I was in a car on the interstate headed south, listening to a friend hold court on Modernism, specifically its influence on the latest crop of writers (who are not Modernists, by the way; Modernism happened a while ago), when an intrusive thought of far graver heft popped into my head: what if December is the most basic month of the year?
From Urban Dictionary:
basic adj. Only interested in things mainstream, popular, and trending.
The evidence is everywhere, really. Only in December do hip standalone cafes play the same peppy music as Dutch Bros and Starbucks—carols with questionable lyrics, often, but that doesn’t stop us from humming right along. All of a sudden, in living rooms across the country—from the poor to the rich, from the vaguely Christian to the deeply so—fragrant, freshly butchered baby conifers materialize. In December, we’re all consumerists, spending money, buying things, ordering last-minute gifts on Amazon (“Speak for yourself!” you cry). Suddenly, everyone’s nostalgic about family and Santa and childhood and home. Even the queer people! Even the hipsters!
A local example to belabor my point: at the Trails Of Lights show in Austin, the holiday-minded corporations are relentlessly in-your-face. Here, a Dr. Seuss set-up sponsored by HEB, the local grocery behemoth. Basic! Here, a giant, decked-up Coca-Cola van offering free samples of Y3000, a flavor supposedly developed in collaboration with A.I. Again, basic! The local private equity firms are all there, as are the local utility companies.
Not a corporation, strictly speaking, but also worth a mention is the Austin police department, whose contribution to the show is a dimly lit truck that prominently features the Grinch out back. Yikes!
Book 4: "July's People" by Nadine Gordimer
(No spoilers, I promise!)
What happens when the dissident citizens of a messed-up society find themselves trapped in a revolution that doesn’t love them back? What happens when the axis of power flips to its diametric opposite, when the color of your skin suddenly goes from power to curse, when it no longer matters that you can bake a cake and set the table, that you took ballet lessons for years and years?
Published in 1981, July’s People follows a liberal white family that is forced to seek refuge in their black servant’s ancestral village after the apartheid regime is suddenly upended by a blood civil war.
Nadine Gordimer was a South African powerhouse, an outspoken critic of apartheid whose books were frequently banned pre-1994. (Also, briefly, in 2001—juicy rabbit-hole alert) Gordimer writes with savage grace. Each sentence is a nail underfoot. No one is spared. Here is the kind of taboo-fuckery you need to neutralize your basic December.