Anne Michaels, From Her Novel Titled "Fugitive Pieces," Originally Published In 1996

JD Vance went to the Marines, then Ohio St, then Yale Law. He was a socio-economic diversity admission. He was DEI.

He was first a Marine, and it transformed his life. The government transformed his life.

I am sure JD used his college education and Law Degree to better his life more than he could imagine.

He met his wife at Yale Law. Do you think JD said professors were the enemy? Usha's parents are professors. Are they the enemy?

When JD was in Silicon Valley, I'm sure he used his schooling pedigree to his advantage.

Now, he code switches to talk to MAGA. He talks in white supremacy narratives.

Education is now bad. Professors are the enemy.

JD thinks he can just forget where he came from and who he is.

"I`ve lived to bury my desires…", Alexander Pushkin (translated by Maurice Baring)

I did not care much for Van Gogh because it was on every merch when I was a kid and it was a bit tacky. But I want to the Van Gogh museum when I was in Amsterdam, out of pure curiosity, totally expecting to be underwhelmed, and I still don't have the words to express how beautiful these paintings were 🥺

some hyper famous artists like Van Gogh transcend overratedness and become underrated because they're so normalized. Like I'll look at a van Gogh and I'm like wait this really is amazing you guys don't get it

Short Story Recommendations

These all fuck me up to a varying degree of emotions

Crime

Philomel Cottage - Agatha Christie

Lamb to the Slaughter - Roald Dahl

Death and the Compass - Jorge Luis Borges

Horror

The Landlady - Roald Dahl

A Walk in the Dark - Arthur C Clarke

The Wife’s Story - Ursula K Le Guin

The Veldt - Ray Bradbury

The Hanging Stranger - Philip K Dick

The Colour out of Space - H P Lovecraft

The Spider - Hanns Heinz Ewers

Sad

The Life You Save May Be Your Own - Flannery O’Connor

A Small, Good Thing - Raymond Carver

Cathedral - Raymond Carver

The Haunted Boy - Carson McCullers

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin

The Chef - Andy Weir

The Martyr - Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

Jambula Tree - Monica Arak de Nyeko

The Rats Do Sleep At Night - Wolfgang Borchert

Sci-Fi

Love is the Plan the Plan is Death - James Tiptree Jr

The Last Question - Isaac Asimov

The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C Clarke

The Star - Arthur C Clarke

Reunion - Arthur C Clarke

The Commuter - Philip K Dick

Exhibit Piece - Philip K Dick

To Serve Man - Damon Knight

Brothers Beyond the Void - Paul W Fairman

What the Fuck?! 

The Lottery - Shirley Jackson

A Collapse of Horses - Brian Evenson

Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby - Donald Barthelme

Hopeful Monsters - Hiromi Goto

The Box Social - James Reaney

He-y come on ou-t - shinichi hoshi

The Garden of Forking Paths - Jorge Luis Borges

Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang (just the entire collection bro)

Other

Broken Routine - Jeffrey Archer

A Man Who Had No Eyes - Mackinlay Kantor

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been - Joyce Carol Oates

The Lady, or the Tiger - Frank R Stockton

The Continuity of Parks - Julio Cortázar

The Dinner Party - Mona Gardner

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings - Gabriel García Márquez

On Exactitude in Science - Jorge Luis Borges

not my usual stuff but remember:

if/when tiktok comes back,

it is not the same place. it is not the same. and most importantly do NOT under any circumstances forget that The Tangerine was the one who wanted it banned in the first place and he is no savior, he, like everyone else in government, is doing what benefits him.

DO NOT FORGET THIS.

pick up the patterns, look at history.

Don't forget, Trump was the one who tried to ban TikTok in his first term, and Republicans voted to pass the TikTok Ban Bill.

He didn't save it. He just flipflopped when he realised it made him look bad with young people.

And now TikTok are sucking up to Trump and effectively acting as an ad section for him.

Don't fall for it.

Racism 101.

Best candidate is not a quota. Top positions are not 'whites only'.

TLDR: capitalism is failing, racism is rising.

jess allen, the passing of time (2023)

in los angeles, the historically Black community of altadena has been decimated by the ongoing eaton fire.

afropunk has created a spreadsheet of gofundmes of displaced Black individuals and families affected by the current los angeles fires. the list is constantly being updated.

please donate what you can and share widely.

I remember when I was in middle school, I read a novel about a woman who was a bit fat, a bit neurodivergent and was disliked by her mother. As an adult, she lived completely alone. She was a fan of the Beatles. And I think the subtext was that she was raped when younger and was no longer this virgin she thought herself to be. And for the life of me, I can't remember the title or the author, even though I've wanted to finish this book for the longest time. (I had to take it back to the library)