19: Bright light
Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri: Fred Lehman (South Florida Dark Sky Observers)
This is the time of year when we are all getting a little list fatigued or at least I am. This year, with the end of the decade in particular, I find myself unmoved by gauzy or melodramatic retrospectives because it feels like in the 2010s we slipped from the gears of how we typically experience the passage of time. Or maybe that things have gone so haywire that it feels a little silly to look back and think gee whiz another decade in the history books what a ride this human experience is! I know people have always felt this way to some extent but I don’t know I’ve been on the planet for four decades now and never felt quite this way. I liked this one essay about how time is broken that validated this sensation:
The 2000s were a bad decade, full of terrorism, financial ruin, and war. The 2010s were different, somehow more disorienting, full of molten anxiety, racism, and moral horror shows. Maybe this is a reason for the disorientation: Life had run on a certain rhythm of time and logic, and then at a hundred different entry points, that rhythm and that logic shifted a little, sped up, slowed down, or disappeared, until you could barely remember what time it was.
If climate anxiety went somewhat mainstream this year, that has a similarly time-warping effect, in that we normally gauge time on human scales and pretend geological scales don’t exist because they are so much bigger than us so as to be imperceptible. But engaging with climate change plunges the personal passage of time into the planetary passage of time, which can be a disorienting and not super fun experience.
It’s what Eugene Thacker describes in his Horror of Philosophy books as the conflict in our awareness of the world-for-us, the world-in-itself, and the world-without-us.
Indeed, the core problematic in the climate change discourse is the extent to which human beings are at issue at all. On the one hand we as human beings are the problem; on the other hand at the planetary level of the Earth’s deep time, nothing could be more insignificant than the human.
Meanwhile, “the world-without-us lies somewhere in between, in a nebulous zone that is at once impersonal and horrific.”
So you know rough stuff out there. But I’m getting off on one of my things and this special end of year issue was going to be all recommendations. Because I do love the year end list as a way to see what moved other people and find out about things I may have missed. But because of our shared list fatigue let’s keep things real loose here and it’s not even going to be things released this year, just things that I loved during 2019 that I think you might love too. (And if you are still looking to make a year end donation, here are my recommendations because I know you are probably not hearing from very many people about making year end donations right now.)
Climate Voices I Loved
(Also, you can follow every climate person I follow on twitter here.)
Books I Loved
Trick Mirror, by Jia Tolentino
Private Government, by Elizabeth Anderson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan - This was a great book about the passage of time AND it’s a low-key climate change book.
There There, by Tommy Orange
Just Giving, by Rob Reich - If you’re going to read one book about philanthropy and its problematic role in democracy, make it this one.
Friday Black, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
The Power, by Naomi Alderman
Comics I Loved
Usagi Yojimbo, by Stan Sakai - I read the first couple of volumes as part of a dive into B/W 80s indie comics.
Bacchus, by Eddie Campbell - the whole run, part of the same dive
Swamp Thing, by Alan Moore - Read some of this when I was younger but I’ve been going through the whole run this year was volume 5.
Pretty Deadly, by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Emma Rios
Good-bye, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Maids, by Katie Skelly
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Robert Hack
Music I Loved
Makaya McCraven, Universal Beings
Palehound, Black Friday
Thom Yorke, Anima
Solange, When I Get Home
billy woods, Kenny Segal, Hiding Places
Big Thief, U.F.O.F. and Two Hands
Mount Eerie, Lost Wisdom
Tinariwen, Elwan
Tacocat, This Mess is a Place
The National, I Am Easy to Find
Svalbard, It’s Hard to Have Hope
Skeletonwitch, Devouring Radiant Light
Also enjoy this retro banger by DJ Shadow and De La Soul:
Television I Loved
Watchmen
Barry
The Good Place
Fleabag
The Terror (ssn 1) - I wrote about this one here.
I Think You Should Leave - I watched this sketch comedy show twice it made me laugh so much.
Killing Eve
Mindhunter (The Murder Boys)
Pen15
Podcasts I Loved
Mothers of Invention
Ezra Klein Show
Climate One
Longform Podcast
Call Your Girlfriend
Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy
Articles I Loved
The liberals who hate the left, the awful guys who worship logic, Boston’s traffic crisis, Democrats won’t challenge the almighty car, climate change is about how we treat each other, give every bus in the country its own dedicated lane, a feminist version of the tango, we’re violating the rights of our descendants, the end of climate change requires the end of capitalism, Joe Rogan’s moronic free thinking, the wealthy who contribute nothing and take everything, the feminist history of the newsletter (and its commodification), cars are killing more pedestrians, the history of anti-car protest, the sob story of racist comedians, “they stand there with their drinks and their phones and their glasses and they just pee,” Black Americans have fought to make America a true democracy (the entire 1619 project), the New York Times doesn’t have the tools to make sense of the world, how YouTube radicalized Brazil, it was never about busing, the Green New Deal has already won, Negroni Season (this article is 10 years old but I just read the classic Awl series this year), the World’s Most Annoying Man, men have no friends, Michelle Wu, Boston’s next mayor, Democratic centrism is a lost cause, Jay Inslee was the only candidate serious about short-term climate action.
Other Things I Loved
Going to Turtle Pond in the dead of winter
Radical young climate activists
My pop being inducted into the Arizona Outdoor Hall of Fame
Boston’s progressive new City Council
Being a guest on the Climate One podcast
A magical trip to the Hudson Valley
A July 4th shitshow at Hampton Beach
Riding my new bike
Baby Yoda
Babu Frik
Sleater-Kinney show with Marilyn and Connor
Two Phish concerts with Pat against my better judgment
A Rhode Island birthday cruise
This newsletter!
My big sister coming to visit in Boston
My little sister’s successful relocation to Portland
And those are some things from 2019.
I hope you all had or still are having a nice holiday. In our household we at least nominally celebrate Christmas although that basically means eating cheese, drinking hot wine, and watching Gremlins.
Bright light bright light!
And the day after we’ll go see a Star Wars movie if there is one which there was this year. It wasn’t a very good movie but I also thoroughly enjoyed it, something Disney/Marvel/StarWars has pretty much cornered the market on at this point. The series became weirdly obsessed with genealogy, but it also has some touching messages about friendship and looking out for each other. Jamie pointed out this nice moment when Poe becomes a general but then he tells Finn, his non-canonical life partner, “I can’t do this alone I need you in command with me” and how that is very anti-toxic masculinity and also a reminder that nobody can save the galaxy alone.
So next year as we take on seemingly insurmountable challenges, we can all take a lesson from Poe and Rey and Finn and BB8 and Babu Frik, and that new little robot, and Chewbacca, and Adam Driver, and those people on the horses, and the lady with the shiny helmet and that other lady with the shiny helmet, and Rose Tico who JJ Abrams basically cut from the series which is messed up, and Baby Yoda and the tiny orange lady, and the two unnamed women who kiss, and the Porgs, and Princess Leia and Laura Dern and I think Charlie from Lost, and C3PO and R2D2. We may not know what we’re doing out here, but we have each other.
Tate
PS. This is the last Crisis Palace for a few weeks while I’m on vacation don’t be sad I’ll be back before you know it.