Heavy-hearted over here. So much death, both far away and close to home. I’ve kept repeating to myself over and over the same line, — “it is a gift to grow old with the people you love.” Maybe it will be a balm for you too.
Babacar told me in Senegal when you greet someone, you don’t ask how they’re doing. Instead you ask "Nanga def" and the response is "mangui fi." In Wolof it literally means “Are you here?” and you respond by saying “yes, I am here.” He said, the main thing is to be here, alive, present. “When we are here, we have everything, because there are people who went to sleep at the same time as you but, unfortunately, they will no longer wake up in this world. There are others who are unfortunately in hospitals, others in morgues, others in their graves, others in prisons, others between life and death. Among them, rich people, poor people, artists, presidents. But you, whatever your situation, you are here and you remain alive so that is more than enough.”
One of Mike’s clinical advisors told him he lives his life by a philosophy of “First day, last day.” Live each day like it’s your first day on Earth, like you are discovering everything for the first time, filled with wonder and joy and marvel for the world. Live each day as if it’s your last because one day, you will be right.
RIP Louise Glück, her poem about death from the perspective of a flower is another piece I keep coming back to and holding close.
Eric Lach at the New Yorker has been doing some deep investigating on the horrific conditions migrants have been facing here. His latest piece, about the Brooklyn office complex in our neighborhood, originally designed for tech workers but now turned into migrant "respite center" housing nearly 1,000 men is a crucial read. It has been a constant struggle since it opened in July, to the point that some of the guys feel safer sleeping outside under the BQE. In coalition with many mutual aid groups we’ve been providing support where we can to migrants in the community. We’d love more helping hands! If you’re looking for a tangible way to make a difference in someone’s life, please write back to this email and I’ll invite you to our next event.
During the mid-19th century, as Fort Greene’s classic townhouses were being built, many new immigrants settled on unoccupied and as yet unsold farmland along Myrtle Avenue. They built a shantytown that became known as “Young Dublin.” They kept cattle and pigs for sustenance but the city of Brooklyn prohibited the “rearing of pigs”. “Brooklyn mayor Francis Stryker and the Common Council of Brooklyn toured ‘the flourishing settlement’ along Myrtle and promptly ordered ‘all the pigs, hogs, goats to be removed,’ further prohibiting the rearing of such as endangering the health of the city.” The people of Young Dublin refused, so the police demolished the pigpens. The pigs ran wild through the entire city, which made the police return a second time. This time, they destroyed the settlement’s shacks, uprooting hundreds, if not thousands of its inhabitants. As Mark Twain supposedly once said, “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”
wrote an incredible essay called “Spy Baby” published by ’s I don’t want to spoil anything, but in her words, the essay is about “my audacious origin story featuring the CIA, a deposed Black president, my biological parents and me.”Through the book Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope, imagining a Gaza “of open streets, public transport, decent affordable housing, and urban farms; structures that can be traversed in 20 minutes and house populations invested in their own neighborliness — a city that has what it needs to integrate with the rest of the world.” Beyond the idiocy of siege and warfare, “It was not so long ago, as the architects Mahdi Sabbagh and Meghan McAllister remind us, that Gaza was a place where coastal routes from Africa to the Middle East and Europe all passed through. In their rhetorical plan, which they call “Timeless Gaza,” they layer the Gaza of the Bronze, Hellenistic, Roman, and medieval Islamic eras, as well as an imagined contemporary period — onto a map, bringing its history as a hub of trade and exchange into the foreground.” Also learned a new word, propinquity.
Everyone has turned into a Liberty fan overnight, but I only have eyes for Ellie, their dancing elephant mascot. I would have gone for a pigeon or rat to rep New York’s WNBA team but apparently “Ellie is a homage to the elephants that the circus founder P.T. Barnum paraded across the Brooklyn Bridge, in 1884, to demonstrate its stability after its completion a year earlier.” At the time it opened, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world.
If you or someone you know is a public school educator, sign up here to be part of Wild Seed Project's Seeds for Teachers program. You’ll receive packets which include bulk seeds for 3-4 easy-to-sow, pollinator-friendly species, as well as a set of four lessons focused on seeds that can be adapted for all grade levels.
Field trips, too many to count! It’s Open House New York, “an annual festival that opens hundreds of noteworthy or significant places across the five boroughs to foster discovery and delight for New Yorkers and visitors alike.”
If I were in LA…
What: A screening of Spanish "Drácula" (1931), directed by George Melford with a live score by Chris Woods. The film shared a set with Tod Browning’s English-language production, and shot at night after Browning’s film had wrapped each day. Director Melford watched Browning’s dailies when coming to work at night and used what he saw as a jumping off point to realize his own version, helping to make what critics regard as a better film.
Where: The Pico Union Project, the first temple built in LA.
When: Friday, October 27 · 6:30 - 10:30pm PDT
Till next time,
ASK
I hope the boat doesn’t sink... ⛵️❣️