Status Updates From Castaway Mountain: Love and...

Family having to witness a member go through a horrible medical crisis always makes me a weepy man. I’m really hoping that things turned out well, considering this is nonfiction.

Farzana’s delirium is worrying

A lot of interesting history packed into this. I didn’t know that the Portuguese controlled the Bombay fishing islands before “giving” them to the British. I also need to remember that Hindus believe Lord Rama was born in Babri Masjid

“Dead Horse Bay (NYC, USA) had absorbed much of [New York City’s] trash in the thirties. Half buried in sand were switchboards, cups, dishes, and other things made of Bakelite. An early plastic, it was easily moldable, didn't break, & didn't conduct electricity or heat. Unbroken but soon unfashionable, these had been discarded and found their way to the beach.”

🥺 I love Bakelite & did not know this

“He had seen friends silently replaced by their young children at the mountains while they retreated to waste away… consumed by tuberculosis. Others had faded into the haze, their disappearance unnoticed in the unrelenting chase for the city’s moth-eaten treasures.

But Hyder Ali & his friends didn’t think their treasure-yielding township & the livelihood it had provided for them had anything to do w it.”

“They pushed for the trash township to change, to mirror the modern city whose desires fed [the dump] and whose dark reflection it was.”