PicoBlog

Editor’s Note: Our friend Mary Jo Tate, a longtime Close Reads listener, also happens to be an expert in the life and work of Eudora Welty, so as we work our way through The Optimist’s Daughter it seems only right to let her Mary Jo provide a starter kit for the life and work of this wonderful Southern writer. Hope you enjoy. —David Eudora Alice Welty (1909–2001), the oldest of three surviving children of Christian and Chestina Andrews Welty, lived in Jackson, Mississippi nearly all her life.

For maybe fifteen years, the alarm was set for 5:04 am. Since pandemic, 6:04. Weekends, nothing, I try to sleep as late as possible, though I rarely make it past seven-thirty. I know what I find beautiful about waking early—the blue coloring, the optimism, the first coffee on the lips—but for a long time I overvalued it, I think. Not the dawn, but the recurrence. Routine is crucial, but routine also can be crutch.

A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.

I got an email from a mental health social worker in Ireland. Sarah, this social worker, told me that patients often come into hospital in crisis, with only the clothes on their backs. Upon leaving the hospital, they often end up putting all their belongings in a trash bag. Trash bags are very functional and efficient, but, as Sarah said, they “are not a good expression of care and something I aim to change.

Coordinates: 47.51460° N, 122.39124° W “Steve was one of the kindest persons I have ever met,” John Kugler The Cascade Bicycle Club said Steve Hulsman was a ride leader for more than a decade. Hulsman was killed while biking on Dec. 21. “He shared everything, whether it was knowledge or cycling experience. It was very much who he was, just an openhearted person,” said David Longdon, who had been riding with Hulsman since 2007.

iOS, Android Free with Netflix Ghost Detective is a puzzle game where you find hidden objects to catch your own murderer. As you search for clues across New Orleans, you meet other ghosts and chat with your ghost-talking sister Angela, solving their problems and collecting resources to unlock new locations. The core of Ghost Detective lies in its hidden object gameplay. You look at pictures of a bar, plaza, police station, or apartment, and tap on objects matching a list of words.

“No matter how sick I feel, I’m still afire with a need to do something for my living,” wrote Audre Lorde in her diaries about living with the cancer that would ultimately killer her, “A Burst of Light”. She frankly, intimately, describes the increasing care she requires from her lover, her children, her friends, and her frustration with her body’s refusal to let her be wholly independent, and let her complete her creative work.

I’m getting ready to visit Venice again this week and one thing that’s been on my mind during these past, very hot late spring days is gelato, and in particular, the wonderful gianduiotto from Gelateria Nico. The Gianduiotto is a thick block of gianduia (chocolate hazelnut) flavoured ice cream drowning in a cup of whipped cream. It’s an old-school specia… ncG1vNJzZmidnZ64sLDAr6Ceq16owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6goJqmlKq2sMDTqGSaZZOdvKS7y5qrnmWYlsemuM2uqw%3D%3D

Every single aspect and form of human life functions within its confines, overseen by intricate systems of control. As reasoned by Gilles Deleuze in “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, the system of control is subtle and ingrained into the daily operations of life - the methods of domination, in which citizens are monitored, are not perceived as instruments of control but rather as exercises of freedom. When you buy an iPhone, create a Facebook account, swipe a credit card, take a DNA test, or enter airport security, you do so out of your own will, yet those acts of freedom increase the institutional power over you, relinquishing data or capital to already powerful institutions.