Hello all,
I had a whole thing written about the fall of Roe, but when it came to it, I don’t think it was helpful for you as much as it was helpful for me. There are far too many people who stay in their lane nowadays, so I’m going to stick to mine this time around. I’ll direct you to some good reads below, but so much is yet to be written.
The Part Where There’s a Poem for the Fourth
We take Independence Day pretty seriously/unseriously around here. Over our morning coffee, David and I have our annual debate over the justification for the American Revolution. We set out the Union Jack tea cozy as a wink at our former overlords. We make themed desserts and welcome friends. And when it finally gets dark (much too late around here this time of year), we kick off a little fireworks show in the backyard. Make no mistake: it isn’t good. The best part is the agreeable “ooohhhs” from the audience, no matter what dud event is taking place before them.
Ben Shive, Andrew Peterson’s co-writer and producer, put out an album a long time ago with a song on it for the Fourth of July. I give it to you below, along with my blessings for a restful holiday weekend.
4TH OF JULY
Words and Music by Ben Shive
The first star of the evening
Was singing in the sky
High above our blanket in the park
And by the twilight’s gleaming
On the 4th day of July
The city band played on into the dark
And then a canon blast
A golden flame unfolding
Exploded in a momentary bloom
The petals fell and scattered
Like ashes on the ocean
As another volley burst into the blue
But the first star of the evening never moved
We stood in silence
The young ones and the old
As the bright procession passed us by
A generation dying
Another being born
A long crescendo played out in the sky
This nation, indivisible
Will perish from the Earth
As surely as the leaves must change and fall
And the band will end the anthem
To dust she will return
So the sun must set on all things, great and small
But the first star of the evening
Will outlive them all
For the Anglophiles
One of the dumbest Twitter accounts I follow is Larry the Cat, “run” by the cat who lives at 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the UK. Larry has weathered several administrations, as this profile in the Guardian tells us. Here are some of the greatest moments of Larry’s years on Downing Street:
Reads & Listens of the Week
Here’s Karen Swallow Prior’s op-ed on the End of Roe. “I lament the impoverishment of a social imagination that cannot conceive of a world in which women can flourish without abortion.”
Alan Noble recently started a substack. Here is his article (second in a series), entitled “The World’s Will to Suicide.”
Tsh Oxenreider recently completed a challenge where she tried to live within a 100-mile radius: that means food, entertainment, and shopping of any kind. I don’t think I could actually do something like this, but I thought her report was fascinating.
Three cheers for this beautiful and brilliant article from Alyssa Ramsey. I’m so glad she wrote it: Dear Daughter: On Outrage and and Its Remedy.
“…maybe there isn’t just one person for everyone. Maybe you choose and you practice, and that’s what makes the love true.” — Daniel Nayeri, Everything Sad is Untrue, p. 82