[11 February 2024]: "Primitive Hypertext" — severance; reanimating spider corpses - "necrobotics"; penelope the platypus fakes a pregnancy; "and it's legal"; techno in palestine
severance; reanimating spider corpses - "necrobotics"; penelope the platypus fakes a pregnancy; "and it's legal"; techno in palestine
Bismillah. We begin everything with the name of Allah. We say Bismillah to initiate an act to acknowledge the intention and the ethics we carry with all that follows Bismillah.
This is part of the newsletter's “Primitive Hypertext” (Octavia Estelle Butler) strand.
An annotated list of five things I’ve read/seen/heard and want to share. [weekly: every Sunday] Read more about the changes in the newsletter rhythm here.
Hiya!
Excuse my delay with newsletters. I have been dealing with family illness, personal illness, and the general state of the world.
My dad is finally out of the hospital and nursing home. He is reacquainting with independent mobility, trying out my smoothie recipes, and sleeping a lot. I could be home to see him while I was in San Francisco to give a keynote at the CODEX conference. Last week was also the first time in quite some time that all the Rasheed’s were home in the Bay Area. My mom and I saw a rainbow at Cooley Landing and slept in a weird hotel near the Facebook/Meta complex.
On the global front, we are now entering the fourth month of watching Gaza and watching our elected officials and heads of state do nothing. We are now entering the fourth month of what no one should hesitate to call a genocide. I did wake up with a bit more joy this morning in knowing that while we are still fighting for the bare minimum (a ceasefire), it seems that there are more and more people who, in defiance of their political leadership’s stance, are acknowledging at the very least, something ain't right. Rafah is the last “safe zone,” but as I just read, ground invasions have already begun.
I have been preparing myself — my body, my facial expressions, my speech cadence, my fidgeting for having to show up to speak, consult, and teach while knowing that there was a genocide unfolding in 4K, the best our head of state can say is that Israel’s actions are “over the top,” and students across American universities are being punished for calling for a ceasefire.
On Instagram, I shared about a fellow Muslim and now former friend who speaks extensively about Black American histories, surveillance, and Islamaphobia, decided to participate in his institution’s covert vetting of my locked and private Instagram account to identify if any of my positions on Palestine were too radical. When I learned of this, I withdrew from the program and wrote the school an email letting them know I knew what they’d done. While I had nothing to hide, I felt deeply violated and unsafe. It took me back to standing in EWR airport in November of 2015 en route to Istanbul and being told I was unable to fly because I was a possible ISIS recruit (if I remember correctly, they said, “There are a lot of people trying to join ISIS through Istanbul”). My things were taken from me. I was pulled off the plane. I was questioned by customs. I was questioned by the FBI. I received the most hateful tweets, emails, and messages when this was made public. I took an $80 taxi home to Brooklyn and could not leave my house for days. And if I am, to be honest, I can clearly indicate this as a moment of an uptick in my anxiety and general difficulty with social situations — fears of being watched or having things covertly collected about me. I am certain I was under some form of surveillance after that airport incident because I have never made it through customs without some problem since 2015.
I was going to share about a random DM I got from a random woman lecturing me about my art and Palestine. I decided not to give that any more life and to allow her to engage with the fictional version she had created of me — leave me out of it.
My feelings can be hurt. I can feel deeply violated. I can feel unsafe, but I am not the center of this. As I wrote last night, “But we will spend no more time talking about how I feel about how someone else feels about how I feel about Palestine. It’s a distraction.”
On to the primitive hypertext!!!
An invitation for me: What is a word or phrase connecting all five links?
***Scroll to the end to see where I landed***An invitation for you: What is another word or phrase connecting all five links?
Another invitation for you: Which of these links do you want to share with a friend?
Severance is an “American science fiction psychological thriller” series on Apple TV+. In this series, people can choose to be severed or separate their work and non-work memories. The main character, played by Adam Scott, makes this decision to make the loss of his wife easier to handle. There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this series, one of which was the emphasis on the relationship between convenience, intimacy, and capitalism. Season 1 came out in February 2022, so we will likely not get another season until 2025.
I am very excited about this! I was very interested in robotics in middle school. I was able to do one robotics program before the pilot ended, but the interest hasn’t left!
Penelope the platypus (one of my favorite animals because of their Frankenstein-esque bodies) faked her pregnancy while in captivity at the Bronx Zoo! Apparently, she “abandoned” her partner, Cecil, refusing to mate. She left her "platypusary," it seemed, in 1957. Until then, zookeepers kept trying to make the relationship between her and Cecil work. She pretended she was pregnant by building a nest with eucalyptus leaves, retreating to her burrow, and eating large meals. The funniest part of the Wikipedia article was when the zookeepers said Penelope was "posing as an expectant mother just to lead a life of luxury on double rations." HA! Calling her a faker is just so hilarious to me. You stole her from her home, forced her into an artificial environment, put a random dude in her area to mate, and continued this after the first encounter when Penelope scratched Cecil up!
Later, the Wikipedia article, referencing a New York Times article, noted that Cecil was struggling: “Cecil appeared affected by her disappearance. He spent considerable time scratching his head, an activity he had never done before. He lost weight and died one day after the search for Penelope was called off.”
Eventually, Cecil dies of heartbreak.
The videoframes below come from a video found here. Enjoy!
Poetry Spots: June Jordan reads "Song of the Law Abiding Citizen"
“and it’s legal”
“and it’s legal”
“and it’s legal”
“and it’s legal”
“and it’s legal”
“and it’s legal”
Sama' Abdulhadi | Boiler Room Palestine
An invitation for me: What is a word or phrase connecting all five links?
duality, duplicity + mimicry, bifurcation, contradictionAn invitation for you: What is another word or phrase connecting all five links?
Another invitation for you: Which of these links do you want to share with a friend?
Thank you for reading,
Kameelah 👽
Finally, while I do not organize my finances around paid newsletter subscriptions, wouldn’t it be cool if this wee little newsletter could allow me to take quarterly self-imposed writing retreats? Consider getting a one-year membership at $70 USD :)
How to cite this newsletter: Rasheed, K. (Year, Month Day). Newsletter Title. I Will (?) Figure This All Out Later. URL