Beautiful World, Where Are You?

Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney quotes (read on Kindle so no page numbers):

"...we hate people for making mistakes so much more than we love them for doing good that the easiest way to live is to do nothing, say nothing, and love no one."

"I have put between myself and my parents such a gulf of sophistication that it’s impossible for them to touch me now or to reach me at all. And I look back across that gulf, not with a sense of guilt or loss, but with relief and satisfaction. Am I better than they are?"

"I know we agree that civilisation is presently in its decadent declining phase, and that lurid ugliness is the predominant visual feature of modern life. Cars are ugly, buildings are ugly, mass-produced disposable consumer goods are unspeakably ugly. The air we breathe is toxic, the water we drink is full of microplastics, and our food is contaminated by cancerous Teflon chemicals. Our quality of life is in decline, and along with it, the quality of aesthetic experience available to us. The contemporary novel is (with very few exceptions) irrelevant; mainstream cinema is family-friendly nightmare porn funded by car companies and the US Department of Defense; and visual art is primarily a commodity market for oligarchs."

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Manet and Degas

Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special. In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

AOC

Dark Brandon meet Dark Alex. I see her advising the republicans to stick to their guns and never compromise. They don’t want to do anything, only obstruct. So they don’t actually need to be unified. Chaos isn’t organized. This is fine. Read all about it from Heather Cox Richardson , a historian who covers current events. "As their policies threatened to lose voters by concentrating wealth upward and hollowing out the middle class, Republicans increasingly warned that minority voters wanted socialism and were destroying the nation to get it. Trump rode that narrative to power, and now tearing down the current government is the idea that drives the Republican base." While we're at it, here's another funny photo from the Onion: And then: I listened to the Times podcast about George Santos . He basically lied about, I don't know, 80% of his resume, and has a mysterious $700k in his "corporation" which has no clients. So he's a Russian or Chinese plant, o...

6 month old podcast

Al Franken has a podcast , and he has my favorite Heather Cox Richardson , and they have an interesting discussion. He talks about the knife edge. She really explains the Republican strategy. Flood the zone with shit. Alternate facts, and fake news opens up the idea that there is no reality. It's basically reality versus false reality. The goal is to both get people to back away from politics, and to tell them how to specifically think. Developed in Russia, a system of overturning democracy. Running fake candidates, who switch parties, and running candidates with the same name. Blackmail is a technique. Create a fake reality that people come to believe. They're willing to vote for a narrative is not true, and they're willing to vote away their rights. You can flip it and use the same tools.You can weaponize social media by ignoring the shit, and fight back against all these techniques. People defend democracy. They're talking about community and caring for people and ...

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