compersion & limerence

What I Cried About On Wednesday, Week of 3/20 whatever, by felinejumper

SO. Valeria Luiselli's Lost Children Archive. It's a road trip novel, a novel about a dissolving marriage, a novel about echoes and sound and memory, about the stories children and adults tell to each other, and a novel about, god, missing migrant children, children getting lost, the human atrocity of the U.S.-Mexico border. (fwiw it is also, almost incidentally, queer, but her queerness is layered amongst backstory and not at all a narrative priority.) It was a very incredibly good and intense read and I strongly recommend it while also feeling exceedingly odd about recommending a book that is...joyful but not about a joyful subject, mayhap.

( more thoughts )

1. hello, I am TRAVELING and will be doing so for the next ~3 weeks. Please send me all your best posts in the meantime on any topic (this is an entirely serious request), and please forgive me for dropping any other threads!
   
   
2. Bruno Latour, the Post-Truth Philosopher, Mounts a Defense of Science @ the NYTimes. I found this a really delightful and moving read, and very close to my own heart. If your interests are in climate change, science studies, philosophy, or cross-disciplinary collaboration...or philosophical banter!
   

   Impressed by Latour’s dedication, Gaillardet remarked that Latour could have been a scientist. The idea seemed almost too much for him to bear.
   
   “I could have been a scientist,” Latour said with arch gravity. “I’ve wasted my life.”
   “Oh, Bru-no!” Gaillardet said, in the way in which one might comfort a wounded bird.
   “To produce one fact!” Latour sighed, and pointed a finger in the air, as though to demonstrate its indisputable solidity. There was an ache in his eyes. “Can you imagine the pleasure of producing one fact?”

   
   
3. Love Is Not a Permanent State of Enthusiasm: An Interview with Esther Perel @ The New Yorker. On divorce, infidelity, couples counseling. The last line is *chef kiss* perfect.
   

   I think that definition today of love—“you are my everything”—where you really see it, this complete exaltation, is in wedding vows. Have you ever noticed? I mean, it’s, “I will wipe every tear that streams down your face before you even notice it’s going down.” I think a realistic vow is “I will fuck up on a regular basis, and, on occasion, I’ll admit it.”

   
   
4. I started Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism and was immediately drawn in. And. Wow. I want to excerpt it breathedout-style, but I don't know how to pull out, say, this passage about, uh, scapegoating the Jewish community and retain all of the context. The context feels very important.
   
   
5. "The Daddy Thing” by K. C. Mead-Brewer, and I will quote the official recommender --
   

   “You must listen to me, Juana,” her mother says, believing she is speaking metaphorically. “This is the way the story ends, you understand? This is the way it always ends… Vampires are parasites and they’ll take every drop you give them.”
   
   Better that you get the story filtered through the eyes of Juana, who perceives the violence of her household as only a child can: in half understood shadows, the sound of her mother crying, a BANG BANG BANG on the door. “The sound that hits you, as if you yourself were the door.”

   
   
   
6. My long term partner is reading…fanfiction… independently of me. He asked me for recs yesterday. I am breathless with anticipation + going to write him a Yuletide-style gift!
   
   
7. I have in the past week developed a crush on a good friend & occasional partner (who has also been privy to the breakup nonsense) and it is, wow, a truly frightening emotion. Flirting While Trans is just like "hey so I was thinking about monsters and whether they're internal or not" and "this is the sternocleidomastoid muscle" and "do you know how seaborn works I can't get this countplot to display correctly" (incidentally, does anyone know how seaborn works?). So the flirting is good and they're non-monogamously experienced and I trust them for no good reason and crushes are fun and I am scaaared out of my mind. A wild emotional ride, is 2019 (already!!! Why? Am I like this?! Could we chill for thirty seconds?)
   ( crushes & gender in increasingly small text )