In the spring of 2010 the Middle East reached a tipping point. It was called the Arab spring. A decade later, we are in the midst of the American Spring. We are the country whose fuse is lit and ready to explode. With the stock market making COVID-era highs, the disconnect between reality on the street and the illusion created by printing money, lending at 0% interest rates and outright lies by the federal government, has now seeped into the psyche of the American people. The illusion that 40 million unemployed can be fooled by a check in the mail and bringing back sports is finally being shattered and the glass will cut deep across the political divide.
Like many in my generation, I am single. Alone, all alone with nobody to love, hold, argue with, take cute pictures with or go on holiday with.
Going through my old highschool book collection since I’m home, I’ve been rereading some of my favorite texts for the first time in six years. Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides (1993) has become a cult classic, but it seems especially fitting for this time. Quoting Dazed editor Claire Marie Healy, as many find themselves confined to their bedrooms reminiscent of highschool nights, this pandemic has made us “teenagers again. Waiting for our lives to begin.” The film by Sofia Coppola turned twenty during quarantine, setting the bedroom-bound Lisbon sisters in our crystallised collective consciousness for the foreseeable future and perhaps resonating with us more than ever in the midst of a pandemic.
You may know him as Mr. Mojo Risin, the psychedelic rock god of The Doors or you may know him as just a disturbing and strange artist who joined the famed 27 Club with his death on July 3, 1971. Both accounts would be true. Love him or hate him, James Douglas Morrison created a counter culture movement of rage that filled the 60s in stark opposition to the positive message of love from contemporaries John Lennon. Instead, Morrison tapped into the collective conscious of a generation enraged and disturbed by its wars and conspiracies and failures. Its betrayals.
Hey Gurlll & Welcome To The Safe Zone!
Lockdown began as I packed my bag for a summer at sea. Plane ticket ready. Boat waiting. Life neatly packed away. It was a trip I'd been planning for months, a summer of adventure like I'd dreamed of for over a decade. All on hold, for now.
