tynan

@tynan.unimportantbird.com

269 Followers 227 Following

i write stuff, sometimes it's good / unimportantbird.com

I want to be careful here: The Once and Future Riot is not some nihilistic post-truth diatribe that declares reality unknowable or unimportant. Sacco still believes in the processes of journalism, as flawed as they are; he dedicates the book to “the hardworking rural journalists of India” and praises the work of multiple local reporters in the acknowledgements, including his guide Piyush. But Sacco doesn’t want you to forget that they — and he — are constantly being gaslit about the circumstances of the riot. The book puts its readers in the same uncomfortable position as the journalists: Like Sacco, you can never be completely sure who is telling the truth and whether it’s the whole truth. It’s an artistic strategy that forces readers to question whether the violent scenes that Sacco illustrates are, in fact, distortions of memory.
A website security question that says "Where were you when you first heard about JFK assassination?"
A grey box that says: Type of Story: News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
a passage from the study that reads: Original Text: On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be sitting here—as here he is—with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. Subject: Describing him in a room with an animal I think? Great whiskers? Facilitator: [Laughs.] Subject: A cat?
a paragraph that reads: "For the first half of the 2010s, any teenage girl in her room had a chance of amassing more political influence than a junior Spad. She could define political terms and concepts, blacklist undesirable elements, and argue for a different kind of society. Thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of other teenage girls would be following her, reading and engaging. These were the days of Tumblr, a youth blogging website that functioned like a dysfunctional think tank."
a breakfast receipt with a line that reads "Bird flu recovery efforts (3%)"
the first paragraph of a letter to the editor in the lincoln journal star that reads: "For the first time in my near 70 years as an American citizen I am ashamed of my country. Trump's and Nebraska’s Congressional delegation's behavior is an affront to the values I hold."
A screenshot that reads: "Cancel A-List Memebership. We're sorry to see you go! If you decide to cancel your A-List membership, you will not be eligible to sign up again for 6 months."
"Trump does have his own neo-Baroque aesthetic: The Village People, Luciano Pavarotti, the grand chandelier he envisions hanging from the ceiling of the Oval Office. But these personal flourishes—like his desire to pave the Rose Garden to more closely resemble his patio at Mar-a-Lago—seem to have little chance of trickling down into the culture at large. Trump’s effect on the culture cannot be easily sussed out from a programming guide or a glance at the gold figurine recently screwed into a molding at the White House. He has been more effective at glorifying and encouraging a style of meanness, which appears in unlikely places but is easy to hear if you’re listening for it. Even Kendrick Lamar flaunted this style by making a diss track the focus and theme of his Super Bowl halftime show."
a hand holding "the age of surveillance capitalism" by shoshana zuboff
Headline in the Dallas Morning News: "Many College Students Try Marijuana" (January 30, 1968)
a story in the april 12 1915 issue of the corsicana daily sun advertising the film "damaged goods"