Reading

How long have I been in this place? I cannot say. In the darkness, time has lost meaning. The only days I remember are Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978), the only nights, Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957). My head aches, my ears ring, my thoughts swing between panic and unsolicited opinions about old movies.

Slowly, my memory returns: I was high on the top shelf, rearranging the Criterion Closet from alphabetical to philosophical. As I moved the Paul Schrader films to the “nihilism” section, I heard the door slam. The mound of Robert Altman films beneath my feet shook and then gave way, and I plummeted to the floor.

Now, I find myself trapped beneath an avalanche of ensemble casts and 1970s New Hollywood sensibilities. My head bleeds from the fall. I curse my stupidity. Fool! Why were you up there? I ask. Putting Schrader next to Bresson? Their similarities are superficial at best!

Prizewinning image shows a leafy seadragon expertly camouflaged in seagrass

The post Hidden Dragon appeared first on Nautilus.

There is so much beyond words. There are actually no adequate words for the full complexity of human feeling, for the arcane details of a distant memory, or the colors of the sky. Blue doesn’t really cut it, but most often it’s the best we have. Poems, then, are the last stop before silence. After that, the train goes beyond words, and often beyond any form of representation. All of which has something to do with the necessity of poetry, the necessity of a poet’s urgent and never-ending attempts at making poems. To write is to fail, but to fail well is our only hope, and the good failures are our greatest books. It’s one of the reasons that poetry often arrives in fragments, offering glimpses and snippets: Not only because memory is always an incomplete invention, but also because a poet might wish to dispense with the crude reductivities of plot and setup. The poet wants to take us straight to the shattering moment, or to the essential emotional crossroads, or the livid fact, or the vivid flash of action or perception that changes everything.

“Delivering the longest address to Congress in modern presidential history, Mr. Trump reprised many of the themes that animated his campaign for president and spent little time unveiling new policies, as presidents traditionally have done on these occasions. He spoke for roughly one hour 40 minutes… Democrats lodged protests throughout the evening, with one representative getting kicked out and others holding signs in silent opposition.” — New York Times

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

A list of DOGE staffers reviewed by The Intercept shows Elon Musk’s quasi-agency has brought in at least four more attorneys.

The post Leaked List Shows DOGE Is Lawyering Up appeared first on The Intercept.

- by Charlie Huntington

Read at Psyche

Dave Proudlove is one of the most eloquent advocates of the greater Potteries area on the Midlands/Northern England border. A columnist at the Staffordshire Sentinel for many years, and an enthusiastic champion of local sites and subjects on social media, Proudlove has regularly given voice to the hopes and dreams of Stoke-on-Trent and its backcountry, […]

More than 230 organisations worldwide have called on the Australian government to immediately halt the transfer of all F-35 jet components to Israel.

The post Global call for end to Australian weapons to Israel first appeared on Solidarity Online.

John Legend’s concert in Rwanda signaled global elite support for Paul Kagame amid his bloody invasion of the DRC. The event was organized by Global Citizen, a pseudo-activist NGO backed by corporations hungry for Africa’s resource wealth. On February 21st, as the Rwandan army deepened its invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), John Legend took the stage in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. There, the superstar singer-songwriter headlined a Move Afrika concert produced by Global Citizen, the international NGO […]

The post Billionaire-backed Global Citizen whitewashes Kagame’s invasion of DRC first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Billionaire-backed Global Citizen whitewashes Kagame’s invasion of DRC appeared first on The Grayzone.