music clip of the day

back to church

“Until I Die,” Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 2001

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lagniappe

random sights

other day, Oak Park, Ill.

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reading table

On​ the first day, we hid in the Mins’ka metro station with our dog, Zlata. The entire platform was covered with people. We found a little gap next to a large family with lots of children and a sick grandad who was getting sicker and sicker. Their cat kept peeing from fear and the smell was everywhere. Some people were better prepared than others: they had brought fold-up chairs, blankets, flasks of hot tea. We came with nothing, though I had started packing a bag as soon as the sound of explosions woke me up. I couldn’t solve the puzzle of what exactly you’re supposed to take with you if you might never go back to your home, or if you might die at any moment. I tried to pack my things several times, but in the end we left with our hands almost empty.

—Sofia Andrukhovych (translated by Uilleam Blacker), from “Day 5, Day 9, Day 16 / Responses to the Invasion of Ukraine,” London Review of Books (3/24/22)