Talk of style and glory, but you never pictured me

[sovay]

I wrote: I pay rent on this apartment, but I'm not at home. I haven't had a home for years. I think I will die before I have anywhere I can rest.

We celebrated my mother's birthday at Tryst this evening. When we got home, I lit the candles on the cake my father had made with layers of chocolate angelfood, yellow cake and ganache, and a sauce of sour cherries; my niece who loves tearing paper off things helped my mother unwrap her birthday books. Last night I saw Alex Garland's Annihilation (2018) with spatch and rushthatspeaks; it's a beautiful remix of Jeff VanderMeer's novel and I want to write about it, but first I need the free time in my head and I'm realizing that I just don't get any of that between work and other necessary stresses, not for a long time now. I am not managing to write even about movies I really enjoyed. Fiction, forget it. It feels like suffocating inside my own head. I am hoping to do absolutely nothing with my day tomorrow. I would like to do absolutely nothing with my weekend, but I don't think I can afford it. I would like to do absolutely nothing for a month and then our landlord would move to evict.

There is a line in the song I'm listening to: searching for a song about a love that might have been between anxiety and hindsight. The first time I played it, I heard in between anxiety and Einstein and thought it was some kind of relativity metaphor. I am a little disappointed it was not, although I recommend the album in general. It's good personal-political punk with a non-binary singer-songwriter.

I have Autolycus on my lap and that's nice.

Comments

[asakiyume]

My dad used to say this about the people who founded Fruitlands: they thought they could work the land by day and then create literature by night, but it turned out the job of farming was so all consuming and crushing that they quickly realized they were either going to fail at farming or never write.

I have a friend I write with (long distance, not in person) on Saturdays, just for a half hour, and she's similarly trapped. Crushing, overwhelming dayjob, poor health, others who are dependent on her. And I know others similarly placed. It's enraging. I'd like everyone to have patrons or grants or whatever--except no: people shouldn't be dependent on others' largess. What I'd really like is for ALL PEOPLE IN SOCIETY to be able to meet their needs without having the process totally destroy them.

[sovay]

My dad used to say this about the people who founded Fruitlands: they thought they could work the land by day and then create literature by night, but it turned out the job of farming was so all consuming and crushing that they quickly realized they were either going to fail at farming or never write.

I believe both parts of that story. I remember visiting the Fruitlands Museum in elementary school, but I don't remember learning much about the commune except that it was extremely short-lived. I take it they failed at farming?

It's enraging. I'd like everyone to have patrons or grants or whatever--except no: people shouldn't be dependent on others' largess. What I'd really like is for ALL PEOPLE IN SOCIETY to be able to meet their needs without having the process totally destroy them.

I like your utopia and wish to subscribe to it.

[negothick]

Oy, Fruitlands. Louisa May Alcott's "Transcendental Wild Oats," based on childhood memories of that very dicey Utopia nails the farming perfectly:
The garden was planted with a generous supply of
useful roots and herbs; but, as manure was not allowed
to profane the virgin soil, few of these vegetable
treasures ever came up. Purslanes reigned supreme,
and the disappointed planters ate it philosophically,
deciding that Nature knew what was best for them, and
would generously supply their needs, if they could only
learn to digest her "sallets" and wild roots.

Full text here: https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/engl368/transoats.pdf

[ethelmay]

I have always had the feeling that the Alcotts would have been enormously better off if Abba and Bronson could have swapped gender roles, and had Abba bring in a decent salary working for an established philanthropic institution, while Bronson took care of the kids and ran a small idealistic school that only sometimes broke even. I'm basing this partly on LMA's picture of the Bhaers running Plumfield, which I think was more an idealization of what her parents' marriage might have been than what she would have wanted for herself.

[asakiyume]

I take it they failed at farming?

That's definitely my impression!