The airpocalypse seems to be over for now. It was a surreal week in New York, watching the sky turn orange over a matter of hours on Wednesday. Exchanging messages from friends wondering what to do, comparing notes on symptoms, swapping memes and tweets, digging the N95s back out, weighing the risks of going out and for how long, getting advice from friends who live in California, India, China, who have been used to this for years now. The overwhelming smell of smoke in the air, like a barbecue that you couldn't leave no matter how hard you tried.
Today the sky is back to blue and my old friend, the chronic cough I’ve had since I was 16 (that my grandmother had, that my aunt has) is receding once again. The existential dread is harder to shake though. This is also the week that I learned how to work with a robot. Michael held a workshop for Mike, Cailin and me on how to navigate ChatGPT and Midjourney, collectively blowing all of our minds for good.
The irony is not lost on me that while I was lucky to seal myself indoors this week while the outdoors looked straight out of Mad Max, what helped distract me from the impending nihilism was bouncing ideas back-and-forth with the alien as I dove into a rewrite of my new draft. Storytelling as a distraction (way out) or as a solution (way through) ? Either way, the future feels here and on hyper speed.
But we press on! It’s also mulberry season out here and the trees are sagging under the weight of the inky berries. I have been on a foraging rampage between the two trees by my office and the one by my house. I was contemplating a crumble but Cailin steered me towards a shrub recipe which feels like a way better use of the bounty. If you too have fruit on the brain, this video is a wealth of knowledge and I have referred to it constantly since it has entered my life.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is about to be on the ballot in 2024, thanks to activists who collected enough signatures this time. The Oregon Rebate would send an annual check of $750 to everyone in the state, children included. It would be funded by increasing the tax on the biggest corporations doing business in the state, from less than 1% to 3%. If it were to pass, the hope is that it would not be used as an excuse to replace social safety net programs, but to exist alongside them.
GPS has rendered lighthouses obsolete so they are now being given away for free via public auction. Most are over a century old, some are only accessible by boat and wow is it tempting. One caveat - the foghorn would still operational, blasting with a range of a quarter mile.
Singapore’s buildings are covered in vertical gardens, lowering air pollution and urban heat while enhancing citizens’ connection to nature. It’s come a long way from the city’s foundation in 1819 when 95% of its original vegetation was cleared. Today, after decades of urban planning centered around a “city in nature” and incentivizing green new developments, it has 47% park and garden coverage.
On a string of rejections (5 over the course of 2 weeks!), I’m finding some solace in Ocean Vuong’s words “Competition, prizes and awards are part of a patriarchal construct that destroys love and creativity by creating and protecting a singular hierarchical commodification of quality that does not, ever, represent the myriad successful expressions of art and art making. If you must use that construct, you use it the way one uses public transport. Get on, then get off at your stop and find your people. Don’t live on the bus, and most importantly, don’t get trapped on it.” The whole interview that he did with Amy Rose Spiegel for the Creative Independent is worth a read. In the small world sweepstakes, I got to know Amy Rose back when she was one of our top callers for the vaccine phone banks we organized through our Mutual Aid, which resulted in this article.
Steph, Jess and I took Willow to see the new Little Mermaid and squirmed in her seat the whole way through. We were right there with her, lamenting afterwards over how hollow it felt (not to mention how dull it looked).
who writes never misses and her letter this week is packed with gems. “A movie cannot both make a billion dollars and end white supremacy, no matter how many personal essays titled “what [major studio character] means to my [marginalized identity]” are clicked on. Social change is not a useful calculation for shareholders. That’s what the money is for.”Deeper in the mermaid department, I just learned Columbus mistook manatees for mermaids when he was sailing near the Dominican Republic on Jan. 9, 1493. He described them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.” Manatees move slowly, can turn their heads and have fingerlike bones in their forelimbs, giving them a human-like quality from a distance. It took til 1758 for manatees to be classified as a species (Trichechus manatus) and even then, the legend of mermaids still persisted, slowing scientific discovery.
Sarah turned me on to this great read about divorce parties in Mauritania, where “many people have been through five to 10 marriages, and some as many as 20.” My (previously divorced) mom’s standard reply when someone says they’re getting a divorce - “Condolences, and congratulations!”
I forgot to mention last week but the donations from May subscriptions went to the Compton Community Garden (which the organizers will be purchasing and turning into a Community Land Trust!) and ineedana.com (where digital volunteers help people get verified abortion information). This newsletter is forever free, but paid subscriptions are deeply welcome. If you are able to subscribe, 100% goes towards good people/orgs doing great work in the world and you can see where donations go here.
In honor of this week’s Strawberry moon, a poem by Chen Chen via
(who writes the incredible )i love you to the moon &
not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of
queer zest & stay up
there & get ourselves a little
moon cottage (so pretty), then start a moon garden
with lots of moon veggies (so healthy), i mean
i was already moonlighting
as an online moonologist
most weekends, so this is the immensely
logical next step, are you
packing your bags yet, don’t forget your
sailor moon jean jacket, let’s wear
our sailor moon jean jackets while twirling in that lighter,
queerer moon gravity, let’s love each other
(so good) on the moon, let’s love
the moon
on the moon
Till next time,
ASK