The ease.

 

Dear Friends,

A woman writer friend of mine, one that I stay in contact with through the flattening affect pasta machines of the digital devices, says something that sounds pretty much like "we don't have a technology problem, we have a Capitalism problem."*  It fit, for me, into a story of how we got to this field strewn with the broken rubble of culture and society that I keep stumbling over in my haste to try to Understand Things as They Are.

Obviously, I could probably find more clarity if I stopped trying to Understand Things; and I am working on that, too, in a multi-pronged approach to coping.  Anyway, it isn't always about me (ha- that's a bald faced lie, isn't it?); it's about my friend and her suggestion to read this interesting article.

May reading it help you in your daily sorting of murky facts & ever more terrible news!  And if not that, well, may it make you feel less lonely while you scamper around that field of broken stuff.

* Forgive me if I have misquoted you!

party food politics

 

Dear Diner,

The Big Thing we all just had; you know, the Pandemic?  I know it threw light on things for you, too, and one thing that got all kinds of spotlit for me was grocery shopping, and eating 'out,' and how enslaving & class structuring those two activities are, how much class politics there are in food.  I know!  So much to talk about!  Check out this thoughtful essay from Vittles, and we will return to these topics again soon.

PS  A history, for dipping into.

periwinkle & amethyst

 

Joan Mitchell  Clearing, 1973. Oil on canvas, 110 1/4 x 236 inches (280.035 x 599.44 cm). © Estate of Joan Mitchell.

Dear Y'all,

Yes, I did quit my job, but there are still 17 weeks to go, and so I apply myself to the study of color as might be interesting to Others.  I like to mention the dubious Color of The Year, as defined by Pantone and its think tank of bankers.  Well, I don't know if they are bankers, they could be any number of things; it says here they 'observe' the color globally, in the months before.  Anyway, it's periwinkle this year, and so I want to send you to this lovely meditation on vinca, pigment history, poison, art history, and color.  

I also want to give you the song of the day:  Love Will Tear Us Apart, in a beautiful cover by Amythyst Kiah.

Slipping

 

The String of Pearls, William Paxton, 1908.

(ghastly, isn't it?)

Dear Friends,

I have been slipping.  I have been remiss.  I have been playing video games instead of writing to you regularly.

I have some things I want to send you soon:  a cut and paste project I am working on, some photos, a complaint about Other People.  Maybe I won't send that to you, you know it all already anyway.  But, for now, there is this, a funny thing, a wry thing, that I hope you will enjoy!

UBI Now (or, Worker Oppression is as Old as the Hills).

 

Dear Working,

I thought to address this letter to 'dear workers,' but I wanted to be sure you understood I don't just mean people who receive a pay stub.  Here are some of the job titles I have been this week:

photographer

video producer

writer

lecturer

critic

facilitator

launderer

poulterer

housecleaner

cook

therapist

in home caregiver

gardener

secretary

instructor

representative

inventory manager

IT specialist

Those are just the ones I can think of in two minutes.  Let me elaborate; I don't mean that I can do those jobs a little bit, or kinda sorta.  I mean that I am totally qualified as an expert in ALL of those areas.  If a magic fairy dropped me into the rolling desk chair behind any of those jobs, I could do them without batting an eyelash.  Let me further elaborate; I know that you, too, are qualified for a career list at least as long as this, and very probably longer.  Now, I am glad we settled all that, because I don't want any argument about how over qualified you already are for your life and work.

What I want, now, is to introduce you to two new words (at least, they were new to me, and in true shock of the new fashion, horrifying):  Upskilling and Reskilling.

Yes, these are the two ugly elves you heard about- the ones you must recall the names of, if you want to climb up a tower on someone else's hair.  They are five in all:  Upskilling  Reskilling, Deskilling, Mob Killing, and Up Yours.  Just like in the stories, you must be on your guard around these tricksters.  You may enter into a contract with Reskilling only to find that the money you spent does not qualify you for more pay.  All it did was lengthen your list of abilities and line the Skilling Boys' pockets with more silver.  There's a moral to it, as TweedleDee tells Alice.

It's a lot to ponder, especially if you are thinking of making a career move, whatever that is anyway.  As further beseechment, I offer you this essay, by Anne Helen Peterson.

PS

I am pretty sure I am not supposed to -ment the verb beseech.  Direct any usage complaints to the ugliest elf, Up Yours.

Black Birthday Cake

Dear Baking,

For Emily Dickenson's birthday today, bake this cake:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/emily-dickinsons-black-cake

a fruitcake.

If you don't want to mix 22 eggs (and why not?  Will you go to your grave a 'small batch only' kind of baker??!) then you can read this poem by Ms. Dickinson instead:

       How happy is the little stone
       That rambles in the road alone,
       And doesn't care about careers,
       And exigencies never fears:
       Whose coat of elemental brown
       A passing universe put on;
       And independent as the sun,
       Associates or glows alone,
       Fulfilling absolute decree
       In casual simplicity.




In choosing this particular poem, I read a great many from my big Collected volume of Dickinson, and every first line is stellar, and some of the second lines are too.  I loved the first lines clipped from their remainders, and strung together randomly.  I like them this way so much I typed them up on thin, translucent paper, and then sewed them onto vaporous dollops of ink

I love very much the idea of Emily Dickinson; so much that I visited her house, the place she spent her 'recluse' days.  It was a fine pilgrimage.  I object somewhat to the word recluse which is always associated with her- It smacks of a belittling tendency towards female poets of any age. 

Still, I love the idea of her holing up and writing from her windowsill, and I will revere that notion of her for a while longer.  I expect Emily Dickinson's lack of interest in certain things would come under this writer's definition of resistance (explicated in this excellent article) which she calls 'just not.'