I will never understand why this Christmas song goes so hard.
OKAY MOTHERFUCKERS LISTEN UP
BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS NOT CAROL OF THE BELLS
IT IS CHRISTMAS EVE/SARAJEVO 12/24 AND IT IS SO MUCH FUCKING MORE THAN CAROL OF THE BELLS.
so during the bosnian war (which was this nasty-ass conflict in bosnia and herzgovina) there was this badass cello-playing motherfucker named vedran smailovic. He was from Sarajevo, was upset about all the shit and nastiness that came about through this war (this was full-on brother-killing-brother shit!) that he went around to bombed-out, blown up buildings and funderals––where he was at risk of FUCKING SNIPER FIRE––and playing the cello. This guy was so set on providing one tiny spot of beauty in a seriously nasty war he was risking being fucking SHOT OR BLOWN UP.
AND THIS IS THE GUY WHO INSPIRED THIS SONG.
He’s why there’s the calm cello part at the beginning before everything gets all violent-sounding. It’s THEMATIC.
THAT’S WHY THIS CHRISTMAS SONG GOES SO FUCKING HARD.
Hey, listen. I know the world’s on fire. But listen.
I’ll tell you a thing.
On
the day after the election, when everything was worst and all I could
do was go numb or cry hysterically, do you know what gave me the most
comfort?
It wasn’t the words of Lincoln or Gandhi or Maya
Angelou, it wasn’t Psalms or poetry, it wasn’t my grandmother, it wasn’t
contemplating the long arc of history. It wasn’t even hugging the dog.
It was the Twitter account @ConanSalaryman.
This
is a joke account. It’s somebody who narrates as if Conan was working
in an office. Tweets usually sound like “By Crom!” roared Conan. “You
jackals cannot schedule a mere interview without gathering in a pack and
cackling?!” or “Conan slammed his sword through his desk. Papers and
blood rained through the office. Monday was slain.”
I followed
it awhile back and have found it funny. (I’m not a huge Robert Howard
fan inherently, but whoever is writing these does the schtick well.) But
if it had not posted once that day, no one would have noticed at all.
Instead, Conan the Salaryman posted something inspirational. And then replied to dozens of people replying to him, for hours, in character,
telling them that by Crom! it was only defeat if we did not stand up
again, that the greatest act of strength was to keep walking in the face
of hopelessness, that the gods have given the smallest of us strength
to enact change, that we must all keep going as long as Crom gave us
breath, and tyrants frightened Conan not, but we must look to those
unable to fend for themselves. (“Though by Crom! We must hammer
ourselves into a support network, not an army!”)
I have no idea
who is behind that account. But it was the most bizarrely comforting
thing I saw all day, in a day that had very little comfort in it. There
was this weight of story behind it. It helped me. I think it helped a
lot of people. If only a tiny bit–well, tiny bits help.
I have been thinking a lot lately about Bluebell from Watership Down.
There’s absolutely no reason you should remember Bluebell, unless, to take an example completely and totally at
random, you read it eleven thousand times until your copy fell apart
because you were sort of a weird little proto-furry kid who loved
talking animals more than breath and wrote fan fic and there weren’t any
other talking animal books and you now have large swaths memorized as a
result. Ahem.
Bluebell is a minor character. He’s Captain
Holly’s friend and jester. When the old warren is destroyed, Captain
Holly and Bluebell are the last two standing and they stagger across the
fields after the main characters. By the end, Holly is raving,
hallucinating, and screaming “O zorn!” meaning “all is destroyed” and
about to bring predators down on them. And Bluebell is telling stupid
jokes.
And they make it the whole way because of Bluebell’s
jokes. “Jokes one end, hraka the other,” he says. “I’d roll a joke along
the ground and we’d both follow it.” When Holly can’t move, Bluebell
tells him jokes that would make Dad jokes look brilliant and Holly is
able to move again. When Hazel, the protagonist, tries to shush him,
Holly says no, that “we wouldn’t be here without his blue-tit’s
chatter.”
I tell you, the last few days, thinking of this, I really start to identify with Bluebell.
I
am not a fighter, not an organizer, certainly not a prophet. Throw
something at me and I squawk and cover my head. I write very small
stories with wombats and hamsters and a cast of single digits. I am not
the sort of comforting soul who sits and listens and offers you tea.
(What seems like a thousand years ago, when I had the Great Nervous
Breakdown of ‘07, I remember saying something to the effect that I had
realized that if I had myself as a friend, I would have been screwed,
because I was useless at that kind of thing. And a buddy of mine from my
college days, who was often depressed, wrote me to say that no, I
wasn’t that kind of person, but when we were together I always made her
laugh hysterically and that was worth a lot too. I treasured that
comment more than I am entirely comfortable admitting.)
But I can
roll a joke along the ground until the end of the world if I have to.
And increasingly, I think that’s what I’m for in this life. Things are
bad and people have died already and I am heartsick and tired and the
news is a gibbering horror–but I actually do know why a raven is like a
writing desk.
For people wondering how to take action post-election of a racist demagogue (pulled from Twitter and cleaned up):
Make a spreadsheet or a file for your representatives with names, addresses to their offices, phone numbers, and contact forms. Put everyone there. Make a note in your calendar app to check in on issues once a month.
Pay attention to news. If you get angry, upset, or worried, seek support from friends but ALSO shoot these reps an email, too. Be courteous but firm and blunt. It’s a numbers game. Often we remain invisible because we don’t go to events and rallies and can’t be physically present. But we can attach our names to emails, we can write letters, we can be vocal. We don’t have to be invisible.
You can do this with your national reps, state reps, and local reps. If someone reps you anywhere, note them. Open a line and revisit it. It’s hard work and slow. One email at a time. One letter at a time. One call at a time. Emails are easy these days, so splurge every few months on a stamp and send a letter if you can. Put your humanity in front of these people. Flout it. Some won’t care, but others will. Change ONE mind and results can cascade.
Rural areas are bubbles full of bigotry and now it’s newly revealed. But we white people who live here have the clout and power! We can speak up when our reps say terrible things, and do terrible things, and vote terrible ways. We can go “I am disappointed in you.” It’s work, but as we’ve seen the last six months, it’s time for us to do that work. If someone goes “who are your reps” you gotta know. If you don’t know and you’re mad about this election, it’s time to create that file and keep it with you and use it.
The time for social media rants only is over. Or, do those, but maybe pull those threads out into a paragraph and send them to your reps. And don’t ONLY email or contact when things go badly. Also reach out when things go right. Even if they voted AGAINST something. Treat them like you would want to be treated if you were wrong or mistaken. But we’ve gotta reach out and let them know we’re here.
Anyway, I know this is hard work. If you need help collecting your reps, give me a ping via DM and I’ll help you get started.
It’s been an emotional week. I wanted to share this encounter I had with a very hateful man on the Pittsburgh bus because it reminds me that there are brave people in this world. Let’s all do everything we can to stand up for each other.
At any time of day, no matter what happens between you and a police officer, Raheem wants to know about it. Raheem never sleeps. Raheem is
a Facebook Messenger chat bot that will gather and map out interactions
with police across the country; it just entered beta testing and is
looking for a few thousand helping hands. Raheem’s creator, Brandon
Anderson, eventually wants to use reports from thousands of users to
build a people’s map of police behavior. Using Raheem is super easy.
in my preschool class we’re holding “class president of the day” elections this week. we already elected our first female president on monday, even though one of the boy’s campaign promises was to “bring jewels” to the classroom.
tuesday: we talked about the real election happening today. one child says she hopes hillary clinton wins and all of her classmates chime in with sober agreements. one boy says voting for the drumpf “would not be a very good idea.”
they elected the other female candidate today in our mock election, so she won over the jewels boy and the other boy, who said he would make bracelets for the entire class. my students are surprisingly practical, seeing as they voted for the candidate who would clean the school and help them with their work.
once president, she did do those things, but also punched one of her constituents into the sandbox, so, i mean … she’s sort of a typical politician i guess
wednesday: the children announced tensely to me that trump won the real election. one boy said, “i still don’t like him, but we can’t say we hate him, because then we would be saying we hate the president.”
i said that was true, and that saying we hate him sounds a lot like something trump would say. they nodded and continued to help the toddler class students get their snack plates to the table without dropping their apple slices.
they elected one of the girls again, so she served her second term by helping her friends button their art smocks before we made our galaxy paintings. (because if you think i’m gonna create an art lesson plan to focus any more attention on this shitshow of an election, you are wrong.)
neither of the boy candidates have stood much of a chance in this race so far. one of them came to me and said he was rethinking his campaign promises, and could he make a new poster
he got a paper and wrote a huge list of ways that he would help keep all the children safe, including reminding them to use walking feet and not to touch broken glass. then he volunteered to work in the toddler room and cleaned up all of their messes, and moved all the shelves in my room so he could clean behind them.
i’m feeling so hopeless right now, but these children remind me that there is a future and they. are. it.
thursday: today i was very pleased. our president today is the little boy who made changes to his campaign promises. he also wore tyrannosaurus rex foot slippers. when the voters were shaking his hand to congratulate him on his victory, one said, “good job, and thank you for having monster feet”
he watched everyone like a hawk to make sure they were being safe, and then spent the morning writing in his journal about how much he loves all of us and his bicycle.
Kimchi and Justice 