A democracy where public life is made up of strife between political parties is incapable of preventing the formation of a party whose avowed aim is the overthrow of that democracy.
The Mississippi River batture, America’s great accidental post-millennial wilderness a century in the making, exists beyond the control of all but the most abstract authorities with the most nebulous of responsibilities and as such has been left to grow into a thick and tangled wild forest. But it is not totally wild: an anarchy of trees, shrubs, and vines, but also of driftwood, rusting steel, ropes, and other detritus both industrial and consumer, it is home to a bustling community of wildlife as well as a variety of illicit human activities. It is a side effect of a barely controlled cycle of flood and drought, a symbol of economic might and environmental folly, and proof of nature’s resilience and the human inability to understand issues of ample time and space. A narrow, unbroken strip of lost land stretching through the heart of the country, the batture is nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It has always felt like home to me, maybe because it enchanted me when I’d play here as a child, or maybe because its always been this wild, messy, forgotten-in-plain-sight treasure, seen and even visited, but rarely recognized as anything other than an edge of one thing or another; a strange world literally parallel to this one, always changing, perpetually staring down ruin, but so alive with possibility that the mown lawn of the levee only serves to highlight what, just along side, has been allowed to flourish freely. Where the wake of every ship, laden low with wealth as it ploughs through the currents, splashes up around the silt at my feet where I’m within sight and in range of a cloud of diesel exhaust, but still impossibly far away. Where, like it was a cycle or something, the water always gets to rising, then it’s time to head back over the levee again, where everything is more convenient and the machinery is more carefully obscured. Where I’ll pass the time more or less happily, watching people trace their daily maps and the birds navigate their wilderness of altitude. Where I’ll abide the cracks in the sidewalks, the edges of the lawns. It’s all batture, really.
The river parishes in Louisiana, where the neighborhoods are struck through with ditches sloping away from the river, toward the swamp off far enough away to be out of sight, but nonetheless always in the air.
Was out and about in the neighborhoods last night…
Working around the house, music on my AirPods, seeing an incoming call alert on my watch, then routing it into my headphones, all with my phone on my desk in another room felt pretty damn futuristic. I mean, not really earth-shaking, or all that useful, but still, futuristic.
Management technique: those who are allowed to choose their own prison seldom attempt to escape.
These bookends, inspired by the alleyways of Tokyo, make me miss my books and bookshelves and having a living room, just a little bit.
I‘ve been intentionally unplugged from the never-ending stream of warped, emotionally manipulative novelty that is the news for a week now, concentrating instead on spending time immersed in what I’ll call “slow works” of literature and art. The opposite of most of the internet. Stuff it took a lot of time and thought to create and takes time and space to appreciate. In just this one week, my mind has become clearer, calmer, and more open to new ideas and inspirations. I feel like I’m beginning to develop my negative capability. I feel like a more complete human being, not just a tormented echo of the disaster-du-jour.
I originally planned on unplugging through the end of the year, but I’m considering making this way of living my new normal. One is, after all, what one consumes, and that goes for media just like it does for food. No more cheap, processed, fast media for me: I shop at the farmers market now. (Ok so maybe I stretched that metaphor a bit)
Finished all three books in Sergio Pitol’s “Trilogy of Memory” / finished “Citizen Illegal” by José Alvarez / finished “Call Me Zebra” by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi / currently re-reading “Inherent Vice” by Thomas Pynchon because I feel like it thats why / I’m always trying to keep my Pocket reading list reasonably selective, and failing, of course / then I’m going to reread something else, because I try to do that frequently, for the experience and the savings / or maybe I’ll find some money to buy a book on my list, like “The Tale of Genji,” which has been on there for ages.
Self portrait in headlight glare, at a bar, down the bayou, Thursday evening, late November.
During WWII, the Maharaja of Nawanagar volunteered to host nearly a thousand Polish refugee children on the grounds of his summer palace. His generosity defines Polish-Indian relations to this day.
While taking a (brief) break from my years-long Latin American literature kick, it hit me why I love Latin American writing: even when full of death and suffering, it’s often suffused with a stubborn vitality that’s hard to find elsewhere.
I was staring through a window looking at something outside so intently that I realized I’d lost all awareness of the intervening glass. I understood then how little of the world I actually see when I look at it. I blinked and found the glass, then forgot everything else.
I don’t do Black Friday. I caught these instead.
Today I learned about beamforming! Productive morning. Happy Thanksgiving!
Today I learned, somehow for the first time, that The Moon Is Flipped Upside Down in the Southern Hemisphere. Obviously. (yes, of course the title has a bias to it)
“In this house for all, the private space is reduced to the bed of each one of the members of the family.” The House of the Flying Beds
Leftovers are the best
Nice to be back along the Mississippi
“Spinal Tap” is a work of literature.
Weeknight chillin on google maps: Al Jawf, Libya
