Category: essays
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Choreographed by Clouds
This text was created based on a prompt from choreographer Kristin Hatleberg. A recording of these texts accompanied her 35-minute performance “Choreographed by Clouds,” which debuted at Green Space dance incubator in Queens, New York City on April 8-9, 2022. Point of departure I. New message from Kristin. photo of a shadowy cloud over the…
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Plus Four
11:25 AM: The End CNN HAS CALLED THE ELECTION FOR BIDEN —Nate Silver 3 PM: Victory Lap When I saw Nate Silver’s post, I was mindlessly staring at my computer with four windows open to different election live election blogs, as I had been for much of the past five 105 days. I’d been pretending…
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Plus Three
7AM: Georgia While I slept, the vote count in Georgia began to show a lead for Biden. The votes in Pennsylvania continue to be counted, and the count continues to trend in Biden’s favor. Democrats encouraged mail-in voting, Trump denounced it, and state Republicans there blocked local election officials from counting mail-in ballots early. This…
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Plus Two
10 AM: Escape From Election Central Is the CNN election room a real place? It has the cold feel of an artificial environment, a Star Trek holodeck. The room is gleaming white with red and blue accents. It offers no glimpse of the outside world except for an occasional video backdrop of the White House…
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Plus One
I went to bed at about 1 a.m. last night, shortly after the cake I made cooled enough to wrap in foil. If I hadn’t started a baking project, I probably would have been a lazy mess of anxiety refreshing websites and Twitter on my couch while the TV rehashed the trickle of information again…
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Zero
There is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some diehard’s vote. -David Foster Wallace (via Anu Garg in this morning’s A.Word.A.Day) 11 AM: Election Day We have arrived. Today is Election Day. The sun is out. My phone…
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1 Day: The Wind
7 AM: High winds roared through D.C. overnight. The flags atop Nellie’s — the famous gay sports bar on the corner — are straining against the wind. The D.C. flag was tearing loose from its flagpole when I went to bed. It disappeared into the sky overnight. The U.S. flag and progress pride flag are…
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2 Days: Come Together
Today is the last Sunday of this 100-day countdown to the election. On Sundays, I’ve been posting one quick thing you can do to end Trump. The premise is that other people are reading this and a better use of our writing and reading time is doing something that will have a measurable direct impact…
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3 Days: Hold Steady
The election is in three days. All reports on early voting suggest turnout is high and climbing. High turnout usually helps Democrats. Surveys suggest Democrats are far more enthusiastic about voting. But it isn’t over until it’s over. Hold steady for three more days. Then we can dive in to what comes next: responding to…
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4 Days: Interview
Early in the year — in pre-pandemic times — I wrote about why I hadn’t read Little Women until then, prompted by the release of Greta Gerwig’s excellent film adaptation. It was a chance to examine my early reading habits. But yesterday’s post about alt-weeklies had me rethinking the story I told there. It’s true that…
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5 Days: Alt-Delete
Yesterday, the alt-weekly I grew up reading in Minneapolis published its last issue. City Pages, like many of the surviving alt-weekly newspapers around the country, had been shrinking and struggling. Every time I make my way back to Minneapolis to visit family, or for work, I still have been in the habit of seeking out…
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6 Days: Swarm
I’m thinking about what comes next. I know these six days are critical ones for getting out the vote. Not just for the Presidential race, but for Senate, house, and state and local races. But in places like Seattle, New York, and here in D.C. — places where Electoral College votes are sure to go…
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7 Days: Fast Forward to 2095
I intend to live to 120 years old or more. That brings us to the year 2095. Amy Coney Barrett will probably still be on the Supreme Court. She’s just a few years older than me. It’s a lifetime appointment. Women tend to live longer than men. And Supreme Court justices have access to some…
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8 Days: The Nonvoters’ Message
In any given election, between 35 and 60 percent of eligible voters don’t cast a ballot. —FiveThirtyEight This morning, as I was wrangling my thoughts below on non-voters, FiveThirtyEight posted a detailed poll-based analysis of who non-voters are and why they don’t vote. It’s far better than the cobbled together memes and Wikipedia pages I…
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9 Days: Cheer for Dallas?
On Sundays, I’ve been writing about one simple thing you can do to end Trump. At this point, I’ve covered all the things that matter. Vote. Sign up for phone banking or text banking. Make sure everyone you know votes. So, here’s one superstitious thing you can do that won’t make a difference but might…
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10 Days: Why Wait?
Today is Vote Early Day, a day for boosting awareness of early in-person voting. I’m posting this late at night, but that doesn’t mean you can’t vote early. Many states allow in person voting that includes the two Saturdays before Election Day. Others have expanded mail-in and absentee voting to make early voting easier (I…
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11 Days: The Wall
I welcomed a guest into my apartment on Friday for the first time since the pandemic began (other than an HVAC tech or two). We’ve both been Covid-cautious and had been tracking our potential exposures carefully. We agreed transmission risk was low. I wasn’t in the habit of having guests over last winter, so it…
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12 Days: Viaje
In this month of skeletons and zombies and pumpkin spice (link), it felt appropriate to watch Paz Fábrega’s minute Costa Rican romance Viaje from 2015 begin at a costume party. It was this month’s pick for Las Kikas Cine Club. As Viaje begins, a lonely young man in a bear costume hits on a woman…
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13 Days: Luck
When I realized on Tuesday that my next post in the countdown was number 13, I again started thinking about jinxes and luck. 13 is supposed to be an unlucky number. I’m a couple of posts behind because of a busy week with a client. Should I skip post 13 altogether? Older buildings have no…
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14 Days: Palace
“I like my songs to be reminders of certain things that I don’t want to forget.” —Adrianne Lenker Yesterday, I compared memories to ghosts and described how returning to a physical place often brings out these ghost-memories. Walking the city becomes a way of remembering. A map of the city can bring out memories too.…
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15 Days: Hauntings
On August 11, I received an email from La Colombe announcing, “pumpkin spice draft latte is back!” At the time, I was sweltering in my 90-degree apartment. My air conditioner had been broken for two months. With two fans pointed at me at all times, and a constant refill of ice cubes and cold drinks,…
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16 Days: Get Some Sleep
Today is a Sunday. On Sundays I’ve been writing shorter posts that offer one simple thing you can do to end Trump. One reason for this is that I like to spend less time on my computer on the weekends. It is a lot easier to write up a quick recommendation about someone else’s tool…
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17 Days: Loser
Yesterday, I engaged in some speculation. It felt good to imagine what comes next. It isn’t a certainty that Biden wins. FiveThirtyEight put it in dice-rolling, probability terms, as I did the other day. Trump’s chances are “a little worse than the chances of rolling a 1 on a six-sided die and a little better…
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18 Days: Prognostication
Somehow I’ve gone all day without hearing any sound bites from last night’s dueling town halls. Biden and Trump appeared on separate networks because Trump rejected the perfectly reasonable precaution of a remote debate amid his treatment for Covid-19. I read a few reports about the evening. They tell me Trump was an embarrassment to…
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19 Days: One Simple Trick
”One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.” Simone de Beauvoir When I started this series, I wasn’t sure what direction it would take or if I could sustain it for 100 days. With 19 days remaining, I have far…
Future Cartographic 