Aaron Wolfson

@awolfson.bsky.social

427 Followers 239 Following

Writing memoir, poetry, essays, performance stuff (etc.) in Chicago newsletter.aaronjacobwolfson.com

And even if the Jews were to win the war, its end would find the unique possibilities and the unique achievements of Zionism in Palestine destroyed. The land that would come into being would be something quite other than the dream of world Jewry, Zionist and non-Zionist. The “victorious” Jews would live surrounded by an entirely hostile Arab population, secluded inside ever-threatened borders, absorbed with physical self-defense to a degree that would submerge all other interests and activities. The growth of a Jewish culture would cease to be the concern of the whole people; social experiments would have to be discarded as impractical luxuries; political thought would center around military strategy; economic development would be determined exclusively by the needs of war. And all this would be the fate of a nation that—no matter how many immigrants it could still absorb and how far it extended its boundaries (the whole of Palestine and Transjordan is the insane Revisionist demand)—would still remain a very small people greatly outnumbered by hostile neighbors.
The Totoros, Satsuki, and Mei raising sprouts from the ground via some kind of magic.
A Totoro sitting on the dashboard of a car (a Corolla, not a Catbus) driving down the highway, staring out at the open road as it moves past.
A book cover of "Endless Endless: a lo-fi history of the Elephant 6 mystery" by Adam Clair
Adam Serwer in The Atlantic: "If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn’t be more extreme. Vice President Vance has said that “it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’” Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America."
A still of Weird Al Yankovic from the Amish Paradise video.
Grant Hill dribbling a basketball during an NBA game, wearing his #33 Orlando Magic jersey. While arguably more well-known for being a Detroit Piston and a Phoenix Sun, Hill was a key piece of the Magic from 2000-2007.
As a poet, I have shaped my life around the belief that language is our most human inheritance: the space of richly articulated perception, where thought and emotion meet. Writing for me has always been both expressive and formative — and in a strange way, pleasurable. I’ve spent decades writing and editing; I know the feeling — of reward and hard-won clarity — that writing produces for me. But if you never build those muscles, will you grasp what’s missing when an L.L.M. delivers a chirpy but shallow reply? What happens to students who’ve never experienced the reward of pressing toward an elusive thought that yields itself in clear syntax?
A NYT headline about the so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency, a front for Elon Musk's destruction of the government. Orwell would be proud.
A news headline that says, "AJ Brown says book wasn't sign of frustration"
The cover of Matt Bell's book titled "Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts"
A Joyce Carol Oates impersonator performs in front of a Photoshop of Joyce Carol Oates's head on the body of a bald eagle.
A close-up view of an ornamented banister railing, with old dark brown paint flaking away.
A view out a window looking down toward an ornate reddish-brown brick building with fanciful spires and a large glass pyramidal skylight in the center of the roof. It's the Rookery Building, built in downtown Chicago as one of the earliest skyscrapers.
A snow covered patio seen from a foggy window, with more snow falling in front of the brick buildings across the street, and swiftly covering the cars.