WHITE NOISE

I. 

Your glassy-eyed designated driver grins venomously and makes a suggestion:

 “Let’s drive this Chevelle off a bridge... just for fun.” 

It’s such an absurd idea, but you’re too far gone to really object. Somewhere between the fifth shot of Jack Daniels and a half-spilled Budweiser, you lost the ability to sound out coherent words. After all, his foot was on the pedal before he even finished the sentence.

Now the engine, this three hundred ninety-six cubic inch mass of American muscle—the one your father pieced together bolt by hand-polished bolt—is roaring like a scalded dog, past the red line, its valves and pistons lashing each other into oblivion. 

‘Liquid courage’ is such a tired old term, but alcohol really does have this blessed way of taking the terror out of terrifying situations. Even though there’s a pit in your stomach that won’t stop rising, even though you’re soaring, even though you’re gripping so hard your nails crack, you can admire it all from behind the comforting lens of certitude. 

...like that time you went sky-diving on your eighteenth birthday, and they told you, “Once you get in that plane, the only way we’ll let you leave is by jumping.”

An image flickers into your brain, luminous and blurry as a drive-in movie screen: It’s your mother and father on the night of your conception, in the back seat of this very same car. Funny.

Deep breath. Count down from ten. If you don’t wake up from this then the windows are gonna implode and you’ll be gulping baptismal red white and blue.

II. 

THE ANXIETY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO TWENTY-SOMETHING

CHAPTER 1

As much as in me is, I am ready to share the good news to you that are young and wanting for guidance. 
For God is dead and the earth lays dying. 
For truth belongs to an earlier time.
For humanity has arranged the means of its own exsanguination. 
But glory to all that have prepared for a second coming. Glory to those who are baptised at the well of introspection, who have woven the search for purpose into their very lungs!
There’s a raison d’etre that’s shiny and new and time-consuming: It is the struggle for personal meaning.
So keep your cheek tight against the stone. Lend your shoulder to brace the clay-covered mass of salvation. Consider not the lilies. Push, arms outstretched, toward the peak of your Best Self. 
Lastly, cleave to confession. And for this cause pay ye tribute to the poets, for they are your ministers. O see how their voices burst with hypnotic vulnerability? Three minutes of catharsis in each gnashing of teeth.

CHAPTER 2

Do not be as a doomsayer, turning your back to hope. Do not seek beauty at the well of tragedy. 
For such blood-drinkers cast their minds aside, finding relief only in the body.
They are the sort who proclaim from grimy concrete chancels, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last!” 
They think of the soul’s ascendance as retreat; the body’s putrefaction as a gift to the Earth. Do not give in to such decadent lucidity!
Do not, as children, seek freedom in sensation, and sleep, and movement. 
When your daily toils are done and you are wanting in good spirit, one needs only to observe them:
Trembling so violently, so uncontrollably, that they wonder, awestruck, “Are these my feet attempting to dance?"

III. 

5 Crucial Tips for Highly Authentic Selfies

Surprisingly, it can be the little things that have an outstanding effect on your image.

1. Being Inauthentic Can Ruin Your Selfies—And Your Life!

Learning how to take authentic photos of yourself will make a much bigger difference in how you look than any camera app. Your followers know when you’re living a lie and, like all lies, being inauthentic causes nothing but harm. 

Researchers from Harvard, Cornell, Stanford and Oxford joined forces to measure this phenomenon scientifically. They found that when people failed to behave authentically they experienced a heightened state of discomfort (including feelings of guilt), and spent around 30% more time in the shower. 

The ability to live life in harmony with your true self is clearly visible, and WILL show up in your selfies! Which takes us to our next piece of advice...

2. “Prune”

“Duck Face” is a classic selfie pose, but these days all it says to your followers is “I’m trying really hard to look sexy.” Instead, whisper the word “prune” as you snap the photo. You’ll have a less pronounced expression that still brings out your lips and cheekbones!

3.Know that Life is Messy (And Doesn’t Have Any Good Filters)

Selfie burnout is real. Studies have shown that regularly checking social media can reduce your self-esteem by up to 12.5%. But if you can consciously recognize that you’re already aware of this subconscious problem, maybe you’ll be an exception.

So keep in mind that real life is messy. Constantly remind yourself that Instagram won’t give you a complete picture of other people’s lives. This way you’ll be prepared when that California Instagrammer you follow posts a photo, and you think, “I want that face. I want that personality. I want that life.”
 
4. Don’t Be Afraid To Go #natural.

If your photos are always flawless, people might start to feel that you are too perfect. You also don’t want to completely populate your friends’ feeds with mediocre, unedited, and uninspiring images. This is a careful balancing act that only seasoned social media personalities have mastered. Occasionally giving your followers a #iwokeuplikethis snap or a surprising #nomakeup photo will do the trick.

5. Never Stop Improving!

It’s important to always stop and be critical, both of your photos and how you represent yourself out in the world. Never be content! Take a selfie every day that expresses your new self-understandings and aspirations. Incorporate social justice themes and hashtags into your posts that show what’s important to you. As you lie in bed with your eyes open staring into the darkness every night, think about how to become a better, more honest representation of ‘You’!

 

IV. 

“In its 27th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted for “dumpster fire” as the Word of the Year for 2016. Defined as “an exceedingly disastrous or chaotic situation,” the term dumpster fire was selected as best representing the public discourse and preoccupations of the past year.”

(www.americandialect.org, January 6th, 2017)

V. 

Ash is rising over the field, billowing into airborne shapes that are loose, and black, and elephantine. Some of it is struck crimson by dusk. Some floats back down. It stings eyes and burns lungs, but it’s good for the soil. Somewhere up there water vapor is coming together, too—let out by the green leaves at the top of the sugarcane stalks.

Across the field, Jonathan sits in a harvester, ready to scoop those stalks up as soon as the flames finish their work. His vicious smoker’s cough is heard from halfway across the field, even over the crackling of flame and grunting of the diesel engine. 

“Why does Jonathan smoke?”

“Probably ‘cause he’s an idiot.” 

The boy’s eyes are down. He’s jabbing the ground with a stick, as though he might expect a reaction.

“...it makes some people less anxious, feeling like they’re in control of their own destruction.”

“It smells... and my eyes hurt.”

“Mine too. Sort of pretty though, isn’t it?”

The point of his stick finds a little tuft of weeds. He wedges it in underneath the root collar, which he then flicks out of the ground.

“Ms. Fisher says cane burning is killing Mother Earth. Our class wrote letters to the governor asking to make it stop.”

“Half the class is cane farmers’ kids.”

Crouching down now to inspect the hole, the child’s brow scrunches into the first tiny crease of his first future wrinkle.

“She says not all tradition is good tradition.” 

“Well, when Ms. Fisher volunteers to trim this cane leaf by leaf, we’ll stop the burning.”

The child takes a big, penitent breath, then the muscles in his face relax again.

“Go grab Perry. When the fire’s out you two can go poke around for snake skeletons.”

VI.* 

When kings occupying the earth are wanting in peacefulness, strong in anger, taking pleasure at all times in lying and dishonesty; when barbarians are vigorously supported by the rulers; when money alone confers nobility; when power is the sole definition of virtue; when pleasure is the only reason for marriage; when lust is the only reason for womanhood; when falsehood wins out in disputes; when people, oppressed by their rulers, hide in valleys between mountains gathering honey, vegetables, roots, fruits, and flowers; when being dry of water is the only definition of land; her legs will swing like titanic pendulums in dance, her feet will move to a rhythm as old as the universe itself; a queer divine dissatisfaction—a blessed unrest. With mouth agape, matted locks snaking outward in all directions, she will be the Purifier, blazing forth like ten million suns. Our reality is her ceaseless dreaming, her inhalation its preservation, and her dance its dissolution. She is a Renewer, sowing innocence in the dust of empire.