3+4 and 2+5 equal 7
birthdays, new years, fires, childhood, universe
Here is a link to mutual aid for L.A. fire victims, as well as to California conservation efforts which, e.g., remove invasive eucalyptus, a huge wildfire risk.
Hello from the other side of the new year, which was nine days ago, and my birthday, which was yesterday. In order to get a sense of time, on my birthday, I double my age. I am now as close to 68 as I am to 0, which lends a little weight to the time I have lived and still hopefully have to live. I look forward at some point to this doubling encouraging the contemplation of total annihilation1, i.e. death.
And in order to get a sense of time for the new year, I consider the year 1925 and how it feels in relation to 1891 and 1900 and 2000. A lot — a lot! — happened between 1900 and 1925, including e.g., Einstein’s work on relativity, the dissolution of the Ottoman empire2, Kittyhawk, World War 1, the Bolshevik revolution, the Surrealism manifesto, etc. And then another 75 years until the year 2000! 2000… 2025… 2100?
Just trying to add some weight to time.
It is so easy to be lulled to sleep by California. I mean just look
Today, January 9, I laid out four pillows in the garden in the late afternoon sun. The air perfectly still and temperate; just enough sun to warm my cheeks and the backs of my hands. My nervous system soothed, I slept.
Yet 250 miles south fires rage hot enough to melt apartment buildings. To raze neighborhoods to the ground. To send terrified animals and families fleeing to — to where?
It is all, horribly, expected, predicted:
The Los Angeles area is 2.5 degrees warmer than the early 20th century. Last year, southern California received less than 20% of its average yearly precipitation3. I can think of at least two climate fiction books where fires ravage LA in the 21st century: Parable of the Sower and the Deluge.
My friend Thomas of tosam studios coined the term “unseasonal depression”, as in, the existential spiral that accompanies a pleasantly warm February day in the Netherlands (where the month is characterized, generally, by freezing rain in the dark). In this century all joy will be tempered.
Home in California for a few weeks, I made my way through the last few boxes of childhood. Please indulge me because I really love some of these drawings, which feel for the most part unfamiliar and somehow alive:
Qhat seems to strike me is what strikes Lynda Barry in Syllabus
“what if the way kids draw — that kind of line we call childish — what if that is what a line looks like when someone is having an experience by hand? a live wire! there is an aliveness in these drawings that can’t be faked, and when we look at them, that aliveness seems to come into me”
or as Hélène Cixous’ puts it in the second essay in Stigmata, the “that sharp thing… the nerve… the instant of alteration.” Yes, she’s talking about, like, Renoir and here i am talking about art I made when I was 6, forgive me, but I think it holds! There is something alive in these images that I am chasing as a 34-year-old adult!
“— when do we draw?
— when we were little. before the violent divorce between Good and Evil. all was mingled then, and no mistakes. only desire, trial, and error.”
I wonder what I was thinking about when I made these. I wish I remembered making them.
My favorite piece is, arguably, my first zine. Published in 1997, it spells out my name, accompanied by words that start with that letter and drawings made in ms paint. Down with ai! Up with drawing with a USB mouse!
and of course, my child self offers substantial perspective:
I am not huge on new year’s resolutions but I am trying a few things out. One is copying as many of Joan Miró’s artworks as i can find using whatever materials I have on hand. I am hoping this will help me better understand composition, color, and “that sharp thing.” In California I have a set of children’s pastels.
It has been interesting so far because sometimes these copies fail, and sometimes they work, but I often only feel or can realize this near the very end of the process. I am seeking, I think, the “abundance of leaves” —
“I want the beforehand of a book… I want the forest before the book, the abundance of leaves before the pages…. I want the world of pulses, before destiny, I want the prenatal and anonymous night.” - Hélène Cixous
Another is to read a varied set of longer books:
*Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu (currently finding it somewhat insufferable - help?)
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert, translated by lydia davis
Always Coming Home - Ursula K. Le Guin4
Middlemarch - George Elliot
a collection of Edith Wharton’s short stories
Dylan Thomas’ collected poems
The Dawn of Everything - David Graeber
The Warmth of Other Suns - Isabel Wilkerson
begin In Search of Lost Time - Proust
Calling from the East - Peter Frankopan (if I can find a used copy, otherwise I’ll listen to the Silk Road)
The Fall of Constantinople - Steven Runciman
Working - Robert Caro
Mushroom at the End of the World — Anna Tsing
Let me know if you’re interested in reading any of these together, though I am sure this list will change.
And a final goal, which I keep hedging, is to write here twice a month. At the beginning of a month, I’ll send out a recap of the previous month’s books, movies, art, Wikipedia rabit holes, etc à la last october’s. In the middle of the month, expect an essay of a sort. Today being the 9th, which is neither of the beginning nor the middle, well…
Cheers,
Elizabeth
literally the “act of reducing to non-existence”, not much different than its Latin root
Anjali turned me on to the podcast Empire, and I am obsessed. I have listened to 15 hours this week. Last year I went down a rabbit hole reading about women in 1500s Constantinople and baby, we’re back!
Change the date to december 31, 2024. The dark grey areas received 0-20% of their yearly average precipitation.
have started and stopped this one so many times
So many thoughts popped up when I read through your text. Firstly, thanks for sharing. I got a bit lost in the numbers, but enjoyed the confusion. Secondly, what a fun idea to copy Miró with bits of whatever! Thirdly, thanks for giving me ideas of what books to search for and bite into next!