disparition

[disparition]

EULOGY FOR FIVE WAYMOS

There are still traces of you in the air

A delicate perfume of money and lithium oxide

Your final burning moments loop forever on the glass skin of the mirror world

A bright mask to hide the growing thousands

who do not know where their loved ones are

who disappear on the way to work

who followed the words of Emma Lazarus and found the promise rotting

Pay all that no mind, your fires shriek

as though all acts of empathy are rendered null and void the moment property is at stake

You never lived.

You were always substance, a mass of wire, metal, plastic and glass

and now you are a pile of charred dust

You cannot be saved

And yet is for you, and only you,

the iron boots march westward

and the heavy eyes of a million liars rest upon our names

We will not let that weight drag us down

[disparition]

this is a picture of a stack of bricks. it’s located at a construction site in new jersey.

if you do a reverse image search, you will find this image currently being posted on multiple social media networks along with the claim that violent protests in LA were planned by some nefarious conspiracy and that these pallets of bricks were dropped off at strategic locations near protests in order to fuel said violence.

often, when a picture like this is posted, the conversation is immediately flooded with commentators who readily accept the image as hard proof of what is “really happening” even though it is simply a photo of some bricks with no stated location or context (as for how i know the bricks are in NJ, see here: https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2025/06/fact-check-photo-of-bricks-was-not-taken-in-los-angeles-during-june-2025-protests.html)

there’s no AI trickery here, these are real bricks, and the people sharing the image don’t have to do any work to “prove” that these bricks have anything to do with the protest, because a pre-existing crowd of accounts is already there to support the narrative and shout down contradictions.

this is of course just a drop in the bucket. the misinformation war is huge, and pales in comparison to the physical violence that victims of ICE and other state forces are going through today, but all of these elements work together.

i am hearing from people in other parts of the country that LA is “on fire” (it isn’t), that local authorities have told law enforcement to stand down and join the protests (they haven’t), that there is widespread looting and rioting (there isn’t). there is zero justification for the national guard or marines being sent here, that is entirely a political stunt; albeit a disgusting and dangerous one. i have also seen people sharing videos of soccer fans and claiming they are protestors, sharing pics from other protests in 2020 or even in other countries, and claiming that its current footage of LA

you are being lied to. that’s not new, but the speed and scale of it is. as usual, the reality is that the majority of violence is coming from the authorities, and the widespread use of deceptive media is being used to turn the people against a justified protest. don’t fall for it.

[disparition]

at the time when anne frank was arrested, she was breaking the law. the people who helped hide her and other targets of the nazis were also breaking the law.

that is where it leads when you justify state violence. “if you didn’t want oppression you shouldn’t have broken the law” is an attitude that leads directly to fascism, and it rings entirely hollow from those who also support a leader that flagrantly violated the law but waived the consequences by virtue of power possession.

[disparition]

it has been a practice my entire life to pick up random pennies off the ground, look at the year, and then make a prediction about how the rest of that week will go based on what that year means to me. this practice has never been tied to the monetary value of the penny but it still feels weird that that will be gone. i wonder if i'll see more or less of them now

[disparition]

seven emperors gather on a stolen plain

feet soft on the marble tile

they wriggle and squirm

their life of breaking gigantic boulders, crushing mountains, and leveling towers has filled their silk robes with sand and salt

so they itch

“i have an idea”, they said, “let us place a corn finals and grain of sand in the pocket of our enemy. let them stir and fester, grow, and tear themselves asunder while we sleep”

and as the decades spun, they looked upon their work with pride

“O new Antioch! O bright Edessa! the golden city covered in a sheen of plastic!”

and their spreadsheets filled with tally after tally of iron and fire

yet even as the weight of the numbers pinned them beneath their silver robes and porcelein halls, they itched still.

but their feet had dug lines in the stone. they dared not cross for fear of tumbling into each other.

now the winds rise and flow through the gaps in the mountains they destroyed.

the sand and salt swirls in their eyes

they stumble and lean

and now there’s a real possibility

of them all falling down

at once

[disparition]

Egwene sniffed.

[disparition]

herbie hancock, who has been one of my musical heroes since i was a teenager, recently confessed that his latest album was delayed 15 years because he “fell down too many youtube rabbit holes” and that honestly makes me feel a lot better about myself

[disparition]

announcing a new Welcome to Night Vale live tour!

the first leg of the tour takes use thru Newark, Brooklyn, Boston, Northampton, Norwalk, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. tickets are available now through the main Night Vale website. see you there!

[disparition]

Citroën AmiHY, 2024, by Caselani. The Italian coachbuilder has made a bodykit for the Citroën Ami electric quadricycle that converts it to resemble Citroën's historic HY van.

[disparition]

i am currently reading three books, mostly non-fiction, one of which belongs to a friend so i really need to finish it, and i have like ten more on my list after that.. but i still just picked up Too Like The Lightning back off the shelf to "check something" and then kept going for a bit. maybe more than a bit. why _shouldn't_ i reread the entire series for a third time?? after all, why not?

[disparition]

RIP Peter Sinfield