"a conscious choice to be happy is a form of resistance"
"You’re allowed to cultivate joy. In fact, you need to, because our job is to build the world that we want." — AOC
I’ve been thinking about resistance, happiness, change and the value of art and artist publishing. Here’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
Genuinely: a conscious choice to be happy is a form of resistance. This is something that I culturally feel a little disjoined from the American left, I almost feel a little more at home in the Latin American left, culturally, because there’s almost this idea that you’re not allowed to be happy in the U.S. when there is suffering going on. And that is the opposite… When you actually look at people who are enduring some of the deepest, most brutal regimes, they are sometimes the most conscientious about cultivating happiness, joy, music, dancing. My number one thing I want people to know is: You’re allowed to be happy! You’re allowed to cultivate joy. In fact, you need to, because our job is to build the world that we want. If we do not allow ourselves to gather with friends, to be happy, then we are not reminding ourselves of why we’re doing any of this. We cannot be joyless people, we will not sustain ourselves, we will not last long. And I think about this specifically in a Latino context, and a context of immigrants, everything that they are trying to get us to do, is to get us to hide, to not express ourselves in public.
I also keep coming back to Ursula K. Le Guin1:
Hard times are coming when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope.
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We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable – but then so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
I feel so much anger and dread and grief and determination in these hard times, as this extreme oligarchic / Christian / fascist / fossil fuel powered2 takeover of the US ramps up, with so much purposeful cruelty and destruction. I read a lot of books on climate / collapse / authoritarianism. Reading these worlds we’re in now, and careening towards — reading them predicted and then watching variations come to life from the pages of fiction is strangely helpful. Feeling less alone in seeing the patterns, where it’s going, feeling connected and energized to keep on working for better, with other like-minded people. Understanding how fights have been won in the past.
I want to keep imagining a better future, supporting and talking and working collectively with other people who are also envisioning a better future. Fascism hates art, artists, and writers because it knows we’re powerful.
I’m guessing that most of you reading this are artists, publishers, writers, poets, sewing people, and so on: people who make things. I really resonate with Beth Pickens’ definition of an artist: “Artists are people who are profoundly compelled to make their creative work and when they are distanced from their practice, their life quality suffers.” There’s some tie here: to continuing to make work and build community and resist suffering in the midst of all this oppressive horror: to be conscientious about cultivating joy for artists means continuing to make art. In expressing ourselves in public — and potentially in publishing.
What are our visions? How can we share them? How can we make them real in some way in the here and now, with whatever time and tools and money and resources we have at hand? How can we fight the destruction and keep building towards things that will take lifetimes to achieve? What are we grieving, what are we loving, what are we dreaming, what are we feeling? Let’s have fun together. Let’s write, draw, sing, play, sculpt, build, host, organize. Let’s keep making art, experiences, community, structures. Building networks, planting seeds.
If you’re not near Seattle, you may want to stop here; as the rest of the newsletter is local recs! Also, the first three essays for 25 in 2025 are here. Thanks for reading, thanks for being here! More soon!
There’s a lot of cool stuff going on that I wanted to share for Seattle area readers — opportunities for having fun together in arts community:
The Sea Slug Animation Festival—a new Pacific Northwest hub for independent animation—is March 7–8 at SIFF Cinema Uptown! The inaugural festival will showcase local and international short films, a new and a retrospective feature, an Artist Alley of local artists, and mixers for audiences and artists to connect.
Zine Hug silkscreened posters on clear sheets (!!!!) for the SIFF Cinema Uptown’s screening of the classic Ghost in the Shell on Sunday. (I’m obsessed with transparent, translucent things so these make me sooooooo happy.)
Loud & Smart & In Color book tour is in Ballard on March 6th, with readings from Alex Krokus and other comic artists. I laughed so hard last time they were on tour, live comics readings with dramatic voices are amazing. Go, if you can!
March 6-9th is Emerald City Comic Con, with lots of friends tabling with riso stuff, including Natalie Andrewson. I went by the artists alley last year and had a blast.
Short Run is organizing free monthly Show Up artist talks all year. Everyone looks awesome and I especially want to highlight that ANEMONE BFF Jackson Barnes is on July 19!
Yewon Kwon is offering special pay what you want commissions for local WA music scene flyers, details here… and they are starting a newsletter, here’s the first issue!
Brett Hamil’s Doom Loop comics perfectly capture Seattle politics, and there’s a new print collection of all the 2024 weeklies out now. If you need to laugh-cry at the neoliberal madness we’re living through… Personally, the curb character really does it for me.
Seattle Art Book Fair is May 11-12! (!!!!!!!!) Mark your calendars!
More soon,
— Amelia
These are both from her acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal
for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The speech and transcript are here.
The future with the climate collapse underway is unsafe in ways that I think it’s common to have trouble getting our heads around - Alex Steffen’s writing and podcasts on the concept of being in a discontinuity have also helped a for me here.