Sharp as Teeth and Stars

I went snorkeling and island hopping off the coast of Cebu today with my boyfriend, and the cliché of “pictures don’t do it justice” actually holds true. We drifted over reefs alive with a kind of obscene abundance, schools of tropical fish flashing in colors that felt almost excessive. I didn’t capture anything underwater, out of a quiet refusal to mediate the experience (and becauseI don't have underwater photo equipment). The water itself provided enough color by staging a private exhibition of dazzling blues and greens.

So much of modern right-wing politics can be boiled down to resentment of the fact that modernity has granted many women the ability to say no to men. That resentment doesn’t go away when these men get horny, it just turns into a sexy woman with a Black Lives Matter flag saying no.

The modern right’s language of humiliation, dominance, contamination, and loss of control uses pornographic tropes to actively supply its imagery and emotional logic.

Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise...

There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, "What can we do now?" How can we go on without him?"

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, mo matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror....we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.”

― John Steinbeck, chapter 34, East of Eden