Books
Liberation Day by George Saunders, a short story book. George Saunders seems to be polarizing because when I’ve said I’ve been reading it, people are like “do you like him” in this way I find confusing so if you have George Saunders opinions please let me know! I largely liked the book. There’s a lot of bigots and people influenced by bigots in the book, which can feel uncomfortable to read even though he’s always making fun of the racists in his way. The stories where people are brainwashed and used in some creepy capacity were my favorites.
Black Paper by Teju Cole. More photo theory! I’ve seen Teju Cole cited a bunch in my photo theory reading so I was excited to check this one out. It’s a book of essays about painting and photography. The essays were mostly written in late 2016, a dark time, as he calls it. The shock and drama of late 2016 feels sort of passé in retrospect— maybe I just got used to how dark things are. Overall I really liked the book but I wanted more in a lot of places— guess I’m gonna have to keep reading his essays! Some favorites:
“After Caravaggio,” in which Cole retraces Caravaggio’s path through Italy in search of his paintings. I never knew much about Caravaggio but he was a very interesting guy and he killed someone. Cole looks at these paintings and thinks about them while wandering the coastline and getting up close to the migrants coming into Europe by boat.
“A Quartet for Edward Said,” who taught at Columbia while Cole went there. “I love Edward Said’s idea, drawn from his comparative study of literature, that difference is not about hierarchies but about the possibility of contrapuntal lines. Difference, at its best, interweaves and creates new harmonies. In this way, this was the positive argument put forth in Orientalism: a plea to reject stereotypes and to accept the irreducible complexity of the other. Understanding this, putting it into practical action, is the best hope for both our democracy and our ecology. Is it too much to say that we can love each other, and that we must?”
“What Does It Mean to Look at This,” where Cole revisits Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, which is! exactly! what! I’ve! been! looking! for! But it’s less than 10 pages long and I wanted more. “In their grief, their shock, even in their irritation at the presence of a photographer, the hope for those who are photographed in the midst of their suffering is that what is happening to them will go out into the world, and possibly, by being see, will help bring them relief. Proof of this is elusive. […] ‘Conflict photography,’ in particular, arises out of a huge set of moving variables that in unpredictable, unreliable, but unignorable ways help make the demands of justice visible. Taking photographs is sometimes a terrible thing to do, but often, not taking the necessary photo, not bearing witness, or not being allowed to do so can be worse.” I’m not entirely convinced here, I want more from him on this.
“A Crime Scene at the Border,” about that photo of a drowned man and his toddler daughter face down in the Rio Grande after they tried to cross the border. They were Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his daughter Valeria, aged 25 and 2. I had forgotten about that photograph until I started reading the chapter and then it rushed back to me in vivid detail. Cole catalogues the cruel US policy decisions that led to Alberto and Valeria fleeing El Salvador and seeking asylum in the US and speculates how these policies could be made visible the way their bodies were made visible. “A photograph of a dead child on the United States-Mexico border is not, by itself, the bitterest truth. a bitterer truth might be to convey that what we are looking at is a crime, not an accident. The bitterest truth might be to show that the crime was committed by the viewers of the photograph, that this is not news from some remote and unconnected reality but rather, something you have done, not you personally but you as a member of the larger collective. […] That is not how such images are typically presented or understood. So, what happens if evidence of your crimes is presented to you over and over again but you do not accept culpability? What happens is that your assessment of the evidence becomes ever more disingenuous. […] But what also happens is that the images enter an aesthetic realm, detached from the human pain from which they emerged.”
“Restoring the Darkness,” more about migration, colonialism, and photography. Again, it’s too short. But he brought my attention to Richard Mosse’s work in The Castle, where he uses thermal photography to create eerie images of refugee camps and border crossings.
“Moss’s images, formally striking as they are, are unquestionably part of the language of visual domination. With his political freedom of movement and his expensive technical equipment, he makes meticulous pictures of suffering that end up in exquisite books and in art galleries. He is not the first photographer to aestheticize suffering, nor will he be the last. And yet, something breaks through.”
In “Ethics,” Cole discards ‘raising awareness’ in favor of ‘bearing witness.’ I am unconvinced these are radically different approaches to viewing and sharing images. Sort of like when people replace ‘homeless’ with ‘houseless’ but don’t actually change how they feel about the homeless/houseless/people experiencing homelessness/houselessness. But again I had the feeling that if Cole just kept writing a little longer, he could get me there.
“Resist, refuse,” on a politics of refusal, a politics I’ve been thinking a lot about since reading Sarah’s writing on it. He gives a fascinating and powerful history of French resistance to Nazis. “I propose a resistance made of refusals. Refuse a resistance excised of courage. Refuse the conventional arena and take the fight elsewhere. Refuse to eat with the enemy, refuse to feed the enemy. Refuse to participate in the logic of crisis, refuse to be reactive to its provocations. Refuse to forget last year’s offenses and last month’s and last week’s. Refuse the news cycle, refuse commentary. Refuse to place newsworthiness above human solidarity. Refuse to be intimidated by pragmatism. Refuse to be judged by cynics. Refuse to be too easily consoled. Refuse to admire mere political survival. Refuse to accept the calculation of the lesser evil. Refuse to laugh along. Refuse the binary of the terrible past and the atrocious present. Refuse to ignore the plight of the imprisoned, the tortured, and the deported. Refuse to be mesmerized by shows of power. Refuse the mob. Refuse to play, refuse decorum, refuse accusation, refuse distraction, which is tolerance of death-dealing by another name. And when told you can’t refuse, refuse that too.”
I wonder how Cole would revisit this today, 7ish years later. I’m thinking about how Sarah wrote that the left has operated on “an ethic of refusal and righteousness” and argues for a left vision beyond refusal. I don’t necessarily think that these statements are necessarily completely at odds. Most of Cole’s refusals can be written positively: Resist with courage. Fight the enemy on your terms, not theirs. Find a vision of the future beyond the immediate crises and be steadfast about it. Remember everything they try to make you forget.
Essays/substacks
Grace Byron on it-girl lit that makes me really wanna read Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection.
Also Grace, on JD Salinger: “As Salinger’s characters talk about cuteness, we see them as cute in turn: it’s cute to think you’re at the top of the intellectual food chain. Salinger’s characters turn their noses up at those they consider beneath them, and we turn our noses up at them in turn. We all think we’re better than the hapless wannabe—that our literary pursuits are less pretentious than the man writing prose poems about Kafka. No one wants to be caught out in a world built on irony; we want to catch the joke before it hits us in the head. We don’t want to be the quaint one who thinks we know everything; we want to actually know everything. To be cute is to be crushed, to fail at the game of intellectual prowess.”
Tumblr celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the unlimited mozzarella sticks Gawker article, which I had completely forgotten about but enjoyed revisiting on a morning commute.
The Meet-Cute’s Revenge, Sarah Mathews’ article on the fall of dating apps
Movies
Grace, Sharell, and I went to Alfreda’s Cinema’s BAM takeover celebration of bell hooks, where they showed two interviews with hooks and four short films: Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above (2023) Dir. Ayanna Dozier, So Many Things to Consider (1996) Dir. Sandye Wilson, Transmagnifican Dambamuality (1976) Dir. Ronald Grey, & Cycles (1989) Dir. Zeinabu Irene Davis. The interviews were really interesting- there’s a lot I agree with in all about love but some I don’t, and hearing her speak about it was impressive and helpful in understanding the work. Cycles & So Many Things to Consider were my favorite of the shorts.
Love Lies Bleeding. Spoilers ahead! I watched it in two parts over two days of working out in the gym, which is not how it’s supposed to be watched. Everyone I know loved it, but I’m not sure I did— again, I watched it a completely wrong way. It’s obviously really well-done, beautifully shot and acted. Ed Harris is such a good villain and I’ve been into KStew for over 20 years. Because I’d been thinking about bell hooks, when I was watching the movie I was like dang, we do need better definitions of love. None of these people have ever had a healthy relationship in their lives! Lou and Jackie are enamored with each other but don’t trust each other until the very end. Lou’s sister Beth stands by her abusive man even in death. The most affecting scene, to me, is when Lou confronts Beth in their childhood bedroom. Lou admits to her role in Beth’s husband’s death. Beth tells her she doesn’t know anything about love. Lou says, heartbreakingly, I love you. Beth rejects her sister’s love and Lou calls her a moron, hurts her for information, and runs to find Jackie. And as euphoric as the rest of the movie is- Ed Harris getting what he deserves and Lou and Jackie getting their happy ending- I was stuck feeling sad about that scene of the sisters. They’re so abused by the men of the world that they turn away from each other in the end. The very end, when Lou finishes off Daisy and lights a cigarette, felt a bit hopeless. Not that every movie has to have hope and or growth. Maybe I just didn’t love it because the movie is dark and I wasn’t in the mood for dark.
TV- I rewatched the first season of We Are Lady Parts and watched the second season. Loved it. 10/10. If you haven’t seen We Are Lady Parts, the Peacock comedy about a group of Muslim women in a punk band, go watch it. Funny & heartfelt.
Music
A few years ago, I heard someone playing the kora on the subway, and through looking up their music I made my way to Toumani Diabaté’s work. I hadn’t listened to him in a while and felt a craving for his music but couldn’t remember his name. Then I read his name in Black Paper and excitedly started listening to him again. I looked him up to see if he would tour in NYC and found out that he actually just died. Definitely recommend checking his music out. There’s a kora player at the Union Square subway sometimes, I have his name written down in some note I can’t find now. What a beautiful instrument!
I’ve been listening to the unreleased new Joanna Newsom music through reddit and returning to her older stuff, which happens every few months.
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loved black paper, it got me to start reading austerlitz by sebald
we need to talk abt love lies bleeding !!!