4444

So the thing is that I have 4,444 unread emails in my Inbox and obviously this is some sort of 21st century omen.

Crash Course

THE PRIDE OF GARBAGE When the owner of the house picked up the bag of garbage and headed out to the street to throw it in the dumpster, the bag was overwhelmed with the fear that she would be put side by side with her companions. But when the man placed her on top of all the others, she became intoxicated with her greatness and looked down at them with disdain.

by Osama Alomar, translated from Arabic by C. J. Collins with Lydia Davis

Manifesto for Psycho-Social Sedentariness

or How to Fail Bolaño 

Why read?
Why fuck?
Why travel?

Watch television.
Nurture an emphatic solitariness.
Quash your instinct for risk and adventure.

Cultivate a bouquet of dependencies. 
Turn your back to the shelves, filling up.
Insist on returning to the same bed every night.

Lose your appetite for touch.
Gather ye insecurities while ye may.
Accumulate an insurmountable inertia.

Forget words.
Unrehearse flirtation.
Become a homing pigeon.

The Wrong Reaction

I saw Arundhati Roy this evening, looking at a set of photographs of Afghan women on display at the Habitat Center as part of the Delhi Photo Festival. I was instantly self-conscious about my pants.