The late kind of 12:37

Barely one car fits through the narrow alley where I'm having a glass, in a city where most streets are alleys anyway, and most cars are banged up--because they don't fit anywhere, sure, but also because of the liberté that driving around comes with in Marseille. There are things next to each other on the menu that, a few years/decades ago, would never have shared a board together:

Stracciatella, crême des petits poits

Crab roll sushi

It's a little off-putting, and not really what I came here for, but this wine and this cigarette is maybe it lol.

I'm thinking about 2025 terms, and how words get made when people need them. How we're able to borrow things from other places in ways that wasn't possible before. Brazilification (canceled), Dubaization (academic), Las Vegas-ification (coloquial), Bushwick-ification (hyperlocal).

It’s only in the past however many years that people have been able to identify things from across the world growing in home towns. See how they all say I see what you’re doing, I see that over here, too? But also *I don’t like that, get that away. *I feel confident saying that these are new words.

You see right through the world

It’s new for us to be able to reach hands through the center of the earth and shop for phenomena that crop up in far-away places, and it’s only possible in the abstract, dematerialized world.

You can’t just walk through walls in the real world. But you can in ours.

Sometimes reaching through isn't just to take, but to make contact and/or connect. These moments of hyperlocal wormholing don’t have an “-ification” or a “-zation” to go with them, they’re not systematic enough. They’re not able to be as easily systematized. But we immediately feel resonance and incorporate things into our lives, no matter how far away or different they are when it happens.

This is an extension of the hypothesis that “we’re all kinda on the same shit.”

Wheel of fortune (#Random mode)

The music on the rocks, the types of covers on street lamps, the fonts on the backs of cars and decals that I recognize--it all builds up this spinning wheel of familiar blips, reminding me with each jackpot struck that even the people at the most concentrated pools of power are, at the end of the day, random ass people like everyone else.

For example: the young person at work stacking chairs as this bar closes down does it with more care than the curators at the Paris museums I went to. The guy with deep bags in his eyes telling me “it’s too late, it’s just my job” as he collects a fine for fare-hopping lowkey does it with more care, too.

Some people follow through on everything when no one is watching, when no credit is due. And the people that are there for spotlight or with pretense let their own care for the game slip out of their hands. It crashes and spills--oh well, so much for that.

What did you tell yourself you'd do today?

Thinking about a recent video Anita posted where she talked about how important it is to do what you say you will.

& I'm not even sure I'm so invested in it as "important” as I am in it being “powerful,” because it sure as heck is. I’m beholden now to a collective project in a way I haven't been since that weird burst of 18-year-old-the-world-is-ours gusto. I'm not on my own timing now. I've had a lot to figure out and am settling back into the power of following through.

Doing is care, following through on word and commitment is the way we stack chairs at the end of the night, leaving the place ready for tomorrow.

So i’m asking readers this time around to do that thing you said you were going to do.

It’s really now or never, with pretty much everything.

A note on the last writing

Look at those before/afters of cities going from small streets and shops with big signs and people all day to parking lot hellscape. Shit has been abstracted (life in blank space)

& I wanted to clarify that social activity (interaction, coordination) hasn’t just been made unnecessary, it’s been actively boxed out, shut down. More & more, I’ll remind you, too, to reach out and reply to these with your thoughts and feedback or message me @roman

It’s always appreciated!