May 30, 2021

2021.05.30
My fav bits from Patricia Lockwood's "No One Is Talking About This.": Warning if you get the book, which I'd recommend, it does deal with immense family tragedy.
Capitalism! It was important to hate it, even though it was how you got money. Slowly, slowly, she found herself moving toward a position so philosophical even Jesus couldn't have held it: that she must hate capitalism while at the same time loving film montages set in department stores.
Patricia Lockwood, "No One Is Talking About This."
It was a mistake to believe that other people were not living as deeply as you were.
Besides, you were not even living that deeply.
Patricia Lockwood, "No One Is Talking About This."
When she asked him once what his last meal would be, he replied, instantly and thoughtfully, "Banana. Because I wouldn't want to be full when I die."
Patricia Lockwood, "No One Is Talking About This."
White people, who had the political educations of potatoes--lumpy, unseasoned, and biased toward the Irish--were suddenly feeling compelled to speak out about injustice.
Patricia Lockwood, "No One Is Talking About This."
"Your attention is holy," she told the class, as her phone buzzed uncontrollably in her back pocket [...] "It is the soul spending itself."
Patricia Lockwood, "No One Is Talking About This."
why should I care what the founding fathers intended when none of them ever heard a saxophone
Patricia Lockwood, "No One Is Talking About This."
Why did rich people believe they worked harder? Her theory was that it was because they identified with the pile of money itself. And gathering interest, multiplying hotly, climbing its own slopes like a fever, heightening its silver, its gold, its green--what was that but work? When you thought about it that way, they never slept, but stayed wide-eyed as numerals 365 days a year, every last digit of them busy, awake in the clinking, the shuffle, the rustle, while eagles with pure platinum feathers swooped above them to create a wind. When you thought about it that way, of course they deserved it all, and looked with rightful contempt at the coppery disgraces all around them: those two cents that refused to even rub themselves together.
Patricia Lockwood, "No One Is Talking About This."
Despite everything, the world had not ended yet. What was the reflex that made it catch itself? What was the balance it regained?
You'll be nostalgic for this too, if you make it.
Patricia Lockwood, "No One Is Talking About This."


smbc rocks
If Fox News were around in 1955, we'd still have polio.