One day,
we’ll be left to dig
in the record crates
of this recent history,
looking for someone
with their finger pointed
in our new direction.
Released today,
Phoebe Bridgers sings:
And when your skinhead neighbour
goes missing, I’ll plant a garden.
Instead of Clint Black singing:
I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout tomorrow,
I’ve been lost in yesterday.
Somewhere between those
is a definition of whiteness.
Overheard:
so you want to do
something on your land,
you can’t,
but if the city does it
they think they should get into heaven?
Vulgar Marxism
seems pretty tasty now.
One thing I love
about Twitter is the way
my liking of your post
dunking on some random racist
through a quote tweet
inadvertently platforms
some racist invective
because that’s the way
the algorithm works.
I wanted to add a deep worry
to the discourse
over whether we’ll learn
to manage the future
the way an algorithm does.
Watching streams of
The Last of Us Part II,
it turns out that humans
are the real problem.
The white fantasy
of murder-spree-as-method
just one form of practice
for the end times.
Scissors plus tape
equals a shiv.
Alcohol plus rag
equals both a med kit
and a molotov.
Twenty some hours
mastering sightline geometry
followed by the moral
that all the murder you did
is bad.
The game innovates
by replacing the white man
using his assault rifle
to protect the family unit
with two white women
beating each other
at the edge of the ocean
of their grief over
men holding rifles.
The virgin Abby vs.
the chad Ellie.
Really, we’re left
with a triad of possibilities:
the collectivized militia,
the queered couple form,
and the lone wolf murder agent.
In the problem of disentangling
our current carceral relation
while negotiating another relation,
it’s either chaos
or the stability of the monument.
The difference between
abolish the police
and defund the police?
The difference between
defund the police
and reform the police?
The difference between
reform the police
and better educate the police?
What if I’m really just afraid
that my murder skills
won’t be enough
to survive The Purge?
Or what if I’m too much in love
with social reproduction?
Something about the way soft
power compliments hard power.
Actual email from Instacart:
Taking Steps Toward
Actionable Change.
What’s the shortest distance
between this and
Kendal Jenner solving
police brutality by
giving a cop a Pepsi
with the ad copy:
The Revolution Will Not
Go Well With Coke!
But no true revolutionary
will admit that the complexity
of the situation
can feel intimidating.
The tunnel vision of memory
collapsing action
under its own weight.
I remember the corny joys
of listening to free-floating signifiers
of country music
over the shitty boom box
in my parents’ kitchen.
The reedy overproduction
of Alabama’s 1983 hit
“Dixieland Delight”:
A little turtle-dovin’ on
a Mason-Dixon night.
Bugs Bunny attempting
to cross into the lush
fertile South from
the desertified North
only to meet the belated rifle
of Yosemite Sam.
The romanticized antebellum
of my mom’s favourite movie.
If I admit that I care about
these things and the ways
they drifted up to Alberta,
how much does that
reinforce white supremacy?
And does mentioning them
constitute a kind of harm?
Photo by Danielle LaFrance