That's the way the pan flashes, that's the way the market crashes

It had previously occurred to me to wonder about the interaction of seders and sheltering in place, but somehow it had not quite clicked with me until tonight that however we celebrate Pesach this year, it will be in a time of plague that is rather more concrete than a drop of wine on the rim of a plate. By now I am accustomed to light my Hanukkah candles against fascism: the lights of who we are that cannot be snuffed out. I never did paint אמת on the forehead of the bronze statue of Justice Louis Brandeis. I know that almost all of the sacrificial components of Judaism dropped out with the destruction of the Second Temple, but I really feel I should be putting blood on my doorposts this year.

What kind of movement do you hope to make by burning everyone who doesn't speak the same?

Today's mail brought my contributor's copy of Not One of Us #63, containing my poem "The Secret Language of Water." I wrote and performed it last August as Poet Laureate of NecronomiCon Providence 2019; it took its title from the gold-and-abalone pendant by Elise Matthesen that I wore for the occasion. It found its home in the flowers and moons issue, featuring strange and strong work by Steve Toase, Molly Likovich, Jennifer Crow, Tiah Marie Beautement, Gwynne Garfinkle, and Alexandra Seidel, among others. Long may this little black-and-white 'zine flourish, and all the rest of us, while we're at it.

As the Boston area battens down for the unforeseeable future, we spent the entirety of today on one last apocalypse shop, for my mother as well as for ourselves. Only one person gave us any static for our masks and gloves, though we were still in the minority in the stores we entered. spatch captioned this photo of me, "Sonya doing her best Dr. Jack Griffin."



"I want a room and a fire."