Davka Daze

( surrealist dystopian art by Michael Kerbow) Much has been written about how the internet, and social media in particular, turns otherwise regular, and even decent, people into raging assholes, whether due to anonymity, distance, filters, algorithms, or some combination of factors. A lot has also been written about how our information environment and media ecosystems no longer provide knowledge or facts, let alone news, instead generating exploitable outrage that drives clicks, views, etc. A good amount has been written about our literacy crisis and how this has impacted not just younger generations, but even older ones, as different groups struggle with different aspects of reading, marketing, propaganda, alternative media, corporate news, and the intentional destruction of public education alongside the public respect for expertise and the Fourth Estate of traditional media. But, for me, I just wish that sometimes I knew less about the people from my real life when I see them online...

( Books of Jewish Beauty ) Hadran Alach : “hadran alach, ve’hadrach alan,” which is Aramaic for “we have returned to you and we will return to you, dear tractate, and you have returned to us and will return to us.” We say this when finishing any book, not just religious ones. We treat books almost as if they are people, capable of thought and feeling. We respect and revere them. We treat them as guests of honor in our lives. They are to be visited often, to be remembered, and to be returned to in gratitude and thankfulness for the gifts of knowledge and enjoyment that they have provided. Take note and take care.

(Art by Dave Correia) Every day. Since January 22, 2003. I sit and I write. I read. I rewrite. I read something else. I write something else. I keep doing this and doing this and doing this. I have been writing so much for so long that I've lost more writing than I can remember or pull from storage. Some days I write better than others. Most days I just write what I need to write to make it to the next day to write something else, something more. I miss my life before writing, in certain ways. It was prelapsarian. It was before the recorded word. It was the BCE to my AD. I can imagine any number of things, any number of myths about who I was, why I was, how I was... Once I started writing, I became unable to distort my lived experience. It was stark. It was unambiguously factual. It was lacking adornment to the point of emaciation. Before I could write I was a life full of adventure and magic. It was tragedy, it was comedy, it was drama. It was. Now It simply is. My...