Look on my works and despair
Keeping busy by myself
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
“Ozymandias”, Percy Bysshe Shelley
I am bone-tired.
A vexing combination of anxiety, fear, grief, sleeplessness, anger, and despair sapped me of energy and purpose this week. Only through Herculean effort was I able to work at anywhere near my usual drive. I cannot wait for the weekend’s respite, brief though it will be; I need it desperately.
There are two things I am grateful for this week, though. The first was a lovely Passover Seder celebration last night, hosted by my dear friend Arielle. It was only my second Seder ever, and it really meant the world to gather with nearly 30 people across various homes to commemorate our people’s deliverance so long ago; I only hope we can gather next year in better circumstances.
The second was the ability to periodically recite poetry on Instagram video this week. I started out by reading some of Pablo Neruda’s Veinte poemas, then switched to Shelley’s sonnet above, which is one of my favorite poems. Ozymandias’ words ring bitterly true to me this week: I cannot look on our works as a nation, and do anything but despair. We are deep into this plague in New York City; there is no reason why things should be this bad. And yet.
In any event: this is a shorter email than normal because I am deeply weary, and I need to rest. I’m Raf, you’re reading the Miscellanies. If you haven’t signed up, and you’re reading this because someone shared with you, you can subscribe by mashing that sign up button below:
The Midnight Gospel — Adventure Time creator Pen Ward's surreal new Netflix series will debut, appropriately enough, on 4/20. I’m here for this, just like I was there for Adventure Time.
How Low Can Your Logo? — very good designers compete to the worst possible logo for a fictional marketing company. This was wildly entertaining for me, since I’m a logo geek.
NYT Mag profiles Weird Al and his enduring appeal — includes a glimpse into his meticulous songwriting process. Weird Al’s low-key one of the most creative songwriters ever; it takes absurd levels of talent to do what he does, and he’s a genuinely kind guy to boot.
This was really fascinating for me: Computer store untouched since 2001 — Jason Scott dug up some of the backstory. Jason’s the textfiles.com guy who does such excellent work preserving the Internet and computer arcana.
Like roots in the soil — lovely post-apocalyptic interactive short story for Windows/Mac; I highly recommend this as a way to not think about all the pandemic stuff.
Vox reviews Quibi, the new short-form streaming video app — I checked it out, and honestly, I am perplexed on what they spent $1.75 billion on. My hunch is that Quibi is going to be a trivia answer and emblematic of the weird shit that got funded pre-pandemic.
Sports commentator Andrew Cotter calls a couple of plays: The Dog's Breakfast Grand Final and Game of Bones. This guy is one of my favorite new Twitter follows, and if you haven’t seen these videos, he’s fantastic.
I’ll leave you with this: 40 musicians from the Orchestra of Opera North play the introduction from ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’. You probably know it as the intro from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Enjoy.
I love you folks so much. I miss seeing you, I miss seeing people, and even though I know — through my faith — that all things are possible, and this will pass, my heart still aches to not see you. Nevertheless: we will persevere. Let’s rest this weekend, so that we may persist through the week that is to come. Thank you for reading; if you need anything, just reply.