Weren’t we just here? Wasn’t it moments ago that we were waking up to a new week, full of dread and barely able to drag ourselves to the starting line? Didn’t we just complain about how exhausted we were and wonder how much more we could take? I guess the good news is I can copy and paste this exact block of text over and over again until it finally all comes down, because we live in a world where it’s always like this now. Here’s some music. Enjoy. [Via]

★★★★ A plump gibbous moon hung somewhat surprisingly in the sky. The air and the wind had sharpened. Blocks of reflected light added themselves to the light and dark of brownstone on the tower of the First Presbyterian Church. The sun was warm and abundant, so much so that walking into it was hazardous. Once it was gone, it was time to start thinking about which of the coats might have the gloves in the pockets.

Image: Alan Kotok via Flickr

JARED’s wreaking havoc in the Middle East, upending decades of American foreign policy, all to appease an unholy alliance of Evangelicals, who believe the world ought to end so they can reunite with God, and kleptocrats, who believe the world ought to end so they can finally begin pillaging Mars and other heavenly bodies. IVANKA is at the White House, playing Snood on an old computer she found from the Bush Administration. HER DAUGHTER is reading a Seth Abramson Twitter thread via her mother’s social media feed. She’s not allowed to sign up for her own accounts because she’s so young, but she also needs to know what’s happening. IVANKA permits her thirty minutes a day to peruse the toxicity. HOPE HICKS and SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS are saying “Merry Christmas” to each other repeatedly, until the words become meaningless. They’re having a blast. GARY COHN is blatantly doing nothing. If someone asks, he’s waiting around for the 3pm HQ Trivia game. There’s barking and swearing in the hallway. It’s probably STEVE BANNON training CHICKEN FINGERS, the former K9 dog he plans to run to fill either Al Franken or Tom Cotton’s Senate seat.

KUSHNER DAUGHTER [to HOPE HICKS]: I guess what I don’t understand is, what else would your purpose have been? Like on the campaign. What was your role?

HOPE HICKS [lying]: I was managing the President’s communications.

KUSHNER DAUGHTER [condescendingly]: You weren’t on staff for the sole purpose of reading emails aloud to my grandfather, so he wouldn’t need to be carbon copied on anything that could incriminate him?

[HOPE HICKS fidgets.]

Image: Pixabay

Where did you first hear about the “Flat Earth” movement? Was it rapper B.o.B’s twitter crusade, in which he demanded to know why he is unable to see “the curve”? Or maybe you stumbled across news of the flat-Earther ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes, who wanted to launch himself and his $20,000 steam-powered rocket into the air to prove the Earth’s flatness. Perhaps you even heard on NPR that certain middle-schoolers got the idea of a flat planet from basketball star Kyrie Irving and couldn’t be convinced otherwise by neither teacher nor science. But why is interest in flat Earth increasing in popularity? Why now?

The readily apparent answer is that the surge in interest is aligned with online celebrity endorsement and bolstered by ensuing media coverage. Flat Earth, according to Google Trends, has had several obvious peaks in the last year, like in August when flat-Earthers were asked to explain the solar eclipse and in February when Irving insinuated that he believed the Earth was flat on the Road Trippin’ podcast. But why the interest in the first place? Would it be entirely wrong to suggest that the notion of a flat Earth is perfectly reflective of this nonsensical, fact-and-science-bashing time we’re living in? And that the theory’s visual “evidence”, though absurd, makes for irresistibly shareable memes?

Are you excited for snow this weekend? I am! I hope it snows and snows and snows. I hope it snows until the snow covers the streets and the cars and the trees and the houses and the buildings and the bridges and the rivers and the oceans. I hope it never stops snowing until the whole world is buried so deeply under a blanket of snow that there is nothing but a thick covering of gleaming whiteness that is the only thing on the earth to be seen from space. Sure, they’re only predicting 2-4 inches, but a boy can still dream, can’t he? After everything they’ve taken from us please tell me that they haven’t also taken our dreams. Anyway, here’s music. Enjoy.

★★★★ The gray was just a little stonier than the gray of the previous morning, but the air was completely different. Cold wind spun the leaves in tight circles or sent them high into the sky. The wind pushed back against the effort to walk westward, then shoved the body through its turn around a corner. Finally the wind pried away the clouds, and everything was bright and appropriate.

“The successful application photo—quality pays!” That’s why YOU should pay this service. Screengrab: BEWERBUNGSSSERVICE.DE

For literally no reason whatsoever, I’ve decided now might be a good idea to start looking for a full-time job outside of the United States. And since my questionable life choices mean I speak German fluently, it’s time to start walking the walk of my lifelong love of punctuality and mandated coffee breaks and send out some German Bewerbungen (buh-VER-boong-en), or job applications, in the hope that some magnanimous Firma will go You know what? This Amerikanerin with the bad grammar is exactly what’s missing from our well-oiled yelling factory.

I have thereby discovered that from the American perspective, German job applications are monumentally (and unsurprisingly) thorough—some might even call them invasive, though that “some” would be us, a.k.a. people who currently operate in one of the most toxic workplace cultures in the developed world, so maybe some should shut some’s big American pie-Löcher for once and reconsider some policies that, in a different context, might not be so bad. Or also they might. I don’t know. Please give me a job, someone in Germany. I’ve got to get my family the expedient fuck out of here.

Villanelle

I will not say this child has died in vain
whose picture made its way around the net:
publicity will bring about some change.

I’ve spread the word and shared the pic, arranged
a Google hangout and consumed my night
saying that this child has not died in vain.

The way we’ve treated them is inhumane;
I’ve posted all about the children’s plight.
Publicity will bring about some change.