Aug 11, 2022·edited Aug 11, 2022Liked by Antonia Malchik
I haven't been checking newsletters much the last month so there's a few to catch up with here, but as soon as I get a deadline out of the way I'm excited to check out the full-length overview for your upcoming book - that earlier description sounded awesome! In the meantime, passive person that I am, I was dutifully waiting for some kind of automatic notification that you had initiated paid subscription option. But now I see it's been up top for awhile. Oh well.
"Find the right questions; find better questions. Be curious about everything, but maybe our own assumptions most of all." While I continue searching for the right question, I will borrow this nifty answer of yours if that's OK.
So many great links, as usual! I've ordered the Debra Magpie Earling novel and look forward to reading it! I hope as I type this that you're enjoying your getaway and the volunteer trail crew work. I hope you'll write about it when you get back!
Dictatorships of spin - How apt! Thinking of all the ways our attentional resources are turned, twisted and milked to ultimately serve the interests of the wealthiest. And yet, we're made to believe that the friction free life, mediated by tech and disembodied consumerism, is the desirable kind. Your closing offerings form the perfect counterweight to the draw of "grim books." I literally just read a few chapters of Red Paint while visiting a friend yesterday! The universe has been everything but subtle in its messaging for me lately. LOL Thanks for this nourishing salad of a post.
So great to finally get a chance to connect in person!
I've spent the week rereading Perma Red. I didn't realize at first it was a re-issue, and kept thinking, "don't I know this book?" but oh, was it worth it.
"I have finally enabled payments! This will be about the last free “walking composition” post, as those will be for paid subscribers only, but remember you can, if needed, email me the code word “tribble” to enable a paid subscription, no questions asked."
At some point there may be trouble with tribbles, but I switched on the paid sub.
"Unfortunately, the question that gnawed me after finishing that book was that their suggestions require in the first place leaders who value democracy above many other considerations and who are uncorrupted by desire to increase their own wealth + power; and in the second, large majorities of voting people who require the same both of their leaders and themselves."
That was the issue to start with in the United States: it was all about liberty for rich guys and the elites controlling individual states, but also about keeping both the enslaved and the hoi polloi under control. Unfortunately for people who think that 'freedom for rich people, dictatorship for the rest' undermined themselves with the civil war, and the the US passed some amendments that said things. So now we have the Federalist society as a response ('Let's get back to the good old days of slavery and low taxes!') - which is hilarious since the sort of people who populate the Federalist society mostly would've hated the Federalist (and their Whig successors) party, back when it existed. Never underestimate the ability of wingers to edit the truth out of history.
"We are saddled, all these authors seem to be saying, with leaders who are incapable of making choices that threaten their own positions, much less their potential for material gain."
Persistently over all of human history, I am sorry to say. See late Republican Rome but also see Hellenistic Greece (and the revolutions of 1848, the French Revolution, et cetera et cetera ad nauseam, ad infinitum. Most of it is unnecessary, and as lot of it is simply destructive of the people who engage in it, but there it is.
"Read his story “Featherweight” in The New Yorker,"
Working on it! There is so much to read!
elm
at least the covid-19 didn't stay so much this time
Looked up all the books on my library ap, and none of them were listed. Typical. I can get really arcane books at a finger touch. Off to a trip to the brick and mortar to complain and special order. That’s the good thing about the library. Once you ask for it, it gets in the system. I encourage others to do the same. And thanks for the list, one of my favorite substackers the irritable Matisse was also an author at the festival
I haven't been checking newsletters much the last month so there's a few to catch up with here, but as soon as I get a deadline out of the way I'm excited to check out the full-length overview for your upcoming book - that earlier description sounded awesome! In the meantime, passive person that I am, I was dutifully waiting for some kind of automatic notification that you had initiated paid subscription option. But now I see it's been up top for awhile. Oh well.
"Find the right questions; find better questions. Be curious about everything, but maybe our own assumptions most of all." While I continue searching for the right question, I will borrow this nifty answer of yours if that's OK.
So many great links, as usual! I've ordered the Debra Magpie Earling novel and look forward to reading it! I hope as I type this that you're enjoying your getaway and the volunteer trail crew work. I hope you'll write about it when you get back!
So thankful for the links to the festival speakers and the other writers you listed--can't wait to read their work.
Dictatorships of spin - How apt! Thinking of all the ways our attentional resources are turned, twisted and milked to ultimately serve the interests of the wealthiest. And yet, we're made to believe that the friction free life, mediated by tech and disembodied consumerism, is the desirable kind. Your closing offerings form the perfect counterweight to the draw of "grim books." I literally just read a few chapters of Red Paint while visiting a friend yesterday! The universe has been everything but subtle in its messaging for me lately. LOL Thanks for this nourishing salad of a post.
Man, the croak of the sandhill just hooks me every damn time. Makes me feel like Ulysses among the sirens.
Don't do Facebook, hope the festival uploads to YouTube.
By the way, wonderful writing of course.
Another wonderful post Antonia. You have an amazing talent to paint a visual image in your writing.
So great to finally get a chance to connect in person!
I've spent the week rereading Perma Red. I didn't realize at first it was a re-issue, and kept thinking, "don't I know this book?" but oh, was it worth it.
I hope to read some of your suggestions and the sound of the birds…thanks for that.
"I have finally enabled payments! This will be about the last free “walking composition” post, as those will be for paid subscribers only, but remember you can, if needed, email me the code word “tribble” to enable a paid subscription, no questions asked."
At some point there may be trouble with tribbles, but I switched on the paid sub.
"Unfortunately, the question that gnawed me after finishing that book was that their suggestions require in the first place leaders who value democracy above many other considerations and who are uncorrupted by desire to increase their own wealth + power; and in the second, large majorities of voting people who require the same both of their leaders and themselves."
That was the issue to start with in the United States: it was all about liberty for rich guys and the elites controlling individual states, but also about keeping both the enslaved and the hoi polloi under control. Unfortunately for people who think that 'freedom for rich people, dictatorship for the rest' undermined themselves with the civil war, and the the US passed some amendments that said things. So now we have the Federalist society as a response ('Let's get back to the good old days of slavery and low taxes!') - which is hilarious since the sort of people who populate the Federalist society mostly would've hated the Federalist (and their Whig successors) party, back when it existed. Never underestimate the ability of wingers to edit the truth out of history.
"We are saddled, all these authors seem to be saying, with leaders who are incapable of making choices that threaten their own positions, much less their potential for material gain."
Persistently over all of human history, I am sorry to say. See late Republican Rome but also see Hellenistic Greece (and the revolutions of 1848, the French Revolution, et cetera et cetera ad nauseam, ad infinitum. Most of it is unnecessary, and as lot of it is simply destructive of the people who engage in it, but there it is.
"Read his story “Featherweight” in The New Yorker,"
Working on it! There is so much to read!
elm
at least the covid-19 didn't stay so much this time
Thank you so much, Nia. I'm going to my indie bookstore to order some of these books, and I'm also subscribing as we speak!
Looked up all the books on my library ap, and none of them were listed. Typical. I can get really arcane books at a finger touch. Off to a trip to the brick and mortar to complain and special order. That’s the good thing about the library. Once you ask for it, it gets in the system. I encourage others to do the same. And thanks for the list, one of my favorite substackers the irritable Matisse was also an author at the festival