“And this is not a science lesson anymore / Forget the last diagram / These are survival tactics” – Kenny Bradley, “Cells are products of their environments too”
ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha that’s what I get for writing a whole bunch of these in advance!
Listen, this is an anti-murder blog. Murder and violence are bad, okay?
This is, however, a blog that believes in the power of the people. This is a blog that believes in standing up for the little guy. This is a blog that thinks it’s extremely funny when there’s an extremely unjust situation, a system that quite literally decides whether people live or die, often dependent on wealth or employment status, a system that is done a million times better in every other rich country on the planet, a system that makes you think, “why doesn’t someone just…”
And then? Someone just…
Well, I PERSONALLY read a bunch of really great poetry this week.
Oh, and programming note: this is the last blog of 2024. Thank you so much for reading, I’ll see you in 2025.
One more programming note: I’ve started writing for The Daily Meal! My first article is about one of my great passions, chicken wings. It’s very fun so far, I’m stoked to be doing some food writing. I’ll be writing at least a feature per week, but I won’t spam this space every single Friday, unless I’m really proud of something. Still, if you want yr man the shipwrecked sailor more than every Wednesday and Friday, head over to the daily meal dot com.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Lots of poetry! It’s good to end the year with some poetry. Especially chaotic domestic poetry, and poetry published by my friends (including one book written by a friend). Lotta text, so let’s get into it: I read Midwinter Day by Bernadette Mayer, Night Science by Kenny Bradley, red line by Ashley Elizabeth, Full-Blooded Chamaole by Jacob Jardel, and What’s So Wrong With A Pity Party Anyway by Maya Williams.
Midwinter Day by Bernadette Mayer: my second time reading this book. In a lot of ways, it felt like the first. This is a dense long poem, with huge swaths of text. It’s really, really great, though. She’s doing so much with what a day looks like, especially a day when you have young children. The poem leaps—all good poems leap, but this one especially. I am considering making this the last book I read for the blog every year. Also, if you like, and I went long on this month’s The Line Break podcast about this poem: Apple | Spotty | Soundcloud
Night Science by Kenny Bradley: wow I love this book. There’s something so cool about combining science writing and poetry—not unlike Sabrina Imbler’s dyke (geology)—and I sincerely appreciate the inside look at what it’s like to work with lab mice. The book is interdisciplinary in more ways than one, though, with Kenny writing what it’s like to be a Black man in STEM. There’s a critical eye turned towards the self-importance and race-erasing of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and if science continues to be my six-year-old’s favorite subject in school, I’m glad I’ll have Kenny’s book on my shelves to show him other ways a Black Science Man can be.
red line by Ashley Elizabeth: it’s hard to say much about this book except: what an incredibly brave and devastating book. A recent episode of The Daily Zeitgeist (of course I forgot to write down which one) was talking about how in the US, we tend to move on too quickly from things. Sandy Hook. COVID. January 6th. Whatever you can think of, societally, we probably didn’t grieve enough. This is an excellent book about grief and how to experience it.
Full-Blooded Chamaole by Jacob Jardel: man, I really enjoyed this book. It was Bob’s pick, and I can see why (complimentary to both poets). As we mentioned in The Line Break, I’ve never met anyone nor read any books by someone from Guam (the intro mentions “CHamaole” being a term that evokes many things; as a white guy, I will opt for the less concise term). And I like to think I read widely, know people from all over the world—the world is a big place, turns out. These poems are conversational without being prosaic, they echo each other in pleasingly. Jacob messes with form in a ways that really work for me. I came away from this book feeling grateful for what Jacob shared with the reading public, and wishing him peace on his journey.
What’s So Wrong With A Pity Party Anyway by Maya Williams: I said on our The Line Break episode that Maya will probably one day be viewed as one of our greatest poets on death, and I stand by it after reading this book. Maya’s willingness to sit with pain and grief—multiple times, because after initial trauma, they then have to sit with those feelings again, to write the poem—is astonishing. I threw myself a pity party after reading this book (not in front of the kid, of course) and it was great.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? I don’t really like this style of music, but this was one of my favorite charts to read in high school jazz band. Absolutely one of my favorites. Brendan would make King Of The Hill jokes, it was fun to play on guitar (I used to own a wah pedal!), and it felt like the mood in the room just got better. You ever hear something—could be a music, could be a news—that just makes it feel like the mood in the room got better?
Over on , writes about how Luigi Mangione was radicalized by pain.
Over at , reminds us that Luigi Mangione’s motives are pretty simple and knowable, actually, and that “Here’s a thought, and it’s not a complicated one: maybe it’s time to stop treating anger itself as the enemy. Maybe it’s time to fix what’s actually making people so angry…we’re not going to cold plunge our way out of this one, or cure it with the right podcasts…And we’re definitely not going to fix it with scolding Obama impressions (“uh… let me be clear: good things aren’t possible.”)…This time around, the question isn’t so much “why did he do it?” so much as “why hadn’t it happened before?”
New York is considering a safety tip line for CEOs, CNN reports, but I value my brain, so I don’t read or watch CNN, I read it in ‘s blog. I want you to think about the amount of mass shootings that have happened in this country since 1999. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Uvalde, and millions more. Right up to earlier this week Wisconsin. Remember how everyone in power threw up their hands and said “nothing to be done?” They said that after children were massacred in an elementary school. But one CEO gets capped in Manhattan and suddenly change can happen. Just think about that.
Go off, Elizabeth Warren! (don’t click that link, it goes to The Hill, a right-wing rag for Adults Who Still Care About Their Report Cards). Listen, Senator Warren is stating facts. She said nothing wrong and does not need to apologize. Here’s the quote: “The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system. Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far. This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone.”
What’re you still doing here? In all seriousness, murder and violence are bad. Okay? This kind of escalation leads to scary places—the future, as Tiffany Morris says, is a room with a warp on the floor. How many times to do I have to say: murder and violence are bad! Healthcare should be nationalized so that it’s free at point of service and covered by taxes! Okay, let’s play the hits.
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Luigi Mangione proves that the people have not been so placated that they are willing to lie down and take whatever abuses the wealthy heap on them. I’m not telling you to murder your customers for sending a plate back, but I am telling you to keep that flugelhorn energy.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris