binomech's garden

Theme Switcher

We are a living biology

We break our story into eight parts because there are eight of us to tell it tonight. It is our job to be one-eighths of ourselves. We break our audience into eight clusters. We shift from cluster to cluster. We don’t do rows. We don’t do circles. What we do is cellular structure. We are a living biology. Every part is different each time. Each cluster is different every time. The story is the same. We have been broken so many times we are unbreakable. We have been forced apart so many times we are always connected. That is our story. We are growing smaller and smaller and larger and larger at the same time. It doesn’t matter in what order we get everything. It only matters that we get everything.

Source: Order by John Lee Clark

A serious thing to be alive

(…) it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world.

Source: podcastwizard

The world of happenings

When there is rest, everything else passes out of existence. To rest is not to be. To do is to be. Mine is not a world of being; it is a world of becoming. The world of being, the silent, still world where things simply are, that does not exist. The rockery, the pavilion, the skyline of high-rise flats, the flagpoles over the cricket ground, none of this is really there. The world of happenings, of movement and conflict, that is there.

Source: Notes on Blindness by John M. Hull

A forgotten sorrow

The Livermore Bulb probably did not have a soul. It was largely glass and filament through which electricity ran. It did not know us, and it did not know its own royalty.

It was the oldest functioning electric being in the known universe. It was our dearest ancestor. Year over year, century over century, it continued to astonish us: it was, after all, a light bulb that stayed on for more than 15,000 years without burning out or breaking. It was a miracle, and yet, it did not occur to us that it could die.

Perhaps in a more fearsome age, an age of illness and warfare and cosmic debris, we would not have room in our hearts to care for such a little bulb. But we are living in an age without loss. This is a sorrow we have forgotten how to experience.

Source: 17776

Heaven on Earth

…You ever wonder if this is Heaven now? You ever wonder if we’re all just there now and we don’t know it?

I’ve thought about that. All of us have. There’s a lot less people who go to church than there used to be, because that’s what a lot of people think.

But I don’t think so. But I think about it. And I think, well, I can’t be. Because I’m like you, I kinda look at the big long life ahead of me that stretches out forever and disappears. And I get scared. And I think, “this can’t be Heaven if I’m getting scared, right?”

And then I think, “maybe I am in Heaven, and Heaven is scary.”

Source: 17776

This concatenation

God doesn’t know
who you are. Here we are, working
so hard, assuming He’ll notice and show us
some sweetness, but He can’t tell,
in this concatenation, one from the next. All He senses
is everything’s running, everything’s replicating
smooth as can be. We’re down here crossing
every t: grading the hillsides, milling
the wheat, inflating the basketballs, riding sideseat
in the circulator bus called Hollywood Clockwise.
Sunset and Western. Sunset and St. Andrews.
We’re pumping into the air His preciousholl
six principal pollutants; we’re informing each other,
per His request, that who goes to Heaven
and who goes to Hell is more of a numbers game
than anything else. Sunset and Wilson. Sunset
and Gower. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Source: Hollywood Clockwise by Natalie Shapero

Light, just glowing

I’ve been thinking about what that’s like. Not existing, I mean.

Well, I guess we’ll never know.

Ten and Juice are really broken up about the bulb.

I know … I was so sad to hear about it. Truly tragic. It meant a lot to me, I can only imagine what y’all must be going through.

They’re more sad about it than me … it’s like they’re not used to saying goodbye to anything.

No, none of us are. Best problem to have, I suppose.

I guess so.

You know, my grandpa had this big neon sign he always had in the family room. It said “GO BROWNS” on it in big letters and had that brown helmet. I think he brought it home from one of his buddies at the bar or something, couldn’t say for sure.

My grandma thought it looked tacky, I remember she’d always say, “you can turn that thing on after I go to bed.” That was the compromise.

[laughing]

The night he passed away, I was staying the night. My grandma woke me up in the middle of the night and said a neighbor was coming by to watch me, that Grandpa had passed on. They’d already taken him away. And in the middle of everybody runnin’ around, there were a few minutes there where I was just there by myself in the family room, and that sign was the only thing on. And it just softly lit up the room in this beautiful sort of orange-y brown.

I was eight years old then, and I remember just kinda standing there and looking at the light, and the room. And you know what I thought?

I remember thinking how strange it was that the light was still on. I thought that, well, if he was gone, then the light he switched on should’ve turned off. That as soon as he went, everything should go with him.

But there it was, though. Just glowing.

Source: 17776

A Mural of a Mother and a Baby

Going under that water is like going back through time. Everything is like it was. All the buildings were built, all the cars were neatly parked, all the garbage cans were bolted to the sidewalk, by people who were afraid to die. It was the meticulous craftsmanship of terrified people.

We didn’t know we’d have each other for good. Back then there was real fear. Real worry. The world was all fucked up. I remember feeling so alone. Like I was the only one fighting it.

We were all in it together, though. Every stranger you ever met, they were fighting the very same fight you were. Of course, you didn’t talk about it with them, but all of us saw that terror, the terror any mortal person has. That terror wasn’t natural. No other creature in the universe woke up every morning knowing it was guaranteed to die one day. Just us. Nobody should have to live with that. It’s too much, it isn’t right. No one ever should have had to bear it.

But we did. We all stared it down and kept on going. And we did it together, we were all in it together. It felt lonely, but we were never alone.

We all had each other, no matter how often we forgot it. All of us, we always had each other.

Source: 17776

A note we never play anymore

You know, I never went to New York. Never even visited. I don’t know why I didn’t. I remember watching Sesame Street when I was little, and I liked how people would just sit on their steps and talk to each other in front of these nice and neat and square buildings. And all they had to do was cross the street or go next door to talk to each other.

Then I went to school, got a job, you know, you get busy. And it’s …

Who was it who said, uh, “even if life is forever, each moment of it is a miracle?” I think that’s just something we tell ourselves. We’re just ordinary and forever, I think. There’s a leveling out that happens if you live forever and ever without anything to lose.

New York was probably just one more place with a lot of buildings. But I missed seeing it, that’s a thing I lost. That’s one of the only things I’ve ever lost. Thinking about that kind of gets me right in the heart. Like a little xylophone hammer is, you know, just hits it. … It’s a note we never play anymore.

Source: 17776

Just a bookmark

“I wonder if there’s a single place in the whole world that’s never had a story. I bet not. I just about guarantee you there’s no places like that in America. Every little square of it, every place you stomp your foot, that’s where something happened. Something wild, maybe something nobody knows about, but something. You can fall out of the sky and right into some forgotten storybook.

You run and run and run and you keep turning pages and none of them are empty. They’re all full of stories. There’s nowhere left to write.

I think I’m just a bookmark.”

“Seems okay to me.”

Source: 17776

Be vigilant, I love you

Shivers: I AM LA REVACHOLIÈRE. I AM THE CITY.

You: What do you mean, you are the city?

Shivers: I AM A FRAGMENT OF THE WORLD SPIRIT, THE GENIUS LOCI OF REVACHOL. MY HEART IS THE WIND CORRIDOR. THE BOTTOM OF MY AIR IS RED. I HAVE A HUNDRED THOUSAND LUMINOUS ARMS. COME MORNING, I CARRY INDUSTRIAL DUST AND LET IT SETTLE ON TREE LEAVES. I SHAKE THE DUST FROM THOSE LEAVES AND ONTO YOUR COAT. I’VE SEEN YOU, I’VE SEEN YOU! I’VE SEEN YOU WITH HER — AND I’VE SEEN YOU WITHOUT HER. I’VE SEEN YOU ON THE CRESCENT OF THE HILL.

You: How are you talking to me?

Shivers: THE MODULATIONS OF MY VOICE ARE NOTED DOWN WITH THERMOMETERS AND BAROMETERS. YOU FEEL ME IN YOUR NOSTRILS, ON THE LITTLE HAIRS ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK. I ALSO RESIDE IN YOUR LUNGS AND VESTIGIAL ORGANS. EVERYWHERE THERE IS SPACE.

Rhetoric: All this eloquence — it’s in service of something. She’s afraid.

You: What are you afraid of?

Shivers: DEATH — IT IS TERRIFYING. I NEED YOU TO PROTECT ME FROM DEATH. I CANNOT PERISH. LOOK AT ME. I CANNOT END. IN 22 YEARS, THE FIRST SHOT WILL BE FIRED. NOT A SHOT FROM A GUN — AN ATOMIC DEVICE THAT WILL LEVEL ALL OF ME. ALL OF ME.

You: But… what can I do about it?

Shivers: YOU ARE AN OFFICER OF THE CITIZENS MILITIA. YOU MOVE THROUGH MY STREETS FREELY IN MOTOR CARRIAGES AND ON FOOT. YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE HIDDEN PLACES. YOU ALSO CIRCULATE AMONG THOSE WHO ARE HIDDEN. I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT. I LOVE YOU.

Source: Disco Elysium (2019)

A small exit

I also love octopuses because they can escape from anything. They do it by relinquishing form. I think about that for us, often. It’s why I pull away from the institutionalization of things and from the idea that structures have to stay a certain way. In order to get out of capitalism, we’re going to have to move like an octopus; it’s going to be a small exit.

Source: Adrienne Maree Brown

Touch as emergence

So much of emergent strategy is inspired by Octavia Butler and the idea that all that you touch, you change, and all that you touch also changes you back. For most of us who strive to create change, we love that first part—“all that you touch, you change”— yes! But the idea that we’re also being changed is much harder for us to contend with. For this reason, the book provides strategies for how to adapt with intention. How can we understand that change is non-linear? How can we understand that change happens through relationships?

Source: Adrienne Maree Brown

Intuition vs. Intellect

I make all my decisions on intuition, but then I must know why I made that decision. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.

Source: Ingmar Bergman

The wrong person in the right world.

On fewer days I agree
with the poet’s dread of being
the wrong person in the right world, and believe
in adhesion, in never showing up
empty-handed, even if the pleasure I know best
is fused with the abject.

Source: Pleasure by Rick Barot

Connection in the face of unfathomable distance

Despite being ostensibly about advanced digital technology, Digimon stories are actually about caring for and growing closer to others. They assert that power comes not from the individual, but from the bonds that individuals form with one another, and they maintain that when passionate people unite in the name of a common goal, they can change the world. It’s easy to be pessimistic about the role that technology plays in our lives, but Digimon stories insist that the internet is primarily a method of connecting us, even when we are separated by unfathomable distance.

Source: A Million Points of Light, a Digimon fanzine for Palestine

Grieve when it is time

Grief is the process of love learning to adapt to a new reality - no longer able to orient to what is, or even what could be; now only able to retain and protect the memory of what was.

It is the inevitable price of caring. Nothing lasts - everything is changing into something else. To care is to sign up for future grief; but there is symmetry, here, if we can bring ourselves to allow it: grief, too, does not last, and like all things, will change into something else.

To shirk our grief is to devalue our caring. What we feel deserves to be felt, fully, until it is done.

To embrace it all, with softness, is a difficult and rare choice - but an unspeakably beautiful and powerful one.

I will always choose to care.

And so I will always choose to grieve, when it is time.

Source: A post by @mordremoth@lgbt.io in memory of Zoe (porsupah); the domain who hosted their accounts and this post is dead.