Neko Case

I’m no good without a dog or a cat. Why would I want to have relationships with just humans when so many other species are possible? If someone I meet is uninterested in creatures, it’s a red flag to me. I immediately think of those people who aren’t interested in other humans who say things like “speak ENGLISH!” so they don’t have to put forth any effort while feeling superior. I know that is not the same thing, but people who are “human-centric” freak me the fuck out. I could go on, but I’ll spare you.

--In her substack newsletter, "Entering the Lung." September 25, 2026. 

Glynnis MacNicol

Speaking of the young, I spent the last two weeks with teenagers. So many teenagers. It felt like some sort of extraordinary bootcamp. Even when you understand they are using you to slam themselves against to find their own form, it can be a lot. And also so wonderful. My general feeling, is the kids are incredible, especially in the face of an unrelenting terrible news and promises of a bleak future upended by AI. They are clear-eyed about the world and determined about their place in it.

--Glynnis MacNicol's Good Decisions, a substack newsletter (9/13/2026) 

Ginny Sims

Jon Spayde (for ACC): Speaking of England, a main strand in your work is a very idiosyncratic take on Staffordshire pottery. What does that tradition mean to you?

Ginny Sims: It all started from seeing reproductions of the 18th- and 19th-century sketchbooks of the workers from the Leeds pottery factory. I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to see the originals. You could see the dirt and grease on the pages where they had turned the pages, and they were so worn. The handwriting was exquisite, and the drawings were fabulous. 

Seeing those books made me cry. And it got me interested in factory ware, not mainly the pottery itself, but the whole history of its making. Then I went to the Staffordshire pottery locations—the six towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent, and these other sad northern industrial towns in England, where I was looking around thinking, This is like Detroit. This country has failed these people. 

And so when people associate my work with Staffordshire and English history, I hope they know that I’m really trying to critique this capitalist, colonialist past and using that aesthetic to show how capitalism fails society.

--In an interview/profile for the American Craft Council: https://craftcouncil.org/articles/the-queue-ginny-sims/ 

Holly McNish

This is how much faith we have

of course we do not think it's all men

fuck, if we did, do you imagine we'd be here now

opening our doors to the plumbers or the taxi cabs

hugging our fathers and our uncles

letting kids play in the parks

attending classes with male students and male teachers

inviting boy friends round for dinner

dating strangers, getting married or divorcing

giving birth to baby boys we sing to sleep each night

with lungs full of lullabies -- if we actually thought,

yep, every single man, do you think we'd be so stupid

to live amongst them in clothing made of cotton,

bother nursing them in sickness, donating kidneys

in such unequal numbers, attend protests for their protection

visit gravestones every month to place fresh flowers

cut at angles to absorb the water best,

walk down streets clutching only tiny keys for safety

in the hope, that despite the news we all hear

every single day, that this man will probably be great 

 

from Virgin (2026) published by Little, Brown UK.  

majestictortoise

 

 

via @iamthirtyaf (instagram) 

Howard Zinn

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.

Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope.

An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

--"The Optimism of Uncertainty," Sept. 2004. (https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/the-optimism-of-uncertainty/) 

Howard Zinn

The future is an infinite of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

--Excerpt from Howard Zinn's A Power Governments Cannot Suppress (2007), City Lights Books.  

(Darcie says: I took this photo on March 6, 2026 at the Jazz Center Gallery for the Arts. It was posted on the community bulletin board.)