A Pandemonium of Parrots and a Parliament of Thoughts
I’m on my second two and a half inch thick fantasy novel about dragons in as many weeks. I just finished Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, the sequel to the New York Times bestseller and TikTok phenomenon Fourth Wing. And I just started reading Murtagh by Christopher Paolini, a new book in the Eragon universe that I first read almost twenty years ago. It’s remarkable, the similarities in our dragon stories. When dragons aren’t the villains, they are our soulmates, a built in protector and confidant and companion. The dragon choses you for some innate, complementary worthiness, and then together you raise a revolution, kill a king, save a realm, and find yourself. So much of our fantasy creates certainty out of magic, lets us disappear into a world where we can be absolutely sure that we are loved and that we can make a difference.
Is Biden too old to be president? This question comes to the surface of the discourse every few months - this time raised by Robert Hur, the Trump-appointed district attorney turned special counsel investigating Biden for document retention. Hur cleared Biden of any wrongdoing but for some reason felt the need to qualify this clearance with baseless speculation about how a jury might interpret the influence of age on Biden’s testimony. If you’re interested in reading more about this hatchet job, I suggest this piece, but I think now’s as good a time as any to point out that it doesn’t really matter if Biden is too old to be president.
At this point, barring any extraordinary change in circumstances, either Trump or Biden is going to be president after the 2024 election. And our choices, who to donate to, who to campaign for, who to vote for, are not really about them, but about the impact they will have on our lives and the lives of people around the world, and about our ability to use their administrations to create the world we want to live in. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve been through a Trump administration before, and there’s not a single thing about that experience, nor a single thing Trump has said since, that makes me think his next term would be anything but ruinous. That’s what matters to me.
I recently discovered that my smart TV still gets live channels. It’s not cable, though I can get a lot of cable type things like the news and local TV and what have you. I’ll be honest I don’t know exactly how it works, but I do know that there is a channel that shows various Jamie Oliver cooking shows 24/7. And there’s a channel that plays America’s Test Kitchen 24/7. There’s a channel that plays the whole CSI franchise and one that plays the whole NCIS franchise. In the past decade or so, television fractured itself into different streaming platforms with a gluttony of options more likely to give you decision fatigue than entertainment. That, plus the general anxiety-inducing global turmoil, is firmly responsible for my inability to watch anything besides police procedurals. Except as it turns out, a channel devoted to a singular chef’s oeuvre where I have no control over the episode or the schedule also fits the bill quite nicely.
Not that cooking shows are a huge departure from my television tastes. I’ve always liked to have them on while I’m cooking or in the background while I’m writing or knitting. And it makes sense, if you think about it. In police procedurals and cooking shows, you start the episode off with a problem - a murder, or hunger - and by the end, through persistent and dedicated effort, you’ve solved the problem. In an aching and ambivalent and complex world, my escapism tends, again, towards the fantasy of certainty - a good meal and a clear villain.
Everyone gets so mad about the relentless pace of Democratic fundraising emails, and their despondent, emotionally manipulative “SARA YOU’RE SUPPORTING TRUMP???” type subject lines. And I gotta say, it does not even occur to me to be mad about these, because I have never once read them. Almost as soon as they started showing up in my inbox, I assume around my eighteenth birthday, I started deleting them.
But the relentless pace of even emails that I like! The same way cable disintegrated into about one hundred streaming platforms, so too has the news disintegrated into thousands and thousands of newsletters. And I love them. I have never read a
or piece that has not been both thoroughly entertaining and deftly thought provoking. Jamelle Bouie is so incisive and efficient and always adds a critical dimension to the way I think about politics. I’ve been reading for over a decade and don’t know what I would do without her gentle probing introspection setting such a marvelous example for me. ’s writing is brutally and richly honest and so gorgeously descriptive I feel like I’m in Montana with him.I guess I’m not complaining so much as asking everyone to leave me alone while I read my newsletters.
I have a fair amount of social anxiety, exacerbated by the pandemic and resulting isolation. I have no idea how to put together outfits anymore - it takes me at least three tries every time I leave the house. I find nothing so nerve wracking as initiating social activities and conversations, even with people I am one thousand percent sure love me. But every time I do it, I find that it's so much easier and better than I expected. And, as with all hard things, it gets easier and easier the more I do it. Which is why I’m going to tell you right now, if you care about democracy, get ready to go canvassing this summer. If you have a competitive primary in your area, you could get ready to go even sooner.
There is nothing so important for democracy as actually getting out and connecting with voters. Whether it’s letter writing, text or phone banking, canvassing, or hosting events, the connections we make with other volunteers and through voter contact are the best ways we have to build the world we dream about. Genuinely listening to each other, talking about our own perspectives and telling our own stories, and joining together to push for change makes us so much more powerful than we are on our own. And the most effective way to do this is in person. Plus you get outside, you get to walk around new neighborhoods, breathe fresh air, and it is much harder for people to be mean to you in person than it is over text or on the phone. I went on Saturday for a local special election, and like always, I absolutely never want to go, and I am always, always glad I went.
Please call your Representative and Senators this week and tell them to push for a ceasefire, and not to pass any unconditional aid for Israel. You can also contact the White House here and do the same. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is heartbreaking and catastrophic, and it will only get more so as Israel pushes further into Palestine. If you need help calling, please ask! I also made this step by step guide that walks you through it.