Saturdays Break Even
It’s Saturday, October 21. Summer has faded into memory, but further down the coast it lingers. Here’s the Potpourri.
“Time Will Break the World”
David Berman, late poet and frontman of your favorite poet’s favorite band Silver Jews, had a couplet for everything. With the ongoing genocide in Gaza, this one flashed across my mind for the first time in some years. It did not give comfort.
All my poor, hungry children
Time will break the world
Disco Report
I played Disco Elysium four times while I was sick. I played as a devout and sober Dolorian. I played as a finger-gunning superstar ultraliberal. I could not bring myself to play as a racist fascist, even though this is the only game I know of that couches those beliefs as what they are: childish, intellectually and spiritually bankrupt, and exterminationist. Protagonist Harry Du Bois is a real piece of shit, but the invisible hand of the player can guide him toward his better nature.
Tears of the Kingdom
The unfortunate irony of the title “Tears of the Kingdom” is that it sounds pretty apt for what’s currently happening in the cradle of monotheism. In real life, it’s the new Legend of Zelda game, and I’m really enjoying it. I needed a mental break from the world, and when you need high-grade escapism you call Nintendo.
White Mums
Unlike the short-sighted murderous apes who run the world, nature has a long game.
Honing Homing In
I made a valiant first effort at sharpening my kitchen knife with a whetstone this week. It didn’t go well; the knife seems just as dull as before. But this led me to doing more research on how whetstone sharpening works and feeling a sense of awe at the fineness and precision required for things to click together in the physical world, and how craftspeople immemorial have dialed into that precision, down through the generations.
Cooking, cleaning my kitchen, sharpening my knives, making my coffee, these are all things that give my life a small but bright sense of focus and purpose. They make me feel anchored, domestic, like I am at home, a feeling that I have found nothing but slippery in my adult life. It’s really special, especially for someone who grew up with, and is still recovering from, an eating disorder that makes food into a minefield.
The Venerable Quesadilla
I don’t know if I find any food more inherently comforting than a good quesadilla, especially one with marinated chicken in it. A thing of great solace in a weary world. Hope everyone out there is taking good care of themselves. Love to you all.
—Dara K. Marzipan