I’ve been thinking about the many other people who have been killed by police. As a Black man, this is something I have witnessed all my life. We have been through this so much. Sometimes we don’t even know what to say because the hurt is so bad. How do you come up with solutions so quickly when you are in pain? That is why it is hard for me to even say where I am going to go from here. I don’t know. All we want is to be treated like humans. We want to live. That is all we want.
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Image found via The Conscious Kid, credited to Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence, 2005 and adapted by Ellen Tuzzolo, 2016; Mary Julia Cooksey Cordero, 2019. Via the Call Your Girlfriend newsletter.
the word frizzy is so good to describe people. from paul ford’s newsletter (i guess i’m hooked):
“There were lots of other people taking constitutionals [at Green-Wood Cemetery], but it was overall very calm and easy to stay distant. Everyone looks frizzy in a special way that New Yorkers get frizzy. I can’t define it. The rougher we get the more defiant we are about it. Eventually people are wearing six T-shirts instead of a winter coat and smoking.”
Further along the span of the [Manhattan] bridge I saw a bouquet of flowers, left against the railing. Usually these are memorials and I hurry past. Ghost bikes, memorials, plaques, and murals—if you’re not cautious the entire city becomes a graveyard. But then I saw this bouquet had a letter on top, addressed to, “For when I tried to jump.” The air went out of me. But soon joy rushed back in.
Celebrate with me, just a moment, something good and alive that we may never understand, one decision out of seven billion—this stranger leaving the flowers, then walking away from their envelope, hands empty, as light as the wind off the river.
Mr. Floyd’s case began with a report of a counterfeit $20 bill that a storekeeper said he tried to pass to buy cigarettes.
“He died for nothing — something about a fake bill — that was nothing,” said Jason Polk, 53, a city bus driver and one of a number of South Minneapolis residents who have expressed outrage over the case.
resources to help here, and information about the need for reparations.
been thinking about amazon and online shops and how all order fulfillment has slowed down. it feels kind of important, that shift away from instant gratification. i felt like that demand — the expectation of immediate service, constantly — led to all kinds of bad behavior. (if you’ve ever looked at yelp, travelocity, etc., you know what i’m talking about. the comments are straight up fireballs.)
i wonder if we can hold onto that after all this.
(“after all this”)
unrelated, saw this poppy growing in the street yesterday (NOT a symbolic photo).
I got a physical soon after I quit [smoking] by a quirky doctor from Santa Monica with a stud earring in his left ear who, he himself, was a former smoker. “I miss it,” he’d tell me. “But remember, it will kill you and you can never ever smoke again.” He scanned my lungs and they weren’t as bad as I thought–no emphysema, no cancer–but I did have the lung capacity of a man of 65 (or thereabouts). He assured me that my lungs would improve with time–as long as I didn’t ever smoke again. I negotiated with him for one cigarette each day (like Obama!), but he wouldn’t budge.
“You can never smoke again.”
I see him twice a year and he patiently lets me run through this same routine each time. On a recent visit he struck a bargain with me. “I’ll tell you what, if there’s a news report that a meteor is about to hit the earth and there’s no chance of survival, I’ll set up two lawn chairs in front of my house and you and I will smoke a whole pack together.”
I admit the prospect excited me and some days I’m hopeful an all-caps report about the meteor of imminent doom will pop up on my news feed.
A couple weeks ago I went to see him for a checkup on my cough and I inquired about a coronavirus test. He wouldn’t give me one, but I followed up with the more pressing question.
“If this gets real bad does it count as the meteor? Can we smoke then?”
He stared at me for an extra long beat, clearly processing the question.
-Jay-Z being presented with various beats for the Black Album for the first time and rapping over them in these clips taken from the concert movie “Fade to Black” – With Kanye West (“This record ain’t a record. It’s a movie.”) – With Timbaland (“Every rapper that’s out that’s supposed to be so-called hot will be terminated.”) – With Pharrell (“Your career right now, this is the end of ‘Carlito’s Way.’”) – With Rick Rubin(“You some type of lawyer or something?”)
