In Another Universe, My Mom Doesn’t Get Married Off Into This Mockery Of A Family. Her Youth Doesn’t

SEPTEMBER

poem beginning and ending with my death by zeina hashem beck // memory of water by reina maria rodriguez // a girl ago by lucy brock-broido // marta alvarado, history professor by marjorie agosin // mosiac by tim seibles // the bones of august by robin ekiss // peggy tony horton // september by deborah landau // september by h stuart // angel of repose by wallace stegner

[image id: 1) "I loved September best: / without fail, rain—the clear illusionist— / fell on the first day of school, always brought / the earth with it: the soil's fragrance rose raw / even in the alley." 2) "september is a month like any other and unlike any other. it seems in september everything awaited / will arrive: in the calm air, in a particular scent, in the stillness of the quay. when september comes, / i know i'm going to lose myself." 3) "Extinguish me from this. / I was sixteen for twenty years. By September I will be a ghost" 4) "In September / beyond the / breezes and the smoke / when autumn unveils its / fiery shell, / I think of you / fragile and severe, / small and immense" 5) "September: / the spiked fence freshly painted." 6) "not to carry the bones of August / into September, foiled with redness / and nothing to squander" 7) "Ah, September! You are the doorway to the season that awakens my soul... but I must confess that I love you / only because you are a prelude to my beloved October" 8) "Meanwhile August moved inward its impervious finale. / A mood by the river. Gone. One lucid rush carrying them along. // Borderless and open the days go on—" 9) "'The dark brown Inners brim / From little lake to lake, / Rustle and fall in slim / Streams down the mossy side / Of stone, while dim ferns shake / Their level spread of leaf, / Dust-grey beneath the wide / Cold light that these days take, / Gathering the calm grief / Into the face of the skies / Out of the heart-ache / The mortal heart denies." 10) "That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, / vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... / Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual / autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer." /end id]

I haven't even fully digested all the light we cannot see yet (which is why im going to watch the Netflix series later) but Anthony doerr the writer that you are!!!! I have never read so many excellently entwined narratives and if ATLWCS was doerr's foray into writing novels with alternating perspectives then cloud cuckoo land has to be his magnum opus because HOWWWW do you write three seemingly separate stories spanning across SPACE AND TIME with so many completely different perspectives (like 6) only to weave them together into one narrative all connected by the magic and power of storytelling. HOW. HOW. cloud cuckoo land is an ode to storytelling just like station eleven is! It's about stories can save us. and there's nothing I love more than stories and their metatextual commentary/meta narrative on storytelling

Seeing a negative review of a book I hate: my beloved brother in arms, the smartest and most beautiful person in the room, we are staring into each other's eyes and there is a place in my heart just for you. nobody understands you like I do

Seeing a negative review of a book I love: I spit on you. You are intellectually and morally beneath me. Clearly you didn't understand the book because you're thick in the head. May moths eat your garments.

That scene with Zeno and the kids talking about their cloud cuckoo lands just BROKE ME!!!! I cannot imagine the terror of having someone threatening them with a gun nearby, having to keep their voices down and not make any sound, Zeno trying to calm them and running away with the bombs, and yes, I'm not okay :(

Also when Konstance finds out about the reality of the Argos program, the Easter eggs left by Seymour with his owls, and how much Konstance yearned to see Earth again and feel things and be there, I'm just :(

Also Anna and Omeir's story, how they are just perfect together, and their family <3333333 Anna telling the cloud cuckoo land story for their kids, man, I'm ugly crying right now :(

That ending with all the kids now grown up and with their family, and Seymour apologizing to them and taking them back to the library, and to everything they knew before, and Konstance getting out of the Argos and starting a new life, and Anna and Omeir and their family *sobs*

mAN, THIS BOOK JUST FUCKING BROKE ME

Do yourselves a favor and go read cloud cuckoo land, by Anthony Doerr, please *sobs harder*

Link to Jonathan Cook's article:

Middle East Eye

The message of Israel’s torture chambers is directed at all of us, not just Palestinians

‘Black sites’ are about reminding those who have been colonised and enslaved of a simple lesson: resistance is futile

Pride and Prejudice (2005) + tumblr posts (part 1)

it's been a while since i did a book review post but i'm not sure if i can be normal about this one boys

cloud cuckoo land by anthony doerr is a novel about the preservation of a (fictional) diogenes play of the same name. but it's actually a book about five of God's most autistic soldiers and the ways in which this play shapes their lives. but it's actually a book about how books and stories give our lives meaning in the face of unthinkable horrors. but it's actually about the hope that his niece will feel better.

this book says it's all worth it. even the shit parts. maybe especially the shit parts. it says if you can make it to the end of the story maybe something beautiful will be waiting for you there.

when Richard siken said “these, our bodies possessed with light” and when Anthony Doerr said “So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?” and when Leonard cohen said “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”

When Everything Everywhere All at Once said “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind, especially when we don’t know what’s going on" 

When the Good Place said "Why choose to be good every day when there is no guaranteed reward now or in the afterlife… I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.” 

When Jean-Paul Sartre said ”‘Hell is other people’ is only one side of the coin. The other side, which no one seems to mention, is also 'Heaven is each other’. Hell is separateness, uncommunicability, self-centeredness, lust for power, for riches, for fame. Heaven on the other hand is very simple, and very hard: caring about your fellow beings.“