WORDS WORDS WORDS
WORDS WORDS WORDS
That is writing: grasping something, then letting it go. Watching something materialize then fade away.
That is writing: grasping something, then letting it go. Watching something materialize then fade away.
It is this that moves me: the inner world painted on top of the outer. Images true to both the visual and emotional reality of life. Accepting both, not either-or. The dreamed-of and the lived. The poetic and the mundane.
It is this that moves me: the inner world painted on top of the outer. Images true to both the visual and emotional reality of life. Accepting both, not either-or. The dreamed-of and the lived. The poetic and the mundane.
At the precipice of the end of the world, we are desperate for a perfect hero, desperate for someone trustworthy and honest and noble, desperate for the character of the wise, passionate, communicative scientist we met in grade school. But in our times there are no earthly gods: they grow old, sign brand deals, become angry, tired, self-certain, and vague.
At the precipice of the end of the world, we are desperate for a perfect hero, desperate for someone trustworthy and honest and noble, desperate for the character of the wise, passionate, communicative scientist we met in grade school. But in our times there are no earthly gods: they grow old, sign brand deals, become angry, tired, self-certain, and vague.
After I learned of Takahashi’s death, memories emerged in me like the voices touched to life in ancient relics.
After I learned of Takahashi’s death, memories emerged in me like the voices touched to life in ancient relics.
We do not have what the others have: this is why we imagine and read.
We do not have what the others have: this is why we imagine and read.
You do not need textbooks or magnifying glasses to appreciate this art: gaze on it and you will feel and believe.
You do not need textbooks or magnifying glasses to appreciate this art: gaze on it and you will feel and believe.
He dreamt of passing others in masks, not able to read their eyes, people hidden behind large face shields and gloves, making it through the loneliness, confronting themselves in a world slowed to silence, like how it always was before people barged in with their ruckus and their weapons, with their egomania and their rage, with their inconsolable sorrow.
He dreamt of passing others in masks, not able to read their eyes, people hidden behind large face shields and gloves, making it through the loneliness, confronting themselves in a world slowed to silence, like how it always was before people barged in with their ruckus and their weapons, with their egomania and their rage, with their inconsolable sorrow.
Like a sherpa, Tokarczuk guides us faithfully to the heights of imagination, where the seen and unseen commingle, where words suffuse the sky and ground like mist, and where we labor, tire, wonder, gain strength, shiver in frost and warm our hands by fire, glimpse apparitions, discover our species fossilized in ice, journey to the sky, and marvel at the beauty and mystery of life in that delicate, rarefied air.
Like a sherpa, Tokarczuk guides us faithfully to the heights of imagination, where the seen and unseen commingle, where words suffuse the sky and ground like mist, and where we labor, tire, wonder, gain strength, shiver in frost and warm our hands by fire, glimpse apparitions, discover our species fossilized in ice, journey to the sky, and marvel at the beauty and mystery of life in that delicate, rarefied air.
But can the genuine penetrate the TikTok voice? Can we find beauty or peace in washed out filters? Can we be healed by the tools that induce our pain?
But can the genuine penetrate the TikTok voice? Can we find beauty or peace in washed out filters? Can we be healed by the tools that induce our pain?
My generation grew up in the 1990s and 2000s learning the story of civilian death. Mass shootings remained behind the TV screen, uncanny horrors that seemed too distant to be human. In school, we would huddle in dark corners in preparation for death.
My generation grew up in the 1990s and 2000s learning the story of civilian death. Mass shootings remained behind the TV screen, uncanny horrors that seemed too distant to be human. In school, we would huddle in dark corners in preparation for death.
Every night for two and a half months, Novak Djokovic woke to sirens and fled to his grandfather’s basement as bombs fell on Belgrade. He was an anonymous child in a country without global legends. One night his father placed ten Deutschmarks on the table: this was all they had.
Every night for two and a half months, Novak Djokovic woke to sirens and fled to his grandfather’s basement as bombs fell on Belgrade. He was an anonymous child in a country without global legends. One night his father placed ten Deutschmarks on the table: this was all they had.
Lying alone in the blue-lit dark I swipe through videos the algorithm feeds me of people crying at their phone cameras in their cars, the young monologuing about lost hope, viral psychologists lecturing on trauma, the fit juxtaposing morose selfies with photos of their biceps and glutes bulging like hot air balloons, the cosmic casting spells and affirmations to “manifest an ex,” and anonymous 20-year-old women in my city documenting how they cooked oatmeal, went to the gym, organized their cabinets, called old friends, read a book, opened journals, outlined their futures, and reflected on themselves — a solitary drama I cannot turn from, a quiet triumph in the pained carnival of our digital, contemporary world.
Lying alone in the blue-lit dark I swipe through videos the algorithm feeds me of people crying at their phone cameras in their cars, the young monologuing about lost hope, viral psychologists lecturing on trauma, the fit juxtaposing morose selfies with photos of their biceps and glutes bulging like hot air balloons, the cosmic casting spells and affirmations to “manifest an ex,” and anonymous 20-year-old women in my city documenting how they cooked oatmeal, went to the gym, organized their cabinets, called old friends, read a book, opened journals, outlined their futures, and reflected on themselves — a solitary drama I cannot turn from, a quiet triumph in the pained carnival of our digital, contemporary world.
If there were a guide for every reader, mine would include notes on being called the wrong name. The reader’s guide to my life would be a guide to being misread, a guide to growing up mispronounced
If there were a guide for every reader, mine would include notes on being called the wrong name. The reader’s guide to my life would be a guide to being misread, a guide to growing up mispronounced
Now he is a ghost, a shadow of the living, and to conjure a ghost we must speak and we must remember, we must will, will, will that person back into existence, before the murder and the obit’s line, back into time.
Now he is a ghost, a shadow of the living, and to conjure a ghost we must speak and we must remember, we must will, will, will that person back into existence, before the murder and the obit’s line, back into time.
Speaking with Olga Tokarczuk at the Ex-Centrum conference. Credit: Max Pflegel | WDL