The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 116, July 31, 2022 (V3 #12)
If I had it my way, everything would change
Out here on this highway the rules are still the same
Back roads never carry you where you want 'em to
They leave you standin' there with them ol' transcendental blues—Steve Earle, “Transcendental Blues”
I place the pale eggs on a dark unadorned tabletop and let them roll into place
I want to paint in a way that the “I” disappears into the sky and trees
The dusky red wall is not meant to symbolize anything but itself
Variations on a theme are of no interest. A bowl and cup are not ideas.
—John Yau, from “A Painter’s Thoughts”
Books/Culture/Art
Why Hitler and Stalin Hated Esperanto, the 135-Year-Old Language of Peace: Jewish doctor L.L. Zamenhof created Esperanto as a way for diverse groups to easily communicate, Joshua Holzer, Smithsonian, 7/26/22
NC bookstore owner: Online trolls are trying to ruin my business. I won’t back down, Alissa Redmond, Charlotte Observer, 7/26/22: “the beauty on display in my store is worth all it costs.”
Tom Kromer, Appalachia’s Forgotten Modernist, Stefan Schöberlein, LA Review of Books, 7/21/22: “Experience creates witnesses, while distance creates modernists.”
The Element of Silence: The Millions Interviews N. Scott Momaday, Alex Dueben, The Millions, 7/20/22: “I fell in love with Emily Dickinson when I was a graduate student and I’m one of the people in the world who has read her in manuscript.”
A field of wheat on a $4.5bn patch of New York: the prophetic eco art of Agnes Denes, Katy Hessel, The Guardian, 7/18/22
All-Women Rowing Team Breaks World Record Crossing the Pacific from San Francisco to Hawaii: Libby Costello, Sophia Denison-Johnston, Brooke Downes and Adrienne Smith arrived in Hawaii just 34 days, 14 hours and 11 minutes after beginning their journey in San Francisco, Amethyst Tate, People, 7/26/22
The Patrescene: When men hold the power, humanity fades, Amy Irvine, Orion, Summer 2022: “Understand, that although we can’t all become hunter-gatherers again, your brain is begging you to go back to another way of being in the world and with one another, that its functions are incongruous with these end times.”
TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants: Facebook is trying to copy TikTok, but this strategy may well signal the end of these legacy platforms, Cal Newport, New Yorker, 7/28/22
Four Puerto Rican Poets Sing of Dust, Cristina Pérez Díaz, Words Without Borders, 7/25/22: “When national institutions are lacking and the reality of colonialism make ties difficult in the international arena, it is friendship that makes literature and translation possible.”
Meet Elinor Glyn, “Shocker of Grandmothers” and Founder of the Modern Sex Novel: On the Author of the Most Widely Denounced Novel Published Before World War I, Hilary A. Hallett, LitHub, 7/26/22: “Elinor Glyn’s reorientation of the romance novel toward the “sex novel” focused on the essential, and often difficult, role that sexual passion played in love.” From Inventing the It Girl: How Elinor Glyn Created the Modern Romance and Conquered Early Hollywood.
The Most Impossible Art: Anime, Literature, and the New Aesthetic Imagination: Gender and Sexuality with the Boundary-Pushing Possibilities of Anime, Lio Min, LitHub, 7/28/22
Oh, I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid
“A Case of You,” this version sung by Joni Mitchell and friends, Newport Folk Festival, 2022
Joni Mitchell Lights Up Newport Folk Festival: We never expected to see her onstage and performing again like we did last weekend, Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 7/29/22
Raging for the World That Is: Muriel Rukeyser’s poetry of witness, Francesca Wade, The Baffler, 7/28/22. New book: The Essential Muriel Rukeyser
Into that journey where all things speak to all things
refusing to accept the curse, and taking
for signs the signs of all things, the world, the body
which is part of the soul, and speaks to the world,
all creation being created in one image, creation.
This is not the past walking into the future,
the walk is painful, into the present, the dance
not visible as dance until much later.
—Muriel Rukeyser, from “Akiba”
Politicks
Russian National Charged with Conspiring to Have U.S. Citizens Act as Illegal Agents of the Russian Government, US Department of Justice, 7/29/22: “Specifically, Ionov provided financial support to these groups, directed them to publish pro-Russian propaganda, coordinated and funded direct action by these groups within the United States intended to further Russian interests, and coordinated coverage of this activity in Russian media outlets.”
When Democracy Goes South: Latin America provides the best model for thinking about U.S. politics over the past century, Michael Lind, Persuasion, 7/29/22
What We Lose as John Roberts Is Sidelined on the Court: Behind any concept of compromise is the notion of humility, Dahlia Lithwick, Slate, 7/29/22: “It is clear that the era of compromise, of meeting in the middle, of occasional half-a-loafing is as over at the court as it is in Congress.”
Yes, we're probably in a recession, and that's fine: Economic fluctuations aren't always catastrophic, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 7/28/22
Reality Winner says she leaked file on Russia election hacking because ‘public was being lied to:’ Former NSA contractor says in interview ‘I knew it was secret … but I also knew that I had pledged service to the American people,’ Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Guardian, 7/25/22
Native Americans fight for items looted from bodies at Wounded Knee: Getting them returned from an obscure museum outside Boston hasn’t been easy for the descendants of those slain during the 1890 massacre, Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post, 7/17/22
What policymakers get wrong about health and the climate: Politicians continue to turn a blind eye to the links between climate change and public health, Nick Ferris, New Statesman, 7/26/22: “…the climate crisis is a health crisis, and if policymakers are not acting with this reality in mind, then they are failing to appreciate the magnitude of what is happening to the world.”
Why tech workers are quitting great jobs at companies like Google to fight climate change, Catherine Clifford, CNBC, 7/26/22
A radical attack on the First Amendment, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 7/27/22: “The government may not silence one side of the discourse by labeling it unlawful, as the State of Florida has attempted to do in the Stop WOKE Act."
‘US democracy will not survive for long’: how January 6 hearings plot a roadmap to autocracy: Trump’s efforts to subvert the elections laid bare the system’s weaknesses, exposing it to greater exploitation, Ed Pilkington, The Guardian, 7/24/22: “In a two-party system, if one political party is not committed to democratic rules of the game, democracy is not likely to survive for very long,” —Steven Levitsky
‘Democracy runs through Arizona’: candidate for attorney general says fate of the nation is at stake, Nina Lakhani, The Guardian, 7/29/22: “Kris Mayes, a former Republican, says protecting democracy, the heating planet and abortion rights are urgent priorities”
this kind of bird flies backward
and this love
breaks on a windowpane
where no light talks
—Diane DiPrima, from “The Window”
Science and Environment
Manchin and Schumer’s Astonishing Climate Deal: If passed, the energy provisions of the senators’ new bill would represent the most significant climate action in a generation, Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 7/28/22
Tweaking cows’ diets can reduce climate-warming pollution: Optimizing their feed reduces a herd’s methane emissions by up to 40%, research suggests, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 7/27/22
The Big Business of Burying Carbon: The porous rock beneath the Gulf Coast launched the petroleum age. Now entrepreneurs want to turn it into a gigantic sponge for storing CO2, Jeffrey Ball, Wired, 7/28/22
Inside Clean Energy: What’s Hotter than Solar Panels? Solar Windows: Researchers and startups are moving forward with plans for windows that generate electricity, Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, 7/28/22
Natural clean-up: Bacteria can remove plastic pollution from lakes, Univ of Cambridge, EurekAlert, 7/26/22
Embryonic Research Could Be the Next Target After Roe: Stem cell research has underpinned IVF’s success, but legal experts, clinicians, and potential donors worry it could be the next target, Matt Reynolds, Wired, 7/20/22
These Vaccines Will Take Aim at Covid—and Its Entire SARS Lineage: Scientists are developing vaccines to target the virus family that spawned Covid-19. Their efforts could thwart future variants, or even new related viruses, Maggie Chen, Wired, 7/26/22
New York Polio Case Now Connected to Traces of Virus Found in UK and Israel: Using sewage sample tests from three countries separated by thousands of miles, public health officials hope to unravel the mystery of where this polio started circulating and what threat it poses, Robin Fields, ProPublica, 7/29/22
Novel sensor allows the detection of Alzheimer's 17 years in advance: The device produces results in the symptom-free stage, Loukia Papadopoulos, Interesting Engineering, 7/24/22
Disco-ball satellite will put Einstein’s theory to strictest test yet: Scientists hope a laser-reflecting sphere will produce the most accurate measure so far of how Earth’s rotation warps space, Davide Castelvecchi, Nature, 7/25/22
Two Weeks In, the Webb Space Telescope Is Reshaping Astronomy: In the days after the mega-telescope started delivering data, astronomers reported exciting new discoveries about galaxies, stars, exoplanets and even Jupiter, Jonathan O’Callaghan, Quanta, 7/25/22
Britain will soon have a glut of cheap power, and world-leading batteries to store it: Trailblazing Britain is leading the most ambitious rollout of offshore wind in the world, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph, 7/28/22
Salvage Mission, Heather Jessen, The Daily Nutmeg, 7/15/22: “we really want to change the way people think about waste, and how so much of what we throw away, mindlessly, is a material that needs a project. It needs the application of design thinking.”
Meet the Group That’s Been Bringing Bison Back to Tribal Lands for 30 Years: For the past three decades, the InterTribal Buffalo Council has worked to reconnect Indigenous people with bison, reviving traditions and healing communities, Gabriel Pietrorazio, Civil Eats, 7/26/22
Romance, Politics, and Ecological Damage: The Saga of Sable Island’s Wild Horses: They’ve roamed free for hundreds of years, but is that freedom harming the ecosystem they call home? Moira Donovan, Hakai, 7/26/22
The consciousness of bees: Experiments indicate that bees have surprisingly rich inner worlds, Lars Chittka, Washington Post, 7/29/22: “…even tiny-brained bees are profoundly intelligent creatures that can memorize not only flowers but also human faces, solve problems by thinking rather than by trial and error, and learn to use tools by observing skilled bees.”
DeepMind has predicted the structure of almost every protein known to science: And it’s giving the data away for free, which could spur new scientific discoveries, Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review, 7/28/22
Still a War On
The State of the Russo-Ukrainian War: The TELLMES tell us that Russia is losing, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 7/26/22: “All we have to do to see things as they are, show some patience, and support the democracy that is under attack -- with the right attitude, and the right weapons. The outcome of the war might well depend upon our capacity to do that.”
The Battle for Kherson and Why it Matters, Lawrence Freedman, Comment is Freed, 7/27/22
Putin's rule is weakening: So what comes next? Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 7/30/22
Birds
Beastie Boys’ AdRock Shares a Hardcore Squawk on Volume Three of ‘For the Birds:’ Latest installment of the ambitious five-volume set also features contributions from Natalie Bergman, Laurie Anderson, Alice Coltrane, John Cale, Greta Gerwig, and Conor Oberst, Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 7/29/22
Migratory Birds Return As Salt Ponds Heal: Documenting a Damaged World in Transition, Skylar Knight, KQED, 7/27/22
Birds wearing tiny trackers reveal migration routes in amazing detail: At the Rushton Woods Preserve outside of Philadelphia, birds are being outfitted with tiny radio trackers that give us unprecedented insight into their journeys across the globe, Corryn Wetzel, New Scientist, 7/27/22
As climate change alters Maine farms, Ag Allies aims to protect bobolinks and other grassland birds, Murray Carpenter, Maine Public, 7/27/22
Please approach with care
these bodies still waiting to be touched.
We invite you to come closer.
We permit you to touch & be touched.
We hope you will engage with care.
—Harryette Mullen, from “Still Waiting”
War, pestilence, floods, famine, strife. What a summer it has been. Yet poetry, art, storytelling, music, and love keep us moving forward. By way of example, Brandi Carlile’s introduction to Joni Mitchell’s appearance at the Newport Folk Festival will inspire you to love (sounds hokey but it works):
“The togetherness in this silence…the most radical and most dangerous that that we can experience together….is love…because if we love one another, we might defend one another…”
My love goes out to you all. It’s time for all of us to defend each other, and the communities we have built.
Let us count
into
the Darkness
—Jonathan Williams, from “Symphony No. 3, in D Minor”
