( via / via )

"On X, Mangione followed Sam Altman, Ezra Klein, Edward Snowden, RFK, and AOC."

"Habibti Ghazal

Nineteen’s slow violence. Your arm a tusk slicing the air—whoa, habibti—
for that first Jack-and-Coke. Here we go, take it slow, habibti.

Soon, you’ll become an emergency: I.V. bag and emerald bruise.
First love hammering your door, but you’re no habibti,

no bait turned proposal. On the third page of an old journal,
the same question in pale ink: Can I be my own habibti?

You glaze-eyed. You lit like a county fair. The long twine
of a decade, hold the tattoo needle to skin and sew .

Even the sea rots here. This prop city with its prop heart.
The hot-eyed men whistling the streets: Hello, habibti.

Hello, cream. Hello, daughter of men. Hello, almost-wife.
I can’t teach you about metaphor; I’m stuck in the future. O, habibti,

I want to see those legs running. There’s the oncoming headlight of boy:
Ribcage. Fist. War. It’s time, habibti. Please, habibti. Go, habibti."

--Hala Alyan via @rabihalameddine.bsky.social

The pre- and post- nft clown show that is contemporary art.

"Growing up, I had contact with refuseniks, people who, after long fights, managed to get out of the Soviet Union. And I remember, listening to their stories, asking (paraphrased). 'when they hold all the power, what can you do?'

And I’ve never forgotten what one of them said.

'Don’t be afraid.' "

--@lauraannegilman.bsky.social

Tanka.