Everything you wanted
to learn at university
but didn't.

Do not try to compose an anthem for your generation. Get that idea out of your head. It is simply not how this works. Don’t worry about your clothes or haircut or any of the songs on the radio or any of your friends ’ bands. Focus instead on breakfast, on getting the temperature of the maté right, on buttering your toast with the correct amount of butter, on standing at the window for a few seconds and trying to get a feel for the weather. There is something in the air, somet

Write a letter, several of them. One to The Big Boss, heavy-handed, full-blooded, yet without misgivings, without grievance, without insouciance, one that enumerates The Reasons in painstaking detail. One to Arturo, more of a manifesto than a letter, one that confirms his worst suspicions, political in nature, concerning my generation’s repetition of his generation’s mistakes. One to Chip, a countercultural Pass-the-Torch letter that bequeaths to her the volumes of subversive

There is always a moment of doubt. When you clean the hair from the drain at night, somewhere near the end of your shift, when the surfaces shine and your muscles ache, when the building goes quiet, eyes half closed, chest slowly heaving, breathing now regular, Totoro between the trees, there is always a moment of confusion, however small and unstable, confusion about whether the hair that has accumulated in the grate of the floor drain, a matted mess of assorted strands and

The toilet bowl is situated on the very edge, perhaps even a little more on the far side, over there, than over here on our side, the safe side, the legible side. It is a tear in the fabric of the curtain. By getting down low, really low, and by moving your body close, unbearably close, the most awkward of embraces, you can almost feel the breeze of the abyss on the skin of your face, you can almost taste the minerals in the air, as familiar as they are otherworldly, underwor