The Main Event, by stacy-marie ishmael

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July 13, 2025

suitcases passports degrees of mobility

Took a class earlier today, about essays (the art, practice, and form of).

When there’s a crisis I read because I want to be reminded of the necessity of description, of the importance of capturing or imagining a moment, of the differing utility of fiction and non-fiction.

I read because I want to be told a truth — such as, “It’s as if there’s an entire part of the population that remains invisible until feared“, or to understand something better.

I read because when there’s a crisis I cannot always write, and reading helps me find the words for the next one. Because there is always another one.

Josh Johnson, a comedian, riffed on something in his extended treatise on the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl half-time show that I’ve been thinking a lot about — he said that art can save your life, but entertainment (ie escapism) will never be your salvation. As he put it, “no one ever escaped their chains by forgetting they were there.”

I read to be reminded.

Attribution

I am far

from the passage far from the plane of descending
them,

suitcases passports degrees of mobility like heat 
like heat on their backs. 

This cluster of fine grapes Haitian purple beige
black brown.
— from What is Water? by Danielle Legros Georges 
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