Nora Treatbaby: “I cannot square beauty with the way things are. That both exist is crazy.” Nora delivered those lines as part of the Writing Against Rent event we held at the Project in April. Her words feel like a scientifically precise description of experiencing reality right now: seeing people figure out how to put their everyday genius to work under the pressure of and against what’s going on.

In this issue of the Newsletter, we won’t try to square beauty and the way things are either, so we’re operating, as we have to, on multiple fronts—investigation, curiosity, satire, wonder. “How can this be world?” Sol Cabrini asks, in a refrain of highly relatable disbelief verging on negation. And since it is, what do we do about it? In an interview with Summer Farah, Fargo Nissim Tbakhi talks about the social and political function of gathering people to rehearse solutions to their everyday problems: “What are you going to do tomorrow?” Tbakhi asks. “Let’s rehearse it right now.” Especially in the feverishly social, studious and irreverent environment that the Project fosters, reading and listening are a part of rehearsal, too. We can’t wait to know what you do with this one.

And please give a warm welcome to Kyle Carrero Lopez, who’s now editing the Newsletter with me. Working together is already an immense delight.