“No one knows better than I do how far heaven is, but I also know all the shortcuts. The secret is to die, when you want to, and not when He proposes.” – Juan Rulfo, ‘Pedro Parámo’
Learning, like the need to stretch, is lifelong. So is the struggle against capitalism. The book I read this week is something of a difficult text, though not so difficult that casual readers can’t enjoy it. The links this week are about difficult struggle, though not so difficult that struggle isn’t worth it. We’re always trying to get better, right? Or am I just Protestant?
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
A book that my first-or-second-favorite author said inspired the best book ever written. A book that is about one-sixth of that other book’s length. A book about a literal ghost town which is so so sick you guys. I’m talking, of course, about Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo.
It’s not hard to see why Gabo read this twice in one night. It’s not hard to see why he bragged about knowing all of the characters and their desires inside and out. I read it (once) in a day, or like a 28-hour span. It’s spellbinding. It sings, it keeps you in place and wanting to know what happens next, as any good ghost story should. It’s also confusing as hell. Characters—are they alive or dead? Who is speaking right now? Wait, what happened to the main character?—come and go, dialogue is punctuated differently than convention, and you really have to embrace being along for the ride.
But if you dare come along this ride? Goddamn, dude, this is a ghost story. A literal ghost town. The unfinished business of the people. The poor field workers, who it seems have to continue to be out in the fields even in death. The women, my goodness this book makes me glad to not be a woman in mid-20th century rural Mexico. The rippling effects of one spoiled asshole who was the son of a spoiled asshole who had a kid who was a spoiled asshole. The corruptibility of Catholic priests. The way you cannot trust a human being to assure you of eternal salvation.
It’s all here! In like 120 pages! Read Pedro Páramo!
LINKS!
From Lucas Frisancho in Next City, a tenant union—Chicago’s “People’s Cooling Army”—is installing repaired AC units in people’s apartments. Extreme heat is the new reality of Chicago summers, but lots of places still don’t have AC. The All-Chicago Tenant Alliance has been installing units in low-income people’s apartments in Humboldt Park, Hermosa, and Garfield Park. This is heroic work, work the alliance is trying to bolster by organizing new tenant unions.
Defunding the police—which is an absolute necessity and is only controversial if your mind is small—requires replacing them with nonviolent competent people. Unarmed responder programs have been tried in more than a hundred places nationwide. How’s it going so far? Christine Thompson at The Marshall Project takes a look.
On her blog, Organizing My Thoughts (the best name for a blog written by an organizer), Kelly Hayes talks to Kitchen Committee organizers Samyu Comandur, Sienna Ruiz, and Amber Chong in Los Angeles about the importance of food to organizing efforts. One of the most basic way we can care for each other is with food, and as an introvert whose main contribution to any function is “can I cook something,” I really enjoyed this piece.
Less mutual aid and more inspiring protest, but here’s a story from Kui Mwai in Rolling Stone of how Kenyan rapper Sabi Wu sampled Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” to protest an austerity bill in Kenya. The cops turned the protests violent, protesters stormed the Kenyan capital, and the state is still brutally cracking down on students, protesters, and journalists. It’s not the first time Kendrick has been the soundtrack for oppressed people rising up against violent police.
Happy 106th birthday legendary Chicago labor organizer Bea Lumpkin. An active leftist since the 1930s, she’s been a teacher, a mentor, a righteous friend to workers, a wife of a steelworker, and an optimist about the Harris ticket. Maxwell Evans at Block Club has the story—Bea celebrated her birthday by climbing the Indiana Dunes, eating Heinie’s chicken, and rallying people to attend the public bargaining session between the CTU and CPS. Here’s to many more, Bea.
What’re you still doing here? You want another fragmented, hard-to-figure-out-exactly-who’s-speaking-always novel about a ghost town? Oh dip, who left Vine here?
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Take care of yourself, take care of your coworkers, take care of each other. Hell, unionize your workplace for all I care. Overthrow your petty tyrant boss and turn your workplace into a worker-owned co-op. All I ask is you tell me about it, so I have happy bedtime stories for my child.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris