First Word #8
Year of the Wood Snake, some film recs, and my first sentences of the week.
On the quiet afternoon of March 5, 2024 in the northern occupied West Bank, I watched as a convoy of Israeli military jeeps drove along a narrow, winding road lined with terraced olive groves, passing the remnants of at least ten major civilizations dating back to the Bronze Age, to the summit of the tallest hill in Sebastia, a Palestinian village of about four thousand people…. If God shook a dice cup of stone ruins and rolled them across the green earth, it might look something like Sebastia.
In Ruins | Archaeological Warfare in the West Bank // Jasper Nathaniel // The Drift
This piece actually reminded me a lot of this film ‘Lyd’ (nepotism moment my bf’s mom helped produce but its still a great watch regardless) which documents the history and present of the ancient city of Lod (taken over by Israel in 1948) through personifying the town.
A 1,650-pound American bucking bull named Man Hater paused at the entrance to the Madison Square Garden floor and fixed me with his dark, soulful eyes. “Hi, puppy,” I said.
The Tickling of the Bulls: A Rodeo at Madison Square Garden // Jasper Nathaniel // The Paris Review
From Leonor. Nathaniel dominating the charts here @ The First Word…
When Joan Baez saw ex-boyfriend Steve Jobs for the last time before he died, she asked him a rather profound question. "I said, 'How does it feel to have changed the world?' He said, 'OK."
Joan Baez: Dylan, Steve Jobs, Dr King & Me // Lily Armstrong // Mojo Magazine
Stolen from Alex’s twitter… what did you all think of the Bob Dylan movie?
Book titles are like city buses: they bunch up and arrive in packs.
Slim For Britain // Susan Pedersen // London Review of Books
From Rohan.
My friend Kyle always had a lot of money and could get me into the expensive kind of trouble without the trouble sticking.
The Summer Before The Night Ecstasy Became Illegal In The State Of Texas // David Berman // Feed Mag
From Jacob.
In David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, college student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) discovers that he’s both a detective and a pervert.
David Lynch’s Guts // Vikram Murthi // The Nation
Last night I watched “Gattaca” at the bar and drooled over Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman (Jude Law is also there). It’s kind of a moving anti-eugenics movie with great visuals, I’m no film bro so I didn’t know it was the same cinematographer as the color trilogy. Charlie watched “Solaris” at Metrograph which is about the b̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ moon that makes you sad. I’m also hearing that David Lynch has a movie about Iowa that I’ll have to watch soon.
Personally, I’m trying to “lock in” as they say to the 2nd week of my new job (which requires an amount of focus that I have to remember how to do) + prepare for my classes which start next week. Now, for me, it’s certainly is feeling like the year is actually beginning.
I’ve always felt that that the year definitely does not start 01/01 but Chinese New Year feels much more accurate. Historically I’ve been a big believer in like a spring equinox/Nowruz situation—that the year begins when grass begins to grow anew in March— but I would agree that it is about to be year of snake for sureeeee and that things are beginning to feel a bit…different.
2025 is the year of the Wood Snake, which last happened in 1965. As someone who with Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland fresh in my brain, what a loaded year. he Watts Rebellion, voting rights, Malcolm X assassination, contraception legalized, troops on the ground in Vietnam. Re: Bob Dylan that’s also the year of the electric controversy at New Folk Festival featured in the Timmy film. The Wood Snake, the year of Yisi 乙, embodies wood (tolerance, endurance, flexibility) and fire (passion, transformation, energy). Last year was the wood dragon… seems similar enough right? Wrong! The snake doesn’t fly, it’s grounded in the earth, unlike the dragon.
With that in mind, how do we dig into our networks of care and organizing to endure what is to come? The prompt is worth a journal/morning pages if that’s something you like to do.
Stay warm and remember to send me first sentences you’ve enjoyed (poamek at gmail dot com).
Best,
PG