First Word #19

Decline. Cigars. Folk Punk. Axe against stone.

One hour before Monday’s opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange, a group of oily college juniors wait hungrily outside, suited and bespectacled. They seek a front-row seat for what commentators warn will be the worst stock crash in recent memory. The kids are holding Nvidia, and they all voted for Trump. They are here for a class trip. They say that despite the market implosion, they believe in the cause.

Bloodlust and Boozing During Trump’s Wall Street Beatdown // Daniel Boguslaw // The American Prospect

I’m glad someone actually did the reporting from Wall Street piece.

Decline is rarely graceful.

A More Graceful American Decline // Dominik A. Leusder // Jacobin

I’ve been on Zillow a lot since January 7, the day the fires started in Los Angeles. I’m not looking for an apartment, or summoning a future dream home. I’m looking at numbers, watching how quickly the private housing market exploits disaster.

Diary of a Spreadsheet // Chelsea Kirk // n+1

I really hope its Real Economic Reporting in quirked up magazine hours. I want that so bad.

In the spring of 1942 Dr Lennox Johnston, a Merseyside GP, took the train to London, intending to pluck Winston Churchill’s cigar from his lips and stamp it out.

The Disease of Tobacco Smoking and Its Cure // Nicholas Hopkinson // LRB

How very British. From Rohan.

Patrick Schneeweis was never the voice of a generation, but perhaps he was the voice of a tendency.

The Evolution of a Folk-Punk Hero // Kelefa Sanneh // The New Yorker

I legit squealed when I saw this piece. I feel many of the “tendency” did as well. My favorite lore about this piece (which I hope I’m allowed to share) is that they had to tweak a sentence which said Pat avoided interviews—he didn’t avoid them, no one had asked. Song linked below :)

University students snatched off the streets and spirited away by plainclothes agents of the state. So-called “enemy aliens” shipped to a Central American prison with no semblance of due process. AI-fueled witch hunts against dissidents. This is life under Donald Trump’s immigration regime. The sterile language of the federal immigration bureaucracy fails to meet the urgency of the moment.

Trump Has Created a Legal Nightmare // Gaby Del Valle // The Nation

In early October 2024, I stood in the shadow of Mount Hum, the highest peak on the Croatian island of Vis, as dozens of European volunteers hauled stones out of the ground. A mix of American blues and buoyant Yugoslavian revolutionary music carried on the breeze. The air smelled like rosemary and rang with the constant smack of axe against stone.

Better Living Through Disaster // Caitlin L. Chandler // The Baffler

Nothing about Benjamin Simpson’s transition was inevitable, certainly not his penis. Though he did, in the end, grow up to be a man, he freely admits that in another place or time he might have grown into an unhappy woman, or the local eccentric, or a person who died too young from suicide.

How Ben Got His Penis // Jamie Lauren Keiles // The New York Times