PicoBlog

Reverend Martin Niemöller’s “First they came…,” usually rendered as a poem, is a classic of post-fascist regret. The statement is perhaps more poignant because Niemöller was an early supporter of the Nazi Party, only reconsidering his support when his church and his beliefs were targeted. The statement is suffused with hard-earned moral understanding, though it is difficult to feel too bad for Niemöller. Though imprisoned by the Nazis for his beliefs, he survived, unlike the countless victims of the holocaust.

THE WORST THING WE READ™VIRUSES ARE NOT particularly interested in your feelings, except to the extent that your feelings might wear down your body and make it more welcoming to viruses. Nevertheless, Malaka Gharib of NPR wrote an essay about how the Covid pandemic bumps up against her feelings—namely, her feeling of frustration about what she called her husband's "fears of getting Covid again." What's he so afraid of? Gharib wrote:

Subscribe: "Getting Hammered" podcast! People ask me these days if I’m still on TV. The answer is: not really. So, where have I been? What happened to this formerly visible part of my career? It came to my attention in July that I had been punished under old CNN leadership— kept off air since January— for tweeting about Jeffrey Toobin in a Twitter dust-up with Andrew Kaczynski (another CNN employee) regarding our network's coverage of the 2017 Congressional baseball shooting.

Get 60 day free trial “If you want to ride a camel, you must first get on.” Looking back on it, I wonder if Jamel Mestaoui wasn’t quoting some Berber proverb, passed down through the generations like the other customs that govern life in his village on the island of Djerba. Perhaps, when Jamel was a boy, his father would take him up to the Dhahret Adloun, the barren outcropping that rises above the whitewashed houses of Guellala and fill his young head with stories.

Previously: Just whispers about Wilby A former editor of the New Statesman and Independent on Sunday was revealed as a paedophile. It hasn't really made the headlines or roused the columnists to rage. Before you read this edition, I encourage you to watch Dispatches: Russell Brand — In Plain Sight and/or read The Sunday Times investigation into allegations against him. First, though, I should qualify my right to even pontificate on such a topic and in so doing untangle another of revolution’s inherent problems.

I want to start by expressing profound grief and sadness at the loss of Jesse Baird and Luke Davis, and extends my sincere condolences to their loved ones, families, chosen families and all who had them in their lives. I stand in solidarity and devastation with the wider LGBTIQA+ communities in the face of such tragic loss of life. I have been disappointed, pained and frustrated to witness the sensationalising and in some cases incorrect reporting of these devastating events.

I was inspired to get a copy of In the Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe (Duke University Press, 2016) after listening to what both Natalie Diaz and Ross Gay had to say about it on the Between the Covers podcast with David Naimon (that show is a treasure — don’t miss it). Reading Ross Gay’s book Be Holding, which engages with Sharpe’s ideas directly, is what made me pick it up.

Hello everyone and welcome, finally, to the first issue of Prose & Panic, my bimonthly newsletter! In these newsletters I’ll be sharing book updates and announcements, writing teasers, and other exclusive content related to my work in progress. So…let’s talk updates! Or rather, the ambiguity of them. First, addressing the question I’ve been getting most over the last year: When is the second book in the Sandsea Trilogy being released? You may have noticed a couple of dates floating around online for The Ashfire King.

‘Snipers Alley’. I had never heard the term before, but lots of my patients were using it, and it seemed to motivate them into action. ‘Snipers Alley’, it turns out, is an age between 40-60, where mostly males were having fatal heart attacks. These patients were not overly bothered about having a heart attack at age 80, but usually, one of their friends, aged 52 or so, had just had a heart attack, and they did not want to be next.