The Assemblage Newsletter #77
Seasons
Welcome to this week’s newsletter from Assemblage. These newsletters go out every Friday to highlight some of our top essays from the past week. As always, these are all friend links, so anyone can view them. Please click through on the ones that resonate and read the whole essay.
“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.” — Jim Rohn
Assemblage is now an essay-only publication, with all of our poetry being published at Loose Words, but we will continue to feature published poetry here from our archives.
Featured Writer
Each week we feature one of our writers and several of their essays (or past poems) on the homepage underneath the Featured Essays, Featured Poems, and Notes From the Editor sections. This week our Featured Writer is Em Unravelling. Em is a lover of words, books, hiking, nature, and big skies. Running is her favourite thing (after the words & the books). She is as feisty as she needs to be.
Collection
Collections are groupings of essays or past poems with an overall theme. You can find Collections on the homepage underneath the Highlighted Essays, Highlighted Past Poems, Notes From the Editor, and Featured Writer sections.
Life features 8 different works from 8 different writers around this theme. This section is a great way to get acquainted with multiple works around one theme, as well as to find writers you haven’t read before or ones you shouldn’t miss. Take a look at our Collection this week and see what you may have missed.
Life features one work each from Cassius Corbin, Lark Morrigan, Jonathan Greene, Simran Kankas, Adeline Dimond, Gillian Sisley, Thomas Plummer, and Pandora Domeyko.
Highlighted Essays From Last Week
How Schadenfreude Dominates Our Social Media Experience by Melissa Kerman
“However, not all dreams come to fruition, and the algorithms will expose you to folks in your niche, people similar to yourself, chasing the same dream, but probably with better hair and a smaller nose. Once again, you remember that you’re just another speck on a map. Cue the comparison. Cue the isolation.”
What Defines Friendship In The Digital World Of The 21st Century? by Heather S. Wargo
“Our view is narrowed down to fancy fonts, memes, and emojis.
The dopamine hit received from launching a resounding zinger to an unknown, unseen target is seductive.
Dehumanizing all persons has been a horrible side effect of the Internet.”
How to Live Beyond Death by Greg Frankson
“I tell you all of this to emphasize the point that I don’t plan on going out without leaving a rich and multifaceted legacy of words. My body will be fulsome, various, illustrative of the times I lived in, bold, loud, incisive, collar-grabbing relevant, valuable.”
“He might have been perfectly harmless, though my senses still get creeped out when I think of a guy who was so lost, alone, needy, or predatory that he would latch on to high school kids who knew a lot but who clearly weren’t so worldly or caring about practicing safety.”
Sometimes, You Need To Treat Yourself by Megan Minutillo
“It’s important to rest when you need it and nourish your muscles and bones with the proper nutrients they need to thrive — and get you from point a to point b. It’s important to let yourself unwind and be honest with your own soul when you take the time to self-reflect and look inward.”
Why Making New Year Resolutions is For the Weak by Iva Ursano
“I realized that I could set attainable goals any time throughout the year and putting it off until January 1st was just an excuse to, well, put it off. Why are we doing this? Why do we have to wait until a special day, the turn of the calendar, wait til the clock strikes midnight? Why?”
Highlighted Past Poems
Our highlighted past poems are a weekly homage on our homepage to our poets who wrote for us when we still published poetry at Assemblage. Although we are essay-only now, we love to feature a round-up of past poems for our readers. This week we have poems from Lisa Alletson, Gail Walter, Connie Song, Jonathan Greene, and Melinda Smith.
Weekly Note
It’s nice to be back. This week we were thinking about seasons and how our lives ebb and flow with them.
“Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.” — Oscar Wilde
