Wow — I stopped reading and started over so I could read this out loud - just to myself. The writing (as usual) is magnificent and the message, though devastating, is so powerful. Thank you.
An episode of Nova tells the mystery of the doomed 19th century British that disappeared on their expedition to discover and map the Northwest Passage.
Halfway through the episode the narrator mentions the Inuit people who inhabit the islands and the northern edge of the North American continent. Immediately, I thought, "I bet they know what happened." For a hundred and 170 years, nobody bothered to listen.
With the modern technology of the 21st century, the wreckage was found. Right where generations of oral history said it was.
Sharpen your storytellers, folks, we have history to undelete.
Great idea, connecting the Great Unconformity with the deletion of important stuff -- another great example was the deletion of all of Chris Hedges' videos on YouTube.
Aware of this phenomenon for the past 10 years, I've been using an app called Capto to capture important videos, like the one in which Madeline Albright admits on "60 Minutes" that she and Bill are proud of killing half a million Iraqi children. There are thousands of people doing this, and they are doing important work.
It’s important to accurately report because the truth is horrible enough. She said in response to the gruesomely worded question, “Is the price worth it?” that “I think this was a very hard choice, but the price, we think, is worth it.”
Basically Albright told Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" that she and Bill had done good work.
Americans generally like Bill Clinton and see him as a good guy, while to an alien sociologist he would be seen as an obvious war criminal. What Clinton did with his "sanctions" in Iraq was so much worse (in numbers but equal in terms of the level of pure evil) than what Bidenyahu have done so far in Gaza, with "only" about 14,000 children murdered.
Americans see everything symbolically. Putin has killed about 550 children in Ukraine in 2 years, compared with Biden's 18,000 child murders in Gaza in 9 months, and yet somehow Putin is "evil" and Biden is "good".
Wonderful writing, wit and observation as per usual, Sarah. At CalArts something similar happened to my milieu roughly ten years ago when Black Clock magazine's senior editor, Steve Erickson, was recruited as faculty at UC Riverside.
For some obscure reason the very pricey arts college decided the entire digital archive was unworthy of maintenance and deleted: erasing years of grad intern work, faculty work. An entire era.
It was perverse and there was little outcry, certainly not by our department head. American popular culture as you point out is often the glue that holds together a country of immigrants whose forbearers and present stakeholders have succeeded in erasing the indigenous people from "culture" from land from life.
The Great Unconformity, an undefined transitional geologic period of time between eons (did I get that right?) is an eerily apt metaphor for the geologic time between empires, or foundational lies, that is upon us.
Rest in peace flotsam and jetsam of a shared American experience.
I just read this out loud to my partner. Again, another piece that resonates like a tuning fork held against my temple. Thank you for the gift of your writing, your voice, your insight, and your love of the natural world. I am shaken by this and also soothed by it because through it I know I’m not alone in these feelings. Thank you and take care.
Having everything be unintelligible and incoherent serves their ends, just as Trump creates chaos around him to sharpen his control, though it's also partly purely abusive. I don't think there's a plan but people with common interests acting more or less on instinct. None of this necessarily defies analysis, I don't think, but it's the wrong thing to bring to the table. Analysis only works on it at the macro level. Which is why intellectually and emotionally normal folks are still blowing a fuse over Trump and the MAGA movement, which has gone beyond Trump and is a monster stalking the moors of American politics and life that no one can control.
Because, at the level at which we experience it, it's not just unintelligible it's terrifying. Power is the only currency. From petrochemicals on up the ultimate visceral rush is the ability to be arbitrary. To define truth and reality on the fly. You can't analyze that. Not in the microcosm. It's observational. Experiential. Like a storm or fire or any natural disaster. What I observe is a known thing, contagious madness. America could easily and quickly go full crime syndicate, as Sarah has written. Like Russia. Like the other totalitarian states they admire. They are telling us what they're up to and comparisons to Germany in the '30s are appropriate.
Often these movements come unglued. This one has legs.
this says it all. having everything in a state of chaos serves there end goal. and sure explains my thoughts - everything is a flurry and it is impossible to keep up with all the bad things happening. and how to even think about how to stop it. voting is a start but i fear so many elected officials are in on it to some degree.
oh my God, I'm reading your banter with your husband and think "of course! They're doing Waiting for Godot!" And then you say "his parents were playing Vladimir and Estragon." You are so brilliant. I reread sections of this before moving along...and I'll read again tomorrow. Thank you so much, Sarah. A funny and painful piece, in a horrific week, in what my daughter has decided to name the "Flop Era."
"This could not be more of a flop," she texted recently, "in Flop Era." It's kind of lighthearted –better than Final Era.
You are doing with middle America what Frost did so well with New England: making it live in the minds and hearts of readers by making it indelibly, sadly, beautifully, urgently personal.
Not an intentional evocation on my part or (no doubt) Frost's, whose work I was reading long before I finally got around to Bradbury, a writer loved by my much better half (and by Sarah, I believe). Some years ago, at my wife's request, I read "Something Wicked this Way Comes," "Fahrenheit 451," and, finally, "The Martian Chronicles" aloud to her. (She claims to find my voice relaxing, not just boring. :) I liked and admired them all, but "Something Wicked" is probably my favorite -- and yes, it's not hard to imagine the imagery of Frost's "Directive" showing up in that book, in particular. Anyway, thanks! :)
I love Sarah's beautiful writing, but I really need Sarah's political analysis right now.
So much that Sarah has been talking about and predicting is now coming true...she is our Cassandra, the bearer of bad tidings, but they're true, and we need the truth.
Read the note at the end of the article -- I'm trying to figure a way to answer questions on current political issues raised by readers in a more organized way that doesn't drain my time. Stay tuned!
Sarah, as I read your posts, I am struck to observe that you and your husband are so very fortunate to have each other in this time. There are those of us out here seeking to stay in touch with those who don't mock and those of us for whom years have taken our closest allies. We are wondering how long before distances break the ties and force a void few in this nation today have truly experienced.
Thank you for your observations on the Great Unconformity. As I sought out potential protests I was certain would still sprout up this 4th of July, I was struck by their absence and struck by the comment that said she was too tired to care. After so much warning, I wanted to shake her awake and tell her it only gets harder unless we shout loudly today, but I started to write instead - to write with the hope still that stories will live, despite that so many of our words need to find form that doesn't disappear easily. We used to worry about the years of weather and natural decay, but as you point out - we are now speeding to the mercy of algorithms and rust.
There is a part of me relieved at the lack of protest because I think criminal elites are looking for an excuse to kill us all at once. I am very much in favor of protests but they need to be strategic and full of back up plans to protect people at risk. When I hear that Americans are exhausted and have checked out, it reminds me of Yeats: “The best lack all conviction but the worst are full of passionate intensity.” I’m seeing a lot of that now. There will be a top down effort to get us to violently attack each other on behalf of oligarchs and if people are too tired and jaded to participate, then good. On the other hand, Americans should be studying rigorously what is happening, and preparing for the worst. But they should grasp that what we’re up against is a mafia state seeking US collapse more than a traditional fascist entity seeking national control and expansion, and then fight against it accordingly.
i can see this - wanting everyone to get in the streets. the violence and attacks by the police and gov't will be swift.
the "fighting against it according" is where my brain goes but i really don't know how. just paying attention, reading and listening and adjusting as i see people moving to the power hungry side, etc
great article - thought provoking. i am disturbed by deletions of archives. i am a paper person and forget what i have bookmarked and saved. many will forget what once was.
This is an amazing read. Thank you for making me think of things that I have long ago entertained and forgotten. Thank you also for the warnings that lie between each line.
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Janis Joplin. While our past is erased or remolded to fit the narrative, if you have history and other books from college, keep them. Same goes for old encyclopedias. Maybe some archaeologist will discover them centuries from now? I have retained mine from community college in Sacramento from 1974 until getting my AA degree, Still have the World Books my parents got me back in the 60s.
People who fought fascism are gone. So what better time to take over and change the narrative? Been a long time coming, 40 plus years, but it is here looking down at us. Thank you Ronald Reagan and all the enablers since, including some Democrats who would rather wring there hands than take actions. And those who try to stand up are decried as extremists. And Israel backed PAC/lobbyists, with the blessing of Hillary Clinton, get them kicked out of Congress.
So glad I traveled the US of A from coast to coast before "retirement" age, whatever that is today. Thousands of photos in albums to relive the moments. Moments that one may not find in another year or two.
Other videos are being erased. About 10 or so years ago, the History Channel ran a story on how while Reagan was in hospital, Gen. Hague, I am in charge, ordered an airstrike on some sheiks believed to be involved in the Beirut barracks attack. Only Reagan got wind of it and called off the strike. Huh? Little wonder it may have been the seed for 9/11. Paper Tiger. You can kill soldiers and no consequences. That episode I could not find and has never re-surfaced. Republicans have mastered the art of coverups and erasure.
Thanks you for your perspective, Sarah. Look forward to your next installment.
Wow — I stopped reading and started over so I could read this out loud - just to myself. The writing (as usual) is magnificent and the message, though devastating, is so powerful. Thank you.
Thank you very much!
An episode of Nova tells the mystery of the doomed 19th century British that disappeared on their expedition to discover and map the Northwest Passage.
Halfway through the episode the narrator mentions the Inuit people who inhabit the islands and the northern edge of the North American continent. Immediately, I thought, "I bet they know what happened." For a hundred and 170 years, nobody bothered to listen.
With the modern technology of the 21st century, the wreckage was found. Right where generations of oral history said it was.
Sharpen your storytellers, folks, we have history to undelete.
👍👍👍
Great idea, connecting the Great Unconformity with the deletion of important stuff -- another great example was the deletion of all of Chris Hedges' videos on YouTube.
Aware of this phenomenon for the past 10 years, I've been using an app called Capto to capture important videos, like the one in which Madeline Albright admits on "60 Minutes" that she and Bill are proud of killing half a million Iraqi children. There are thousands of people doing this, and they are doing important work.
I’m glad that video capture technology exists and horrified about the mass youtube deletion!
It’s important to accurately report because the truth is horrible enough. She said in response to the gruesomely worded question, “Is the price worth it?” that “I think this was a very hard choice, but the price, we think, is worth it.”
Basically Albright told Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" that she and Bill had done good work.
Americans generally like Bill Clinton and see him as a good guy, while to an alien sociologist he would be seen as an obvious war criminal. What Clinton did with his "sanctions" in Iraq was so much worse (in numbers but equal in terms of the level of pure evil) than what Bidenyahu have done so far in Gaza, with "only" about 14,000 children murdered.
Americans see everything symbolically. Putin has killed about 550 children in Ukraine in 2 years, compared with Biden's 18,000 child murders in Gaza in 9 months, and yet somehow Putin is "evil" and Biden is "good".
Here is Albright in all her satanic glory:
https://youtu.be/vppDu9guvxE
Wonderful writing, wit and observation as per usual, Sarah. At CalArts something similar happened to my milieu roughly ten years ago when Black Clock magazine's senior editor, Steve Erickson, was recruited as faculty at UC Riverside.
For some obscure reason the very pricey arts college decided the entire digital archive was unworthy of maintenance and deleted: erasing years of grad intern work, faculty work. An entire era.
It was perverse and there was little outcry, certainly not by our department head. American popular culture as you point out is often the glue that holds together a country of immigrants whose forbearers and present stakeholders have succeeded in erasing the indigenous people from "culture" from land from life.
The Great Unconformity, an undefined transitional geologic period of time between eons (did I get that right?) is an eerily apt metaphor for the geologic time between empires, or foundational lies, that is upon us.
Rest in peace flotsam and jetsam of a shared American experience.
Bone chilling.
Such heartbreaking clarity.
Thank you for saying something about the evaporation of our cultural history on the digital platforms.
The idea of America died finally on July 1st when the criminal Supreme Court granted criminal immunity to the Presidency.
Without our history we won’t even know what we lost. I feel a quiet panic. And for the first time in my 60 years I don’t know what to do about it.
But I would rather hear the truth. And face it coldly.
Thanks for being that rare chronicler of the cold desert night where we find ourselves.
I just read this out loud to my partner. Again, another piece that resonates like a tuning fork held against my temple. Thank you for the gift of your writing, your voice, your insight, and your love of the natural world. I am shaken by this and also soothed by it because through it I know I’m not alone in these feelings. Thank you and take care.
Thank you for reading!
Having everything be unintelligible and incoherent serves their ends, just as Trump creates chaos around him to sharpen his control, though it's also partly purely abusive. I don't think there's a plan but people with common interests acting more or less on instinct. None of this necessarily defies analysis, I don't think, but it's the wrong thing to bring to the table. Analysis only works on it at the macro level. Which is why intellectually and emotionally normal folks are still blowing a fuse over Trump and the MAGA movement, which has gone beyond Trump and is a monster stalking the moors of American politics and life that no one can control.
Because, at the level at which we experience it, it's not just unintelligible it's terrifying. Power is the only currency. From petrochemicals on up the ultimate visceral rush is the ability to be arbitrary. To define truth and reality on the fly. You can't analyze that. Not in the microcosm. It's observational. Experiential. Like a storm or fire or any natural disaster. What I observe is a known thing, contagious madness. America could easily and quickly go full crime syndicate, as Sarah has written. Like Russia. Like the other totalitarian states they admire. They are telling us what they're up to and comparisons to Germany in the '30s are appropriate.
Often these movements come unglued. This one has legs.
Well said, and I agree — unfortunately
this says it all. having everything in a state of chaos serves there end goal. and sure explains my thoughts - everything is a flurry and it is impossible to keep up with all the bad things happening. and how to even think about how to stop it. voting is a start but i fear so many elected officials are in on it to some degree.
oh my God, I'm reading your banter with your husband and think "of course! They're doing Waiting for Godot!" And then you say "his parents were playing Vladimir and Estragon." You are so brilliant. I reread sections of this before moving along...and I'll read again tomorrow. Thank you so much, Sarah. A funny and painful piece, in a horrific week, in what my daughter has decided to name the "Flop Era."
"This could not be more of a flop," she texted recently, "in Flop Era." It's kind of lighthearted –better than Final Era.
Ha — it is indeed the Flop Era!
Sadly our Godot tribute was wholly unintentional at the time…
"Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town . . . "
You are doing with middle America what Frost did so well with New England: making it live in the minds and hearts of readers by making it indelibly, sadly, beautifully, urgently personal.
Thank you, Sarah, again.
P. S. Here's a link you probably don't need to Frost's "Directive": https://allpoetry.com/poem/13753187-Directive-by-Robert-Frost.
This reads like Ray Bradbury in verse - wow !
Not an intentional evocation on my part or (no doubt) Frost's, whose work I was reading long before I finally got around to Bradbury, a writer loved by my much better half (and by Sarah, I believe). Some years ago, at my wife's request, I read "Something Wicked this Way Comes," "Fahrenheit 451," and, finally, "The Martian Chronicles" aloud to her. (She claims to find my voice relaxing, not just boring. :) I liked and admired them all, but "Something Wicked" is probably my favorite -- and yes, it's not hard to imagine the imagery of Frost's "Directive" showing up in that book, in particular. Anyway, thanks! :)
I love Sarah's beautiful writing, but I really need Sarah's political analysis right now.
So much that Sarah has been talking about and predicting is now coming true...she is our Cassandra, the bearer of bad tidings, but they're true, and we need the truth.
Read the note at the end of the article -- I'm trying to figure a way to answer questions on current political issues raised by readers in a more organized way that doesn't drain my time. Stay tuned!
Thank you Sarah! So grateful for you.
Same here
Ditto!
I'm looking forward to it.
Reminds me of the way the Chinese under Mao destroyed so much of their artifacts.
Sarah, as I read your posts, I am struck to observe that you and your husband are so very fortunate to have each other in this time. There are those of us out here seeking to stay in touch with those who don't mock and those of us for whom years have taken our closest allies. We are wondering how long before distances break the ties and force a void few in this nation today have truly experienced.
Thank you for your observations on the Great Unconformity. As I sought out potential protests I was certain would still sprout up this 4th of July, I was struck by their absence and struck by the comment that said she was too tired to care. After so much warning, I wanted to shake her awake and tell her it only gets harder unless we shout loudly today, but I started to write instead - to write with the hope still that stories will live, despite that so many of our words need to find form that doesn't disappear easily. We used to worry about the years of weather and natural decay, but as you point out - we are now speeding to the mercy of algorithms and rust.
There is a part of me relieved at the lack of protest because I think criminal elites are looking for an excuse to kill us all at once. I am very much in favor of protests but they need to be strategic and full of back up plans to protect people at risk. When I hear that Americans are exhausted and have checked out, it reminds me of Yeats: “The best lack all conviction but the worst are full of passionate intensity.” I’m seeing a lot of that now. There will be a top down effort to get us to violently attack each other on behalf of oligarchs and if people are too tired and jaded to participate, then good. On the other hand, Americans should be studying rigorously what is happening, and preparing for the worst. But they should grasp that what we’re up against is a mafia state seeking US collapse more than a traditional fascist entity seeking national control and expansion, and then fight against it accordingly.
i can see this - wanting everyone to get in the streets. the violence and attacks by the police and gov't will be swift.
the "fighting against it according" is where my brain goes but i really don't know how. just paying attention, reading and listening and adjusting as i see people moving to the power hungry side, etc
great article - thought provoking. i am disturbed by deletions of archives. i am a paper person and forget what i have bookmarked and saved. many will forget what once was.
This is an amazing read. Thank you for making me think of things that I have long ago entertained and forgotten. Thank you also for the warnings that lie between each line.
Brilliant 😢
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Janis Joplin. While our past is erased or remolded to fit the narrative, if you have history and other books from college, keep them. Same goes for old encyclopedias. Maybe some archaeologist will discover them centuries from now? I have retained mine from community college in Sacramento from 1974 until getting my AA degree, Still have the World Books my parents got me back in the 60s.
People who fought fascism are gone. So what better time to take over and change the narrative? Been a long time coming, 40 plus years, but it is here looking down at us. Thank you Ronald Reagan and all the enablers since, including some Democrats who would rather wring there hands than take actions. And those who try to stand up are decried as extremists. And Israel backed PAC/lobbyists, with the blessing of Hillary Clinton, get them kicked out of Congress.
So glad I traveled the US of A from coast to coast before "retirement" age, whatever that is today. Thousands of photos in albums to relive the moments. Moments that one may not find in another year or two.
Other videos are being erased. About 10 or so years ago, the History Channel ran a story on how while Reagan was in hospital, Gen. Hague, I am in charge, ordered an airstrike on some sheiks believed to be involved in the Beirut barracks attack. Only Reagan got wind of it and called off the strike. Huh? Little wonder it may have been the seed for 9/11. Paper Tiger. You can kill soldiers and no consequences. That episode I could not find and has never re-surfaced. Republicans have mastered the art of coverups and erasure.
Thanks you for your perspective, Sarah. Look forward to your next installment.
That unexplained gap. Yes. We need to keep an eye out for it in every aspect of our lives. Thank you for this reminder.