Category: Meta

  • The sounds of 2017

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    Last year, I set a little project for myself. I’d gotten back to listening to music in earnest, and since depression and lack of practice kept me from writing an adequate record of my year, I decided to remember in aural impressions instead. And so started my 2017 playlist. I didn’t set hard rules for…

    A pair of black headphones against a solid yellow background
  • Thinking about trains*

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    * Did I struggle not to make “train of thought” puns? Maybe. (Update: We’re back in the Bay Area!) Mass transit has been on my mind recently. In a piece for The New York Times, Jonathan Mahler examines the (in)famous New York subway’s deterioration and makes the case for the system’s repair and maintenance, if…

    Photo of subway passengers
  • Learning Los Angeles

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    Our departure from Los Angeles has been delayed a day, thanks to the arrival of 2018’s first storm. Flash flood warnings have been up all morning, and the freeway that would have brought us to Union Station — Highway 101 — lost 30 miles to water and mud. We soldiered on for a bit, trying to…

    A sunset photo of the Los Angeles skyline
  • Switching on

    The internet contains a near-infinite number of rabbit holes to get lost in. For the past couple of years, I’ve been scurrying down whichever ones I could find. I tend to do that during depressive slumps: hole up in my room, laptop perched on my knees and a network of virtual escapes at my fingertips.…

    Photo of a lighthouse against a dark backdrop
  • As T.H. White’s Merlyn says,

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  • Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells These Stories: Orlando and Narratives of Trauma

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    “There are no words.” There’s also no counting how many times I’ve said that in response to various facets of the Orlando shooting: first, the burst of reports; then the rising death toll; then the slow unraveling of each victim’s biography; and then, the aftermath, the responses — in forms both heartwarmingly compassionate and shamelessly…