water turns back

December 2020 in playlist form

A better question: Will we turn this wretched experience into something meaningful?

These companies only have more power under pandemic conditions, not less. After a terrible year for independent artists and companies, this monopolization of the tech sector, and the concomitant homogenization of culture, is going to gather steam. When we’re all stuck at home, we lose access to the flavor of creative rebellion that comes from making things with your friends in your free time. We’re forced to connect on social media, which is structured by the very power hierarchies that are undermining cultural diversity in the first place.

I slept in his bed the night before leaving town, knowing it would likely be thrown out by the time I got back, and in the morning headed for JFK. I cried the entirety of the flight to Seattle, listening to old demo tapes Jamie had given me, in complete shock that he was gone. But once I had landed, though still upset, I felt a new sense of freedom, confident that I had made the right decision. Be it to honor my departed friend, or for my own selfish reasons, I still couldn't tell you. But one thing I was sure of: I had committed myself to a life on the road above all else. Looking back now, I see this was the entry point of The Tunnel, and I would remain within it for many years to come.

So the trail, a place without interactions by design, became a funny place to have some of my best interactions of the very weird year. As extended family members and other long-time associates continue to express big theatrical shock at the idea of following the written rules three, six, and nine months into quarantine, strangers in the backwoods and on the track around the park do the opposite thing, which is also the easy thing: give a little space, no questions asked.

And in Marathon, a physical remnant has surfaced. The Sunday after the demolition, the red shopping cart that had accompanied the building appeared outside the Marathon Public Library with an unsigned handwritten note attached: “There was one lone survivor of the savage attack at the Altuda Target in Dec. 2020. This shopping cart fled for its life to the sanctuary of the historical museum in Marathon, TX. May the only Target in 100 mi. R.I.P.” Maybe the joke is not dead after all.

On September 8, the day the North Complex intensified, a finite number of crews, including the Truckee Hotshots, were there to take it on, with no backup on the way. One air-attack firefighter flying overhead, who from his vantage could see for dozens of miles in all directions, radioed that what he was observing looked like “multiple intergalactic plumes across California.” Instantly, intergalactic, a word possibly never before spoken over the apoetic lanes of air-traffic radio, became the catchphrase all over the fire.

Nathan Smith in “No One Loves Arby’s Like I Do” for The New York Times (via)

This year has not been a particularly kind one to anybody except maybe Jeff Bezos. The pandemic has exacerbated existing systemic failures, stolen far too many elders, and further exposed the federal government as an existential threat to its citizenry and tribal sovereignty. The outlook, more often than not, has been bleak. Yet, this has also been the year in which Christopher Columbus statues were ripped down from their pedestals. The one in which multiple tribal citizens are being openly considered for a crucial Cabinet post and in which the Supreme Court declared that treaties cannot be ignored. Land and water protectors have stood strong against capitalism and greed—and won. And now, odd and conflicting as it may be, 2020 will forever be remembered as the year that rang in the beginning of the end for the Native mascot.

And now, there are fewer nights to go to fewer ballparks. In some towns, that’s weighty.

But there was another side to Hillsong in its most popular branch in America, according to many current and former attendees: a pastor who was so swept up in ministering to the famous that ordinary congregants felt neglected. A culture that worshiped wealth, while making volunteers cater to leaders as royalty. And a sense that for all the celebrity surrounding the church, its soul was harder to find.

Perhaps because it has given us such graphic insight into the thoughts of actual idiots, a surprising amount of social media behavior involves people straining to differentiate themselves from imaginary idiots — idiots whose existence is suggested by no more than a passing video clip or screen shot. It’s not much to go on, but it is more than enough for the lucky few who spend all day on Twitter. It was only a matter of time before someone started stoking this misanthropy on purpose, providing fodder for those who seek validation from this ongoing game of individuation. In fact, this overwrought dynamic seems to be an unavoidable consequence of platform-based discourse, in which the stakes reach unsustainably high levels even — or especially — when the subject is inane. Just imagine what terrible things could transpire if people started using the internet to discuss politics.

This was the year when everything happened and nothing happened and I quickly got bored of talking about the news (almost always bad) or asking people what they had been up to (almost always nothing). So I got into the habit of asking friends for whatever gossip they had from their circles. I didn’t have to know the people involved; these stories aren’t interesting because of my personal connection to them, and the point of these conversations isn’t condemnation or judgement. Instead, it is about identifying with particular characters, thinking about how you would handle certain situations, and being reminded of all the strange and terrible things we all get up to all the time.

Many scents that are already vanishing include mothballs, burning piles of leaves in autumn, typewriter ribbons, early formulas of sunscreen and the lingering smell of cigarettes. And unlike, for instance, color or music, smell isn’t broken as easily into universally accepted components. Though technology has made it easier to isolate the chemical compounds of a smell, odors are also highly context dependent. There are functionally an infinite number of scents that could be preserved.