I love this. It would be great if someone explored Benjamin’s idea of historical redemption as perfect citability, and then consider that next to (a) the internet as a protocol of citation (in ruins) and (b) vector language models as the internet’s subconscious, devoid of citation, bereft of history

But our president believes that "the state" is inseparable from his person. So none of that counted. Trump demands gratitude *personally*, to *him*.

And any gratitude expressed to America when Trump was not its supreme leader isn't just worthless—he sees it as a betrayal.

For its characters, the play ends, and meaning fractures. But for the novel, the possibility of meaning survives with every reading. To write is to still believe in the afterlife of readers: that we might still find ourselves on the same page—these pages—with Woolf, some bleakness, but also hope

"'We haven’t the words—we haven’t the words,' Mrs. Swithin protested," and Woolf, to Leonard, before she walked into the river with stones in her pockets: "We can't go through another of those terrible times... I feel certain I am going mad again"

But writing, even bleak writing, is an act of hope.

It's 1939. War looms. Woolf writes "Between the Acts", where neighbors still have time to gather for a community play.

But when it ends, as the crowd dissolves, language does too. They can't say what it (the play, or history) possibly meant. The possibility of shared meaning itself seems lost.

It's 2025. Between AI's reduction of language, the evisceration of good-faith news media, the right's disinfo campaigns, the refusal of socials to moderate pseudoscience & sophistry...

The question is not "are we on the same page" but rather, does a page even remain for us all to be on? #booksky