round-up: 4/6

recommendations, reading recs, quotations, tweets, etc.

Apr 06, 2024

Happy Saturday!

Here’s what I have for you today:

Housekeeping
Recommendations
What I’m reading
Quotations
Tweets

& a disclaimer, again: Things are mostly terrible right now, and the violence is appalling, and there are many people out there who have addressed and do address it better than I ever could, so I’m not getting on a soapbox here—this will just be your weekly round-up featuring what I’ve been reading and thinking through, like usual.

Things to read:

Housekeeping:

As I mentioned on Twitter, I am very tired and in search of presses (1) with open reading periods, (2) who do not charge a reading fee, (3) who accept more than, like, two books during said open reading periods, and (4) who have a fair royalties model.

If anyone wants to shot out their press, please comment below or reply to this email! Help me out!

dbouts

A post shared by @dbouts

Also, I’m selling these very nichey necklaces. Let me know if you want one!

What I’m reading:

Quotations:

All I want to do
is get drunk with my wife
An endless glass of wine
both of us on the floor
So what if squares
look down on us?
Boring and misguided
are their miserable lives
When my wife is in the city
and I’m home
I want to cry
The moonlight
on the cypress tree
is a bitter light
No book has ever kissed me
like she does

-Hafiz, tr. Matthew Rohrer

Surely there was a river, once, but there is no river here. Only a sound of drowning in the dark between the trees. The sound of wet, and only that. Surely there was a country that I called my country, once. Before the thief who would be king made other countries of us all. Before the bright screens everywhere in which another country lives. But what is it, anyway, to live—to breathe, to act, to love, to eat? Surely there was a real earth, wild and green, here, blossoming. Land of milk and honey, once. Land of wind-swept plains and blood, then of shackles and of iron. And then the black smoke of its cities and the laying down of laws. Under which some flourished—if you call that flourishing—and from which others would have fled had there been anywhere to flee. My country, which is cruel, and which is beautiful and lost. Surely, there were notes that made a song, a pledge of birds. And not a child in any cage, no man or woman in a ditch. Surely, what we meant was to anoint some other god. One made of wind and starlight, pulsing, heart that matched the human heart. Surely that god watches us, now, one eye in the river, one eye where the river was.

-Cecelia Woloch, “Prayer for 2018”

I can tell you with the Poor Person Authority bestowed upon me that it’s hurtful. The conversation usually goes like this ‘why does Jimmy spend money on takeaway/clothes/material good that loses half its value the moment it is purchased rather than save for a flat’. I can explain why. If you make good money, you can do something small and nice for yourself every day. You don’t have to stress about taking an Uber, being invited for dinner or drinks, buying a wedding outfit, a birthday present, etc. Your ‘choice’ to save money means not adding to your already good enough wardrobe, staying in an Airbnb rather than a 5-star hotel, shopping at the supermarket rather than the organic farmer’s market, etc. For a person on a basic salary, their only pleasure could be going to brunch once a month, buying a new dress from Asos or never missing their turn to buy a round on a pub crawl. Saving means never buying a takeaway coffee and rationing their protein in their grocery shop. The poor person must live a Spartan life devoid of pleasure to save £100 a month. You can live a pleasant but not luxurious life and save £1000. The numbers are random, but do you see the point? A downpayment for a flat awaits the rich at the end of a no-spent year, whereas all that awaits the poor is a survival buffer. Stop being a dick.

-Stella Tsantekidou