Autumn equinox and the light matches the dark. We’re standing on the verge of an uneasy fall, unsure just how high the curve will go. This pandemic has pressed the gas pedal, accelerating the death of brick-and-mortar, social isolation, and a world understood through screens. Meanwhile, a handful of billionaires are busy vacuuming up the scraps that remain. Something must give way. Like putting a band-aid on a corpse, someone once said to me. Can an entire system be overturned without becoming ideological and frightening?
The attorney general declared Portland, Seattle, and New York City to be “anarchist jurisdictions” for reasons unknown. The large digital clock in Union Square now displays the time remaining before climate disaster becomes irreversible. About seven years. Sometimes I think about those hanging chads in Florida, the world we might have had. Maybe not wildly different, but perhaps a little calmer and cooler. But something as slight as a poorly-punched piece of paper can send the world speeding down a very different road.
