Journal
Dispatches and speculations from the American roadside.
Country
Went to an exhibition about the countryside that felt like walking into a Wikipedia entry written under the influence of heavy-duty stimulants.
Armory
The brittle energy of coronavirus anxiety commingled with ritualized decadence. Face masks and champagne stations.
Fortune
Once again, the question that haunts me when I approach any kind of altar: Am I allowed to pray before you if I don’t understand you?
Sanitizer
We wash our hands constantly like we’ve done something wrong. We try not to touch our faces.
Lamp
One of the finest things I own is a lamp with a stern brass pirate, one hand on his hip and the other gripping a long sword.
Tuesday
Another chapter in this endless season of passive-aggressive battles in hotel lobbies and gyms, their flatscreens cycling between Fox News and CNN.
Golden
Tonight I crave the cadence of the desert. Groom Lake. Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range. Devil’s Hole. Epic names that speak of salvation and redemption.
Hills
These are days of hand sanitizing lotion and being told to sing “Happy Birthday” twice in your head while washing your hands.
Leap
“The beginnings of Dada were not art but disgust,” said Tristan Tzara in 1918. Each day the rationale for Dada’s rejection of logic makes a little more sense. But cynicism is a cheap dodge, isn’t it?
Crash
A woman was visibly upset in aisle six because they’re out of antibacterial hand-wipes. “But when will there be more?” I’m still thinking about the look in her eyes.
Scribble
A consultant from Brussels asked everyone to draw the shape of their lives on a Post-It note. I made a scribble and people began approaching me as if I’d scrawled a cry for help.
Cross
Ash Wednesday and people walk the streets with smudged crosses on their foreheads. A beautiful ritual, ancient and haunted.