The Weekly Digest is a weekly (no shit?) update that captures highlights from the week that was. At the end of each week, I share a collection of thoughts, recommendations, and links. Like everything else I write, it's awesome, but it may be too long for email so make sure you click through.
🗳️Armalite and Ballot Box
Armalite and ballot box was a political catchphrase used to define the strategy pursued by Irish republicans, from 1981 up until the 1994 IRA ceasefire,[1] by which Sinn Féin ceased its policies of election boycott and abstentionism and instead contested elections in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, while the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) pursued an armed campaign to end Northern Ireland’s status as part of the United Kingdom.[2]
Armalite refers to the AR-15 and AR-18 Armalite rifles… The IRA smuggled significant quantities of these rifles into Northern Ireland during the early 1970s, and the “Armalite” became a symbol of republican armed struggle.[3]
I bought a gun this week. I am not thrilled about it, but I was less thrilled to be living unarmed in this current iteration of America. That math worked itself out, I guess. It’s a Canik SFx Rival handgun for those of you who are into such things. I don’t like the idea of holding it. I don’t like the idea of it in my house or near my family but keeping other things out of my house and away from my family is its purpose, so again: the math worked itself out.
It is a small step and will unfortunately be followed by more. I am in the market for a shotgun and a semi-automatic rifle as well. Up until recently I considered myself a pacifist; I guess I still do, just an armed one now. The bloodlust at the core of being American has finally gotten to me. It is hard to believe in the “American Dream” and the “promise of America,” and if you can no longer believe in the existence of “better angels” than you are just an unarmed sheep amongst well-armed wolves.
Make no mistake: this is a stopgap. The plan is to leave. Expatriate. I never liked this idea because I always thought that if you believed in something you should work to realize it. I’ve come to the conclusion that the America I want to live in and raise my family in will not arrive in my lifetime, if ever. The damage wrought by the neoliberalism and oligarchism of the last 50ish years is not irreversible, but I will be long dead by the time it is undone. In the interim, the seclusion of the mountains no longer feels like enough of a distance from people who might thing my wife’s name has too many vowels or that I’m the “wrong kind” of American.
I have no illusions about what happens if the jackboots come to the door. But I also know that I won’t be able to talk any of them to death either.
📚Book Bits
I finished C.S. Lewis’s Preface to Paradise Lost while working (slowly) through The Essential Paradise Lost. My plan, following its completion, is to read through the whole work and then Orlando Reade’s What In Me Is Dark. Lewis’s work is wonderful. He makes no bones about his biases and still mounts a substantive defense of Milton that has enriched my reading of the text. It has made we want to delve even deeper into the work, and it is very likely you all will get book-by-book essays on Paradise Lost but also accompanying live readings.
Recent Book Haul:
Ian Patterson was gracious enough to send me parts 2 and 3 of his Narrator Cycle, Transcendence and Transition. In fact, I got the author proof copy of Transition because it was all he had left, so Ian: please become the next John Grisham or Stephen King so I can retire off the resale value.
A reminder that you can send me books or ARCs via the Review Requests page. I’m hoping to continue working through my backlog over the rest of this year. Look for an updated TBR as part of the year-end wrap.
💡Substack Spotlight:
Inigo Laguda has become an immediate read for me on here. His latest, to men who can't say sorry, is cutting and excellent.
Likewise, will christopher baer1 draws on his background in the psych ward to shed light on the twisted reality that is modern America in who the fuck are we.
📰Substack Headlines
Knife Fight Ballet, a new workshop on violence, by Emil Ottoman of TELEVISION SKY
A significantly more direct and impactful way to get feedback from Substack’s Editor than my usual method: waiting for him to yell at me in Notes.
If you’d like to be featured in this section, you know how to find me. And if you don’t, you’ll learn.
🖋️Writing
Blake Butler had this quote from a recent piece that stuck with me. I’ve been feeling that itch toward fiction, and it is drawing me away from some essays I had promised to write. It feels borderline pointless to talk about the cultural implication of something that happened earlier this month. That was several paradigm shifts ago! But also, with my skill level it feels gauche to attempt anything that deals directly with the flaming hate circus going on right now.
Of course, everything feels that way to some extent. It feels askew to read a book about angels and demons from the 1600s, or post to Notes, or play video games.
❄️Fleeting Thoughts
I removed an electrical outlet, installed a media box, rewired the outlet, and mounted a new television set this week. I enjoy doing manual labor, but nothing makes me feel more inadequate in the traditional sense of masculinity2 than my inexperience with rudimentary maintenance work. This task went significantly better than my attempts at small engine repair (I did not fix the lawnmower, but I also did not blow myself to smithereens).
I always think about education when I think about these questions of “masculine” knowledge. I bought my wife flowers this week. I know (now) that you need to trim the stems after buying them and remove any leaves that may come in contact with the water in the vase. These flowers I bought were pretty but top heavy (I have no idea what kind they are), so when I put them in a vase they flopped over, lifeless. My wife knew that the solution was - in hindsight, obviously - a taller vase that would support the stems. Would I have ever figured this out on my own? Who is to say.
The flowers look nice. the TV is slightly crooked.
Chinga la migra. ✊
— V
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Who I call “Papa Baer,” at least until he tells me to stop.
Frequent readers will note that I take umbrage to the gendering of particular activities or skills. Regardless, there is a cultural perception that ties masculinity to things like electrical work, or plumbing. I honestly don’t know if my dad is capable of these things or not, but it has always felt like a deficit of my own masculinity that I never learned them.
word and much love to vinny reads aka obi wan of the orange ghetto thank the gods old and new he's keeping track of all the splinters the words are flying fast throwing shadows on the cave wall the words are all we have and some days it hits that if obi wan isn't reading this shit who the fuck is.. I don't know when the dude finds time to write.. buy him a coffee support his stack bless his heart as my grandma would say. peace.
Thank you for reading and sharing my work, Vinny. I never know how to respond to the process of someone getting a gun in America. It’s kind of like hearing about someone getting a divorce. Is it a congratulations? Is it a grave sadness? Perhaps there is no clean response beyond accepting the action: and in that case, I commend you for taking some sort of decisive action. Be safe 🙏🏾