There’s a cliche that hard times and oppressive regimes produce great art. Think of the songs of the civil rights struggle, for instance. Anna Akhmatova and Irina Ratushinskaya using their poetry to speak up against the Soviet regime. Dorothea Lange’s photographs during the Great Depression.
Yet I’ve found that ever since a certain awful day in November 2016, my own writing has suffered in quantity, and I think in quality too. And I’m hearing this from other writers, as well as musicians and artists.
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People taking an IQ test or similar will score lower when they’re under stress. Now my entire country is nonstop stress, every day some fresh horror. ICE tearing families apart, Puerto Rico without power, mass shootings, anti-Muslim travel bans, constant threats to trans rights and choice, open corruption, Nazis marching in the streets, and the fact that I had to be reminded of Dinesh D’Souza’s existence. It’s too damn much.
But I need that art. I need poems about nasty women, and once-again-relevant songs about impeachment, and TV shows about handmaids who fight back. I need that vision of how we can start putting the pieces back together again. And I also need silly stories that have nothing to do with politics, and some love songs, and pictures of cats.
So I’m going to try to scribble a few lines of poetry or fiction today. It probably won’t be anything of shareable quality, but I’m figuring the ease will return with practice. Each attempt a little candle so I can read the words of a curse against the darkness.
On to Top Comments!
From Tamar:
Dfh1’s excellent summary of what the Democrats need to focus on.
From SandraLLAP:
I’d like to submit this transcendent comment to Top Comments. It encapsulates our core value of compassion, about as clearly and beautifully as anything that I have ever seen. (Note from Tara: comment is by bethann, in BFSkinner’s diary Anti-Semitism and homophobia are alive and well. Personal experiences of both in the last week.)
From your humble (if antisocial) diarist:
Northleft highlighted this comment by jsteve7, about the utter disconnect between 45’s words and actions — and our media’s senseless insistence on treating the words as meaningful. See also northleft’s response.
Top mojo, courtesy of mik:
Picture quilt, courtesy of jotter: