This Is The Guy Who Made The First Genetically-engineered Babies (a Horrific Ethics Violation That Landed

White Americans ... are terrified of sensuality and do not any longer understand it. The word “sensual” is not intended to bring to mind quivering dusky maidens or priapic black studs. I am referring to something much simpler and much less fanciful. To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread. ... Something very sinister happens to the people of a country when they begin to distrust their own reactions as deeply as they do here, and become as joyless as they have become. It is this individual uncertainty on the part of white American men and women, this inability to renew themselves at the fountain of their own lives, that makes the discussion, let alone elucidation, of any conundrum—that is, any reality—so supremely difficult. The person who distrusts himself has no touchstone for reality—for this touchstone can be only oneself. Such a person interposes between himself and reality nothing less than a labyrinth of attitudes. And these attitudes, furthermore, though the person is usually unaware of it (is unaware of so much!), are historical and public attitudes. They do not relate to the present any more than they relate to the person.

--James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 1963

David Cronenberg, Consumed / Saltburn (2023)

pamela anderson for heaven

shot by harley weir

“ANTIGONE: The fields were wet. They were waiting for something to happen. The whole world was breathless, waiting. I can’t tell you what a roaring noise I seemed to make alone on the road. It bothered me that whatever was waiting, wasn’t waiting for me.”

— Antigone, Jean Anouilh (trans Lewis Galantiere)

Lorde for Document Journal (May 2025)

“If you don’t have any shadows, you’re not standing in the light.”

— Lady Gaga

Kurt Cobain in Seattle, 1993. Photo by Anton Corbijn.

Artwork by Kurt Cobain.