Slay: slaughter :: ____: laughter? It’s shit like this that made me love being a teacher of English to multilingual speakers; I felt dispositionally and linguistically well-suited to absorb their incredulity, because really: WTF. This started, as everything does nowadays, because of Beyoncé’s “Formation.” “Slay” as an alternate verb for “perform magnificently” has been around … More (S)laughter is the Best Medicine
A word that is all over my world right now: Citizen. Of course it’s all over the wide world too, but I encounter it in some particular and lovely ways that are not necessarily the ways of the wide world. (For countenancing the wide-world context, see CultureStrike’s “Migration is Beautiful” project, and support nonviolent direct action here if you … More Belovedness to the Indweller
To start: if you haven’t looked into #ReclaimMLK, I urge you to do so. There, (and here, at the Movement for Black Lives action site), you’ll find ways to counter the “Santa-Clausified” narrative (per Cornel West) of King that overlooks or denies his radicalism, his critiques of capitalism, his disappointment with white moderates, and his refusal … More Genius and Theft
On this Christmas Eve, I who believe in much but do not identify as a Christian offer this love letter to my coexistent believers (…in anything.* That’s probably you! Unless…). So: now that I know there is such a thing as a “Messiah Singalong,” I’m never not going. It’s THE BEST. It’s SO WEIRD, also! … More An Open, Level Area: Heath Notes
Have I told you that Bill has built a whole entire bar* in our house? It’s gorgeous, and he stands behind it and nods “whuddullyahave?” at you and it’s awesome. He uses lots of fresh citrus in his drinks, and the other day he encountered, and showed me, an orange of unusual pith. And it was … More God is Coming and She is Pithed
Recently I have been places* where one word rings out above and through all others: organize. One beautiful way it rings out is literally, when people sing it: here is an example, from a community sing led by April Cadell at the Highlander Center for Research and Education, in New Market, Tennessee. The parts you’ll hear, in … More That With Which One Works
The word “encounter”…well, I keep bumping into it. It started on the Green River, with Camille Farrington. She offered us–the assembled, all connected to EL in one way or another–a framework to describe the developmental experiences through which children learn. It integrates both action and reflection*, and breaks each of those up into delicious component bites. I … More Encounterer Tinkerer Chooser Practicer Contributor SPY!
Oh heavens, y’all, I have not felt like I had it in me to write for a bit, but like those other things that “if you think you don’t have time for ___, you EXTRA need to do it, probably to save yourself from yourself” (i.e. exercise, meditation), writing on here is something I can … More Omnipatent Cells
When I’m talking with people I love and who love me, there’s usually an undercurrent–sometimes deep under, sometimes right at the conversational surface–of the question “How should we live?” We report to each other our latest thoughts on possible answers, or how things have worked out as we acted according to some hypothesis or another, or … More Hanging, Together
This is too much, it’s too amazing. A secret that only 50 or so people know about me is that I am drawn to the idea of…well, I hadn’t known what to call it, but it’s something that seminaries, convents, caves on hills, monasteries, houses on the highway where you can get your palm read, dissertation … More Anchoresses: Away!
interlexionality 