Today is John Dos Passos’s birthday! His physical frame may be gone, but his words, his spirit–they endure. “In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now.” 2025 burned this in my consciousness. Was there ever a time more steeped in quicksand and more desperate for the stabilizing effect of history? Every hurt seems exceptional in the heat of the moment. But history knows all. If my grandfather were here with me today, I think he would hand me a history book.