Editorial
Brit Barton
Having spent that especially hot summer writing while trapped in a hall in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was pragmatic about building a country and making a monument. In a letter to a friend in France, he reflected on the birth and destined course of the United States, and on what may come of the newly written Constitution:
EVERYTHING SEEMS TO PROMISE IT WILL BE DURABLE,
BUT, IN THIS WORLD, NOTHING IS CERTAIN EXCEPT DEATH AND TAXES.
I don’t know what durable means anymore, much less certainty, yet here we are:
two hundred and fifty years later.
***
In mid to late June, a brutal heatwave swept across Europe. The news focused on Paris. I thought of her, sitting in a sweltering studio apartment, on the highest level of a Haussmann building on the hottest recorded day in the city's history.
“There are no trains out of the city. There is no way of leaving.”
She texts me back after I ask her to come and stay with me instead, rationalizing that there is at least a lake in the center of the city.
“Everyone is hysterical. Everyone is stuck.”
I thought about the weather on the day when they stormed the Bastille. The internet tells me that it was mostly cloudy, with an early rain that morning in 1789. I wonder if revolution becomes impossible or rather inevitable when the heat becomes unbearable.
***
I swam out well past the buoy in the Zürichsee that day, trying to get a clear look south at the Glarus and Schwyz Alps; all that exposed rock where the glacier ice once was, millions of years just melting, continually, into the lake, only to evaporate. I was immersed in that same melted glacier water that was close to reaching the air temperature—a surefire way to create a stable environment for bacterial growth; a known-known from my time in Texas. I wonder what the Swiss contingency plan will be when that inevitability happens.
The heat kept on. July fourth happened without much fanfare: a mixed weather report throughout the continent of continual warmth along with some relief in the east and northeast. Two weeks later, I was in New York so briefly that adjusting to the timezone seemed pointless. When I landed in Newark, transferred at Penn Station, and arrived in the East Village, I was so overwhelmed by how loud everything was. Like, really, very, unnecessarily loud. Just pointless and impossibly loud, everywhere. People honking in gridlock traffic, for instance, going nowhere any faster. Everyone hysterical, stuck.
There was a sale at every drug store and souvenir shop in the city:
USA 250 ANNIVERSARY MERCHANDISE
EIGHTY PERCENT OFF
The next day, shifting winds had intermixed with the air from the north, causing the Canadian wildfire ash to degrade the atmosphere across the Great Lakes and Northeast. Warnings came in to stay inside, calling it some of the worst air quality the city had seen in recent history. I noticed the sky had a strange orange tint to it that gave the midtown skyscrapers an extra ominous feel. One skyscraper was near collapse, buckling under the weight of itself, causing all sorts of traffic and tourists to stop and stare.
The headlines only intensified in the coming days:
An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease was reported across the city; four deaths were confirmed. And that toxic, wildfire air had turned into acid rain that seemed to pour for hours on end the following days. Meanwhile, after the DOGE era of deregulation, an unchecked parasite no one can pronounce had infiltrated the produce and everyone knew someone who had developed Cyclospora.
Welcome home, I thought.
America. The beautiful.
***
On August first, Switzerland celebrated national day. Here we are: seven hundred and thirty-five years later. Most cantons in the country banned fireworks on account of the dry conditions but the lake did seem colder that day for the pseudo respite.
On August fourth, my paperwork was accepted for a permanent visa—though I had nearly passed out in front of the Beamten and not from any bureaucratic relief, but from heat exhaustion. Still no voting rights, not for another five years. Taxation without representation.
I read and reread the interview with Daniel again on what risk means to a Swiss mentality and, for the record!, he’s the one who brought up “exceptionalism.” Not me. I don’t usually think about the West or America as a concept or exceptionalism as a characteristic, especially not together…especially not now. But I can’t escape it, either.
When it comes down to it, there are those kinds of words people love to use when describing something or someone they don’t really know, but they sure seem to like the way it sounds:
ENIGMA, ABSURDIST, GENIUS, ICON, POET, PROPHET, PROVOCATUER, SHAMAN, SUPERMAN, MONUMENTAL, MESSIAH, MARTYR, MYSTIC, VISIONARY, PRANKSTER, HUCKSTER, AKA THE FRIENDLIEST BLACK ARTIST IN AMERICA™
Words mean very little in consolation or condolence and language, consistently, fails us. I’d like to think that presence means more but silence can say enough sometimes, too. Death does have that tendency to enable an unearned romanticism in retrospect. When it comes down to it and when it comes to him, all I can do is assure you: he was only human. A good artist, yes, maybe a great one, but still, just a man—and a dead one now at that. And that, that’s the only certainty she and I have now. But…maybe he really was singular. “Exceptional.” Maybe…that’s why it is still so harrowing.
But that doesn’t stop the curators from coming. And they are starting to ask us questions.
***
As the eclipse swept across Europe, I tried my best to meet the deadline for the text but failed miserably. Only once before have I ever had so much trouble completing something and I swore to myself I would never let it happen again. Yet, here I am, as predicted: hysterical and stuck. But I know it’s time to be pragmatic, durable, and certain to every possible extent before I publish anything. Because here we are: I know you’re reading this, and I know he isn’t.
I thought about what Olga wrote:
The Zeigarnik effect: A circle that is fully closed is a quickly forgotten thought, whereas an open-ended and incomplete task remains in the memory, causing a feeling of persistent nervousness—stuck in its own unfinishedness.
That evening, we reached our viewing point high above the city and sat down on the dry, brittle patch of field that was once bright green grass. It hadn’t rained in weeks. The sun, even at seven p.m., burned and barreled down so intensely.
On top of Zürichberg and looking over the lake, I could see well past the Glarus and Schwyz Alps, with the Luzerne and Emmentaler Alps now in plain sight farther south. But it was about looking at the cursed west, with a chance to stare directly at the sun—to look at the circular center of everything, the only monument that really matters—and watch it be diminished by a much more inconsequential, smaller circle. I listened to the ongoing awe-struck chorus throughout the crowd as one object covered another. I noticed how quickly the temperature dropped. And then slowly the sun returned, fully formed, unfazed. And here we are. And that, that’s for certain.
The forthcoming issue for October is On Masks and will be co-edited with Max Guy.
Thank you as always to the contributors and A&O Art Director Razi Hedström with special thanks to Eli Greene and Matthew Jesse Jackson.
Brit Barton is an artist and writer based in Zurich. She is the editor of Art and Order Journal and founder of Relative Press.