5/1/24 DW: This is really a big deal!
Air Pollution Could Potentially Exacerbate Menopause Symptoms, Study Says: University of Michigan researchers linked PM2.5, a type of air pollutant, to estrogen decrease during the menopause transition, Gina Jiménez, Inside Climate News, 5/1/24: “The management of menopause is really important to the woman’s health later in life. If air pollution plays a role, we need to take care of that.”
Scientists Raise Alarm Over New Invisible Indoor Air Pollution, Pandora Dewan, Newsweek, 5/1/24: “A child playing on the floor inhales even more because the concentrations of particles are greater closer to the ground.”
Cinco de Mayo celebrates a burning people,
those whose land is starved of blood,
civilizations which are no longer
holders of the night. We reconquer with our feet,
with our tongues, that dangerous language,
saying more of this world than the volumes
of textured and controlled words on a page.
—from “Cinco de Mayo,” Luis J. Rodriguez
Birds
Environmental Change, Written in the DNA of Birds: Two studies of California bird populations show how shifting environments can rewrite animals’ genomes — for better or worse, Rebecca Heisman, The Revelator, 4/29/24: “Our understanding of [genetic] adaptation to changing climate conditions is surprisingly limited.”
No One Knows How Far Bird Flu Has Spread: With little incentive for US farmers to test their cattle, and many undocumented laborers on dairy farms, the full scale of the outbreak is unclear, Matt Reynolds, Wired, 5/3/24
This week marks the completion of four years of publishing The Weird Times — every week for 208 weeks without interruption. I started this project during the pandemic, when things were definitely, truly, weird. It felt then, and strangely, four years later, still does, that there is just too much going on, everywhere, all the time, and it’s almost impossible to make sense of it all. Poetry, music, art, and sharing what we experience, the beautiful and the painful, helps us get through, and maybe, to understand where we are and where we are going.
These are crisis times, for sure. So much of what is happening is on a macro scale that none of us individually can change. But what we each do every day matters, and it will continue to make a difference. We do have the power to make change, just as we have the power to transform experience into art, to make magic with our hearts and inner beings.
So I will say again, wherever you are, whoever you are with, whatever you are doing — thanks for who you are and what you do. Please continue to keep in touch. We can get through this. Send messages and news. Hearing from you makes this all worthwhile.
Above all, stay well; share love; work for good. We need each other, now more than ever.
Love from here—David