Catwyrms
ISSUE #64
Meow.
Last night was a most special night—the harvest moon. The first full moon in autumn has long given ancient protection to farmers and workers. She’s given us light so we could reap our crop in darkness, allowing us to race against days growing shorter, against a future growing ever colder.
Sometime in the 1990s, an incredibly rare cultural gag reflex was triggered. This was the first generational challenge of the status quo since the 1960s: queerness, for once, wasn’t necessarily a death sentence, and feminism even had a third wave. The fact is a miracle to this day.
The best adaptation of 1984 actually came out in 1985, and it was called Brazil. That’s how things go—it takes a year or so to process prophecies. By stamping it 1984, Orwell all but assured the powers that be would only mobilize once the year was safely in the rearview.
We’ve yet to perfect a word for death by thirst. “Dehydration?” Inelegant—a prefix sewn ad-hoc to an embalmed corpse. Yet rarely has the word been so necessary as today!