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Mar 10·edited Mar 10Author

Hi everyone,

I just cleaned up a handful of typos. Always impatient, I do everything just a bit too soon! Early dementia doesn't help. Two or three weeks ago, I got up at 4PM but thought it was 4AM. Seeing my neighbor drinking a beer, I said, "Why are you drinking before five?!" Walking downtown an hour later, I noticed the streets so festive, but didn't think too much of it. At 6, it was still dark, so I half suspected something was weird. When it was still dark at 8:30, I finally realized it was night and not morning!

Linh

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founding
Mar 10Liked by Linh Dinh

I read "Winesburg, Ohio" years ago, but had completely forgotten that sad story you started quoting from.

Interesting photos--is the guy in that last photo looking at porn? And apparently in a public place, no less. I've read some incredible statistics on the number of internet users that view porn on a regular basis. They need not worry--"view only" will soon give way to Huxley's "feelies," whose technology is reaching maturity. Then it will no longer be necessary to venture out of one's pod for anything.

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Mar 10·edited Mar 10Liked by Linh Dinh

I love this essay and the photos, especially Si Ma Cai, Vietnam on 2/18/20 taken (already) four years ago. I see centuries framed in that picture you captured in one moment. It's amazing.

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the world is mad, I was trying to speak to a tax department in Norway, and a robot

told me to write my questions I did, but the robot didn't understand and asked me to rephrase

I asked for the address of the tax office she could not give me as it was secret

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"Naked and wordless, we will crawl on hands and knees through burnt cities."

Perfect epigraph to a post-apocalyptic film that will never be made. The more bleak the writing the closer it seems likely to be to the truth. At least, it appears so from my perspective, though maybe I'm just a miserable person drawn to artful expressions of misery.

Beat poet Allen Ginsberg had a line in 'Howl' about his generation being, "run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality". I imagine Linh Dinh as lone passenger in the back of one of those cabs, watching with a mix of curiosity, dismay, alarm, and weariness as the heedless, berserk vehicle swerves endlessly into and over crowds, parked cars, dogs, food carts, sidewalks, trash cans, school kids, traffic cones, past burning buildings and confused, incompetent rescue workers. Occasionally, he snaps a photo.

There's so much chaos and tragedy to be witnessed while tearing through these cities of Absolute Reality. None of it, however, means a thing.

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Mar 10·edited Mar 10

I've been working on my ebonics and wrote this down on 1/27:

(When confronted with a tough situation)

Hit em with a:

"Whewwleetoobimbazzem, shinglemuhting! N'aww mean, N'aww mean?"

It's funner than the News. It's not even English, it's way cooler. N'aww mean?

From 1/17, a rap:

"Primitive situations,

Primal scenarios,

don't f*"k wit me fool,

I'm fit t'explode I swearios!"

This is what caged people do in their spare time.

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