Every one of attention's exploits acts like love

Louis Pons, "A la va comme je te pousse". 1989.

Today's necessary noise.

The experience damaged trust in science and scientists. It’s still high—the number of people saying they have a lot of trust in science has hovered around 77 percent for years. But it was 10 points higher before COVID, and it now splits hard along lines of political affiliation. “Especially in the U.S. and with social media, all of a sudden everybody was an expert on COVID. So much of it was just bullshit,” Andersen says. “And then at some point bullshit was all that was left.”

Zarina Hashmi, "These Cities Blotted into the Wilderness". 2003.

Today's necessary noise.

I only get sunburned by distant stars and disputes regarding puddles (puzzles!) it’s only a tRIFLE as one realizes their only friend is a hunchbacked centenarian and her dog with a goitre shivering like artificial light the court of Charles V was astonished Alfred Jarry was irritated impossible music then the eyes opened: no, it isn’t you

Theresa Babb, “Grace and Mary at Ipswich Beach, May 30, 1900.” 1900.

Today's necessary noise.

What does this landowner’s son know of the language he can’t understand? What right has the poet to cross class lines? It is simply because he is an artist. Here is the inner life required for that role: he wandered away from his parents’ house, and into the fields, and knew other people—that human digression, that veering off course, qualifies him. And if he speaks for them, it is because he possesses qualities we associate with poets, like the ability to be waylaid, and a shamelessness about wasting time. I don’t think of these as immediately moral qualities, but they become ethical routes. The margin from which he writes becomes the poem’s center. >>

Joe Milazzo, "unaccountable dictionaries filter scrutiny". 2026.

Today's necessary noise.

Yes. I think that certain personalities go with certain instruments. While I have known that all along it took me a long time to associate that with myself – because it takes a long time to try and see yourself, and I’m still trying. Like I know that I am not a tenor player, but I’ve spent a lot of time fooling with the tenor saxophone. I played tenor in college because that was the only way I could get into the dance band. In those days I couldn’t read as well as other fellows could but I could solo better than they could so they needed me in the band for that, (laughter) So I got in on tenor.

James McNeill Whistler, "Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket". Circa 1875.

Jamie Saft, Rhodes Scholar (Self-released, 2026).

The historical process of degradation was born with the detailed division of labor in early manufacturing, perfected by Taylorism in the late nineteenth century, and intensified with technological advancements like computing throughout the twentieth century. This last phase, the “scientific-technical revolution,” marked a qualitative change for the labor process. Rather than reappropriating worker knowledge, management produced its own knowledge, leaving the worker in “ignorance, incapacity, and thus a fitness for machine servitude.” Science itself became capital, an instrument bent toward management and production rather than human flourishing. For example, the advent of “numerical control” technology — in which preprogrammed software moved tools automatically — divided and simplified the machinist’s work, transforming what was once control and knowledge of the machine into its mere operation.

Alison Knowles, "Celebration Red" (1962–present).

Today's necessary noise.