Episode
The Boundless in a Reed
- Published
- May 5, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 581
- Processing state
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- https://javiertruben.substack.com/p/the-boundless-in-a-reed
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Summary
Last Monday, while monitoring and mixing this podcast at midday, a massive blackout plunged this beach town and the entire peninsula into a real-life episode of an apocalyptic future. I was fortunate to be seated at my desk, unlike the poor b******s trapped inside lifters or commuting on trains and subways, standing and packed one against the other like a can of sardines. The only lifeline was the juice of my iPhone, which kept me connected abroad until the network coverage collapsed as well. As soon as I heard it wasn't a local blackout but by all odds affected Spain and Portugal, I went up to the rooftop terrace to check if the planes’ trails were drawn in the sky, and everything was quite normal for an April day. The tireless sexual revelry of birds mating, the hubbub of swifts flying around me, and the mist of yellow pollen from the mix of pine and oak wood, floating in the valleys of the nearby hills. Why should I be worried? So, expecting to stay without power for at least 24 hours, given that we are ruled by simpletons crowing about our renewable energy production, I set a leftover of stewed beans and peas to warm up under the glorious sun, well covered to avoid the curious wasps and bees and the looming sea gulls, and returned to my desk to sharpen the pencils, gather paper, and get ready to take casual notes to enjoy a wonderful reading. From the book stack, I randomly chose a British author I had adored when he was young, and his literary tricks were a novelty for me. I’m talking about Julian Barnes and one of his latest works, The Sense of an Ending . But since the old friend Julian became a solemn widower of Pat Kavanagh, his writing has become simply sad. It evokes the same bottomless loss and grief I found reading Joan Didion’s The Year of the Magical Thi…