Ecce Sigum

Immanentize the Empathy

Tag: Iran

Weekly Round-up, April 25, 2026

John Winkelman

This past week I worked just over 53 hours in five days. I have two projects at work. The main project, which started at the beginning of the year, which is development-heavy and on an aggressive schedule. The other takes up in theory three or four hours a week, but for most of the year has been more like ten to twelve hours a week. That one I work on in the wee hours of the morning before I put in my 9+ daily hours on my main project.

This has been going on since the middle of January and is not likely to ease up until the end of June. Thanks to poor management on the part of the higher-ups on these projects, I have experienced most of the springtime as a spectator, seeing glimpses of it through my windows as I slowly go blind from pixel poisoning.

This weekend, weather permitting, I will get our garden beds ready for planting. And also work on the ongoing landscaping to route water away from the foundation of my house. And also build an outdoor frame which can hold things like heavy bags and hammocks.

But first, I need sleep.

Reading

I finished Patricia Clark’s O Lucky Day, which was decent and had a few standout poems. I have been reading and writing poetry for long enough that I occasionally come across someone’s published poetry which seems similar enough to my unpublished poetry that I have a moment of “Hey! That’s mine!” In this case, when reading poems about the Grand River.

Writing

In honor of National Poetry Month, which is almost over, I wrote a couple of poems, or assemblages of words which, with a certain amount of attention paid, might become poems.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Dreams, Undead
Setting: Space
Genre: Magic Realism

Listening

Angine de Poitrine.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, April 18, 2026

John Winkelman

The Iran war continues, with Operation Epstein racking up loss after loss, all while the Epstein-in-Chief Donald Trump tries to spin the self-inflicted disaster as a win. His posts in Truth Social show that he is sunsetting, and the syphilitic dementia is growing worse every day.

And President Epstein’s supporters – which includes every Republican voter at all levels of government and society – believe every word he posts on Truth Social. They eat that shit up. They are coprophages of the soul. And I say Every Republican, because at this point there is no meaningful difference between hardcore MAGA lickspittles and the most detached, disaffected, uninterested voter who only supported the Republican school board member because he was a friend. Once infected with fascism, there is no path to redemption.

The negative effects of the Trump/Epstein regime will haunt our country for the next century. There are many paths forward out of this mess, but few of them will carry any kind of significant improvement. In order for things to actually get better, first we would need to remove from power everyone who had a hand in making things worse. But we do not have the moral or political will to purge the world of the Epstein class, because there is too much money to be made by letting them stay in power.

Reading

In my few spare moments I have started reading Quiet Woman, a collection of poetry by Katie Kalisz. These are some seriously good poems.

Writing

As usual, nothing much to report here, unless React code counts as “writing.”

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Precursors, Empire
Setting: Bar
Genre: Weird Fiction

Listening

Massive Attack and Tom Waits, “Boots on the Ground”.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, April 11, 2026

John Winkelman
The Grand River at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Another week in the stupid and unnecessary Iran war, started and exacerbated by syphilitic dotard Donald Trump and his various bootlicks, water carriers, and enablers. Which, at this point, includes every conservative-leaning person in the United States.

The GOP, MAGA, the KKK, DOGE, Christian Nationalism, the Epstein Class. Those are all different names for the same people. That is a Venn diagram which forms a near-perfect circle. There may be some variation at the edges of the odious egg-sack, but they are minimal and inconsequential. And once a willing participant in any of those, there is no path to redemption. All are indistinguishable from fascism, and fascism is a syphilis of the soul: Even when it isn’t apparent, once you’ve had it, it will never go away, and will resurface when the conditions are favorable.

So it goes.

I have been working 50 to 60 hours a week almost every week this year. And it looks like this will continue through the beginning of June. The past few weeks were rough but I have, I think, adjusted. Not that I enjoy it, but the deep-in-my-guts stress from the long hours has been replaced by a sort of restless numbness. I feel kind of like I did in the early 2000s, working for an increasingly thankless and toxic design agency. 70+ hour weeks were answered, not with thanks, but with “I wish you’d done more.” And definitely not with money, though the owners liked to throw parties for us in their gigantic house in the most expensive neighborhood in the city. So we got to see what we could aspire to if we were willing to fuck over a sufficient number of employees.

Reading

I have had very little time to read, but I have made progress in The Evergreen Review Reader, 1967-1973. Much of the content in the first part of the book is about, or by, Che Guevara. Which makes sense, as Guevara was murdered in October 1967. Really interesting stuff. And Guevara was a pretty good writer.

Writing

No free time = no writing. Maybe in June.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Kaiju, Music
Setting: Wilderness
Genre: Romance

Listening

Sekou Sundiata, “Days Going By in Broken English,” from his 1997 album The Blue Oneness of Dreams.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, April 4, 2026

John Winkelman
Pear Tree bud, early spring.

It’s been another crazy week for work. I hit fifty hours mid-afternoon yesterday, and have to put in a few more today. This will be my life until June, if not later. The one bright spot is that I might not need to work on Easter Sunday.

The ongoing idiocy in the Middle East, perpetrated by the Epstein class in the USA and Israel and other various bootlicks and sycophants, continues to take its toll on people not in the Epstein class. Many of whom voted for the Epstein-in-chief, Donald Trump. So the toll has smackings and lashings of the karmic, even if the karma isn’t evenly or equitably distributed.

Reading

I managed to read some poetry here and there, most of it either the daily newsletters I receive in my email, or the contents of one of the issues of Big Scream I picked up last week. This is what is keepign me sane.

Writing

Late last week I transcribed a few poems from an old journal. Some of them were not terrible.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Language, Undead
Setting: Ship
Genre: Solarpunk

Listening

Bruce Springsteen, “Born in the U.S.A.” from Springsteen’s 1984 album of the same name.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, March 28, 2026

John Winkelman
Sunset at Kirk Park in Ottawa County, Michigan, Friday, March 27, 2026

It’s interesting to watch the collapse of one’s own society in real-time. Operation Epstein is well into its third week, and Elon Musk is offering to pay the wages of ICE agents who are being redeployed to assist TSA agents whose paychecks are being held hostage by Donald Trump until congress strips millions of Americans of their right to vote.

Such is the times we live in. How did we get here? Simple: At the end of the Civil War, we should have executed every member of the Confederate government and all of their supporters and backers. And at the end of the Revolutionary War, we should have executed every monarchist on the North American continent.

But we didn’t, because each of these “victories” was really a compromise with the enemy, undertaken in the deliberate continuance of aristocracy under different names. As the saying goes, the South may have lost the war, but the Confederacy is still going strong.

Reading

While traveling for work I finished Greg Rappleye’s beautiful Barley Child, which I picked up from the Grand River Poetry Collective during a recent event at The Lit. Though the writing styles are quite different, the subject was reminiscent of Charles Reznikoff’s Testament.

And as has become my habit, I am working my way through Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation, one sentence at a time. Every time I travel, I start over at the beginning. Soon I will have the first three pages memorized, as the rest of the book gathers dust.

Writing

Not much to report. But I did attend a meeting of the Grand River Poetry Collective, and feel motivated to work on some old poems. We will see how long that motivation lasts, in the face of global war.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Fae, Dragons
Setting: Library
Genre: Slipstream

Listening

That 1 Guy, “Packs a Wallop!”

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, March 21, 2026

John Winkelman
A pair of geese on the Grand River at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan

It was another crazy work week. This is the new normal. Next week brings some work travel, and a short work week besides, which does not at all diminish the amount of work I will need to complete in the next seven days.

The crazy and chaotic weather of last week revisited Grand Rapids this week in the form of some minor flooding along the Grand River. On Friday after work I drove out to Riverside Park and took a brief walk. The river was high but not disastrously so. The air was warm and the park was full of pedestrians. It was good to get outside for a few minutes.

Reading

Last week I picked up a few poetry books, and this week I am reading them. All of them are good. A couple of them are very good.

Writing

As always, nothing to speak of.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Spiritual Beings, Possession
Setting: Outpost
Genre: Lovecraftian

Listening

Black 47, “James Connolly”.

Interesting Links

The usual roundup of the Iran War roundup threads from Naked Capitalism.

Weekly Round-up, March 14, 2026

John Winkelman

Another chaotic week with almost no free time. I thought I was through with long days at work, but work chose otherwise. So at the end of the day little is left for me to do except take a shower and go to bed.

Reading

Given the current chaos in the world, I have been reading the news, and not much else. See, for example, the list of links at the bottom of the page.

Writing

Other than code, I haven’t written much of anything this week. Or this month. Or this year.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Spiritual Beings, Politics
Setting: Wilderness
Genre: Literary Fiction

Listening

Grand Funk Railroad, “I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)”

Interesting Links

What follows is another roundup of Naked Capitalism links discussing Operation Epstein, which is being headed up in the USA by syphilitic dotard Donald Trump and emasculated manbaby Pete Hegseth, with enthusiastic Epsteinian support from all Republicans.

Weekly Round-up, March 7, 2026

John Winkelman
Poe enjoying the first warm, sunny day of the year.

Roughly a week ago, Donald Trump, at the command of Benjamin Netanyahu, launched Operation Epstein in Trump’s most vigorous attempt yet to draw attention away from the mountains of proof that he was a regular visitor and enthusiastic participant in the festivities on Jeffrey Epstein’s island.

With the amount of grift, theft, and murder endemic in every initiative of Drippy Diaper Donald’s administration, we are seeing what would have happened if the Zec had been elected president.

Add in the increasing Christian Nationalist fervor and end-times rhetoric, and the sense is in the air that we are well into a polycrisis moment in history.

Just to be clear – all religious fundamentalism, no matter the religion, is prima facie invalid, as all religious fundamentalism exists only to entrench power among the leaders of religious movements. And fundamentalism among the Abrahamic religions, in particular, is nothing more than an apocalyptic death wish.

Reading

I am still slowly working through Foucault’s Pendulum, a couple of pages a night. And in my spare moments (ha!) during the day, I am reading The Evergreen Review Reader, 1967 – 1973. I read the previous volume, which collected work from 1957 to 1966, last year. There is so much good work within!

Writing

This past Tuesday, for the first time, I attended the monthly Twilight Tribe open mic at Gaia Cafe. It was wonderful! I have not visited or participated in a regular poetry event in years. I have managed the occasional one-off event here and there, but now that my schedule has changed I can reconnect with the local writing communities.

The poets at the event inspired me to step up my review, collecting, and editing efforts with my own poetry, which has been collecting dust for far too long. I hope to have something ready to read by the end of the month.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Fae, Language
Setting: Labyrinth
Genre: Literary Fiction

Listening

Woody Guthrie, “All You Fascists Bound to Lose”

Interesting Links

What follows are several of the Iran War round-up posts at Naked Capitalism. The posts, and the comments which follow each post, are a gold mine of information about the ongoing hegemonic absurdities in the Middle East.