Vic Brand

@recordedvoice.bsky.social

788 Followers 613 Following

Editor, MS NOW Digital

Every single day we wake up to the task of trying to parse this shimmering, glitching simulacra for some glimmer of the real. Because the truth (or the lack of it) at the end of any thread can make the difference between health or sickness, rage or assurance, grief of elation, for us, for our families, for our friends and neighbors. This is our life now. It is interminable, and we are -- all of us -- sick of it. But I am not really in a position to speak for anyone else in this moment. So if I may:
For anyone to have the temerity -- as some greased-up corporate dipstick rolling through here in a tin-plated horse cart full of injection-molded, half-baked, lab-grown flimflam — to seek to manufacture a cheap, ungainly and forgettable deception on the backs and reputation of the good men and women of the press for the purpose of a moment’s tradecraft? No. Today is not that day. You may take your duplicitous and false chimera back to the polished conference room and stand it there naked on your table, and you may watch it yourself. Stand there staring at it in silence, all of you who brought this monster to market, until whatever mirth you saw in it has evaporated, and it is bald and awkward and sad, and the shame that should have stopped you at the beginning has become a part of you forever. Then sit with it longer still, until the sun sets on that abomination and the day is gone. Only then may you take it to the trash bin, put it there into its true home and know that the only April Fool is you, for the absolute waste you have made of everything.

black-and-white photo of 50 pairs of rubber combat boots arranged to appear to be marching in a spiral outward from a small circular grass sward in the middle of a concrete pad in Southern California

$We try to be alert here for infractions, and when we find none, we know we have fallen among the sins of over-sight, or else of smugness. We have the sins of disobedience, and of just following orders. Of gravity and levity, of complacency, anxiety, indifference, obsession, interest. We have the sins of insincerity, and of telling unwelcome truths. We have the sins of ingratitude for our many blessings, and of taking joy in any moment of our lives. We have the sins of skepticism, and belief. Of promptness, and of being late. Of hopelessness, and of expecting anything. Of failing to think of the starving children in India, of dwelling on thoughts about those children, of failing to see the relevance of another spoonful to the situation of those starving children, or to Uncle Bill, or Granny, or poor Joel, or whomever we are being asked to take another spoonful for. We have the sins of depression, and of being comforted. Of ignorance, and being well-informed. Of carelessness, and of exacti-tude. Of leading, following, opposing, taking no part in. Very few of us, it seems fair to say, are morally at ease.$