. . . there’s something in this that feels unbalanced and i can’t decide if it the shape of the pavement or another aspect

Finished reading: A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa 📚Ní Ghríofa blends memoir and literary criticism to tell the story of Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill and her poem “Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire.” It works extraordinarily well to convey the oral tradition of the poem and the reality of being a woman. It lives on my shelf of favorite books with many dog-eared pages. Beautifully lyric passages and deeply-considered musings. A++

edit: Here’s a lovely review in the New York Times

“An utterance consigning…(a person or thing) to spiritual and temporal evil, the vengeance of the deity, the blasting of malignant fate” — OED, curse, n. 1

Is a “NO” painted on the back of a sign a curse against the opposing team? The sport? The ball (to prevent it landing in the drainage ditch)?

Fire, that trickster’s loot, that gift from the gods, burned more than 4,000,000 acres of my home state last year—a number so vast it is mere abstraction. Most of the impacts of climate change are abstractions until they’re at your own door. How about this: the amount of California that’s gone missing is almost equivalent to the state of Massachusetts in size.

— Lauren Markham for The Longest Year: 2020+ at Literary Hub.

it’s all abstractions, all the way down, each resting on the next one’s back

Finished reading: The Summer of Kim Novak by Håkan Nesser 📚Nesser writes a mesmerizing character in Erik. He is both transparent and opaque, a forty-nine year old remembering life at fourteen. The narrative of Erik’s internal life as he passes through adolecence and is fascinated by both women and “childish” pursuits is one of the truest depictions of the socialization of adult life I’ve read. Highly recommended. Translated by Saskia Vogel