H12021 Reading Diary
Scribbledehobble
I keep a notebook to collect items of interest and inspiration derived from my reading & listening. This is a curated collection of the best bits, updated monthly.
January 2021
“Even before I’d ever read a big novel, I had this idea of looking out the window in Chicago at a whole neighbourhood spread out and thinking: life’s going on in every one of those houses — would there be a way to represent it simultaneously? So it’s definitely that kind of ambition. But then: how? How? That’s the question.” — George Saunders, The Guardian
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Think about your reading list for the year. Try to be intentional about the books you’re collecting, and consider what you want to read — and why. Is there a theme to it? Is there a particular joy you’re chasing? — Joan Westenberg, Tiny Spells #264
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“But then I suppose January is a tough month for everyone.” — Kevin Barry, “Old Stock,” That Old Country Music
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“The gentlest people I know are full of rage and grief.” — Alexander Chee, Twitter, Jan 14, 2021 at 10:50 PM
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“The president continues to talk about wanting to pardon himself, they said.” — The Washington Post, Jan 15, 2021
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SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, let me just say that first about my members, I’ve asked all of them to write a journal to record how they saw it. I said, “This is history. Your perspective, your individual perspectives are a very important part of that. And then in another month, I want you to write again your perspective,” because this is a pain that people will carry.
HRC: Yes.
SPEAKER PELOSI: It’s a big scar on our nation. And again, people felt it very up close and personal then. So, I’ve asked them all. I said, “This will be the historic record.” And so, I’m very excited about seeing what they put down there because the world should know.
— Bonus Episode: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, You and Me Both with Hillary Clinton, January 18, 2021
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“Sometimes I feel like academic research moves into the mainstream way too slowly! Think about ‘intersectionality,’ for instance. I feel like that term has really only come into the larger cultural conversation in the past few years. But, what’s wild is the fact that Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term in 1989!” — Ida Yalzadeh, Substack’s What to Read interview series
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TIME: You once said that the bout with vertigo and nausea you had in the summer of 1968 was not an inappropriate response to that period. What’s an appropriate response to 2020?
Didion: Vertigo and nausea sound right.
— Lucy Feldman, “‘My Wine Bills Have Gone Down.’ How Joan Didion Is Weathering the Pandemic,” TIME Magazine, January 22, 2021
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Mr. Trump seemed somewhat swayed by the idea that firing Mr. Rosen would trigger not only chaos at the Justice Department, but also congressional investigations and possibly recriminations from other Republicans and distract attention from his efforts to overturn the election results.
After nearly three hours, Mr. Trump ultimately decided that Mr. Clark’s plan would fail, and he allowed Mr. Rosen to stay.
Mr. Rosen and his deputies concluded they had weathered the turmoil. Once Congress certified Mr. Biden’s victory, there would be little for them to do until they left along with Mr. Trump in two weeks.
They began to exhale days later as the Electoral College certification at the Capitol got underway. And then they received word: The building had been breached.
— Katie Benner, “Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General,” The New York Times, January 22, 2021
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“Meanwhile, Los Angeles County has opened five large-scale coronavirus vaccination sites with a goal of inoculating 20,000 people daily. The sites are at the Forum in Inglewood, Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, Cal State Northridge, the Fairplex in Pomona and the L.A. County Office of Education’s Downey Education Center. Another site, run by the city of Los Angeles, is up and running at Dodger Stadium.” — Amina Khan, “Coronavirus Today,” The Los Angeles Times, January 20, 2021
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“The trial will begin February 9, and is expected to be shorter than Trump’s first impeachment trial, since the charges are simpler and the evidence clearer.” — Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, January 22, 2021
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“By putting his own life on the line and successfully, singlehandedly leading insurrectionists away from the floor of the Senate Chamber, Officer Eugene Goodman performed his duty to protect the Congress with distinction, and by his actions Officer Goodman left an indelible mark on American history.”
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When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast,
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions
of what just is
isn’t always just-ice.
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.
We the successors of a country and a time
where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes we are far from polished.
Far from pristine.
But that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge a union with purpose,
to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us,
but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true,
that even as we grieved, we grew,
that even as we hurt, we hoped,
that even as we tired, we tried,
that we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat,
but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time,
then victory won’t lie in the blade.
But in all the bridges we’ve made,
that is the promise to glade,
the hill we climb.
If only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth,
in this faith we trust.
For while we have our eyes on the future,
history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption
we feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter.
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert,
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was,
but move to what shall be.
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free.
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation,
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain,
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy,
and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west.
We will rise from the windswept northeast,
where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.
We will rise from the sunbaked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful.
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid,
the new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
— Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”
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“The whole record is really about transitions. When I was in the studio, I was talking to my friend David Garza, who played on a few tracks, about my vision for the record. And he said something to the effect of, that’s what music does. It helps us with transitions: Transitions in and out of relationships. Transitions into new phases of life. Transitions for everything. And certainly for times of the day, right? And that’s really what this record is hoping to do, is help that transition from day to night, from real to surreal, from actual, tangible things to the imaginary. And at its best, that’s what evening time is for. So that was my great hope for the album.” — Sara Watkins, “Sara Watkins Debuts ‘Pure Imagination’ Video, Previews New Children’s Record,” Variety
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“If fiction dictates that a writer identify only the race of non-white characters, then craft is a tool used to normalize whiteness.” — Matthew Salesses, Craft in the Real World
