Well, hello there. This week has been a wild ride. Hope you’ve been weathering the roller coaster as best as one can, while staying hydrated. On Sunday, 50,000 people ran through the streets in 75 degree weather, including a man who balanced a pineapple on his head the whole way. In the early hours of Tuesday, I briefly tried to catch the blood moon eclipse, felt unhinged and went back to bed. Election Day has come and gone, the red wave turning out to be some light spotting (although it did lap alarmingly at New York.)
I came across this image and it felt like an accurate depiction of the whirlwind. Are we falling? Are we flying?
I found out the expression to “go the extra mile” comes from the Bible and may have radical roots. Jesus told oppressed Jews if a Roman “forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles”. According to theologian Walter Wink, this might not be about meekly submitting to authority, but instead flipping the power dynamic on its head. In first-century Judaea, it was legal for Romans to make Jews carry items for up to one mile, but anything beyond that would be a crime. By “going the extra mile”, the Roman could be prosecuted. What sounds like doing the most could actually be a sly legal loophole designed to humiliate the oppressor.
Claude Cahun was a gender non-conforming Jewish artist who resisted the Nazis. A member of the Surrealist group, they would experiment with self-portraits and morph into different personas, walking around Paris dressed as a sailor, a vampire or an angel.
With their lover and step-sister Marcel Moore, they would disguise themselves as old ladies and leave anti-Nazi leaflets, that they called “paper bullets” all over town, even slipping them into the pockets of German soldiers. After four years, they were arrested. Their death sentence was commuted and they were the last prisoners to be released on the Channel Islands. They are now buried together in the graveyard next door to the house where they once lived.
Swale was a floating farm built atop a barge that traveled to piers in New York City till it closed during the pandemic. Artist Mary Mattingly showed us what it might look like if food were a public good that we could all pull out of the ground for free. Because of an old New York City Parks regulation that prohibits the “destruction or abuse of trees, plants, flowers, shrubs, and grass,” foraging on public land is technically illegal. The floating food forest was only possible because waters are governed by different laws.
It reminds me of the 2014 documentary Vessel by Diana Whitten about Women on Waves, an organization that provides free abortion services for women in international waters near countries where the procedure is illegal. The boat functioned as both medical clinic and art installation.
Extinction speculation is a new term I discovered through this riveting essay on tuna, written by Katherine Rundell. The Mitsubishi conglomerate is freezing and hoarding huge stockpiles of tuna because human appetite for sushi is through the roof, likely driving the fish into extinction. When they do disappear from the wild, their value will skyrocket.
The end is particularly chilling. “Extinction isn’t just happening because of our inertia: it’s incentive-driven. The tuna migrate across the vast blue world, and up above them the gamblers watch, keeping their stocks close and secret, and waiting for the end to come.” The waiting game reminded me of this poem, about a different creature of the sea - Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale by Dan Albergotti. It was a lockdown salve for me and might help you too, if you’re currently feeling in suspense.
I’m nearing the end of my favorite new tea blend and will be heading back to Radicle soon for a refill. It’s a community herb shop where the jars are lined up alphabetically, like a perfect library of dried leaves. There are massive encyclopedias you can peruse, listing every ailment possible with its corresponding herbal remedy. Everyone working there is so helpful and patient. I walked in an absolute noob and came out with a custom bag, thoughtfully marked up so I can recreate in the future.
You Resemble Me is held over one more week at the Angelika and it’s very much worth seeing. It’s the first feature film of American-Egyptian director Dina Amer, who is self-distributing with her producer Elizabeth Woodward. I went into it having only seen the trailer, solely on the strength of my friend Adrienne’s recommendation and I suggest you not read too much ahead of time. The portrayal of sisterhood in the first half is particularly moving and the film grabbed my attention the entire time.
On Sunday afternoon, come join me as I spend all of my money buying Landon’s cyanotypes at the Sidewalk Sale in front of Ops. There will be also be ceramics, stained glass, photographs and a pop-up kitchen by Bé Bếp.
The title of today’s post comes from my very first subscriber who I don’t know personally! Merci Anne Lauroz, I have no idea how you found this but I’m so happy you’re here. Your paintings fill me with equal parts joy and nostalgia.
Till next time,
ASK
love this!