Today: Writer and artist S.I. Rosenbaum.

Issue No. 461

TEETH BEACH: The River Gave Me a Bead
S.I. Rosenbaum

NEWS ON FIRE

TEETH BEACH: The River Gave Me a Bead

by S.I. Rosenbaum

[IMAGE] Author seated across from a government official, saying in Portuguese, “Ola, boa tarde.” [TEXT] Let me tell you a story. Glass was invented some 6000 years ago in Egypt or Sumeria. It was invented to make beads. [IMAGE] Author explaining hopefully, “I hope you’ll find all our papers are correct.” [TEXT] The Egyptians spoke of ‘stone from the kiln’ as opposed to lapis or turquoise—stone from the mine. [IMAGE] Bureaucrat looking skeptically at papers: “What is this? You do not have health insurance?” [TEXT] Glassmaking remained centered in the lands east and south of the Mediterranean for centuries, [IMAGE] Author (sweating anxiously): “Uh, it’s travel insurance? It’s what our lawyer told us to bring? [TEXT] until 1453, when Constantinople and other Eastern cities fell to the Ottomans. [IMAGE] Bureaucrat, consulting papers: “No… no…” [TEXT] Many refugees took shelter in the rising city-state of Venice. [IMAGE] Bureaucrat, closer up: “No, this is not sufficient. You will need the domestic insurance policy.” [TEXT] And Venice welcomed them—especially the glassworkers. [IMAGE] Author, frantically looking both toward bureaucrat, and away. (to bureaucrat) Ah disculpe, I am sure we can fix this immediately. (to Josie) JOSIE CAN YOU GO BUY US A POLICY ONLINE RIGHT NOW [TEXT] They offered a fast track to citizenship, state-of-the-art kilns [IMAGE] Josie, alarmed: “Uhhh Ok.”; author, still speaking to bureaucrat: “I’ll just call our lawyer [TEXT] and sent assassins after those who sought better deals elsewhere. [IMAGE] Author: “Ola, Andreia?” Supervisor: “Qual é o problema?” Bureaucrat: “São idiotas” (“They are idiots”) [TEXT] By 1485 Venice was producing the finest glass beads in the world.
[IMAGE] Author: “She’s at LUNCH??” Bureaucrat: “We will be unable to process your application without this document [TEXT] At the same time, Portugal developed their caravels— [IMAGE] Josie, reading silently on phone: PLEASE ENTER YOUR NATIONAL IDENTITY NUMBER [TEXT] ships that could sail south into the winds protecting the coast of Africa. [IMAGE] Josie, furious, reading on phone: ERROR: NO INTERNET CONNECTION. PLEASE CLOSE APPLICATION AND SIGN IN AGAIN [TEXT] They came for gold, ivory and slaves. All they had to offer were beads. [IMAGE] Author and Josie leaving government office. [TEXT] But beads were currency everywhere [IMAGE] Author and Josie, sorrowing. Josie: “Hey. We’re going to be fine.” [TEXT] and Europe had a near-monopoly on glassworking. [IMAGE] Author responding to Josie: “I want to go home.” [IMAGE] A surface in the darkness [TEXT] In the centuries of colonization that followed, beads allowed Europeans to insinuate themselves into every culture they encountered— [IMAGE] The surface grows a little lighter, has shapes [TEXT] the gift of beads became a prelude to conquest. For Europe, beads were endlessly replenishable and beautiful weapons. [IMAGE] The surface is a bed. The sleeping heads of Author and Josie at the top [TEXT] They could make enough beads to end worlds.
[HEADLINE] THE RIVER GAVE ME A BEAD [IMAGE] Lisbon, on a hill above the water (next nine panels) [TEXT] The first thing I saw when we arrived in Lisbon was the river. [TEXT] Something about the water makes the day linger; even in midwinter night comes slowly. The light draws away from the water like a long silk scarf. [TEXT] After I felt well enough to leave our rental apartment, I started spending hours down by the tideline. [TEXT] I was looking for beads. [TEXT] Lisbon was a major port for trade beads for centuries, so it seemed reasonable that the river might harbor some still. [TEXT] I only found shards of old pottery, so I brought those back with me instead.
[IMAGE] Shoreline [TEXT] I collect old beads. I can’t explain why. I just find them deeply satisfying objects. But then I don’t even understand why beads exist at all. [IMAGE] Author at shoreline, trousers rolled up [TEXT] Most people fiture an object with a hole is easy to tie on a string, easy to carry with you. [IMAGE] Author’s hand holding a colored pottery shard, water in the background [TEXT] But why would we want to carry something with us that has no other obvious purpose? [IMAGE] Bed with sleeping cat, bedside table with pottery shards arranged on toip [TEXT] One bead, two beads, three. Now you have a pattern. Order. Syntax. [IMAGE] Four colored shards on a plain background [TEXT] Now there is a sequence. [IMAGE] Josie comforts the author, who is saying, “I want to go home.” [TEXT] 5,000 years ago a child was buried with 2,600 beads of hematite, shell and turquoise. [IMAGE] Josie (asleep) and author (awake) are in bed with two cats, one of whom is sleeping curled up around author’s head [TEXT] 30,000 years ago a man was buried with 3,000 beads of mammoth ivory and fox teeth. [IMAGE] Worrying, eyes closed in bed, author [TEXT] Where were they carrying those beads?
[IMAGE] black background: wide flat bead [TEXT] I was a kid during the bead-store boom of the 90s, but only started collecting seriously after I moved to New York in my 30s. [IMAGE] black background: three patterned beads [TEXT] I hunted beads in the city’s Chelsea Flea market, the same place, it’s said, where William Gibson used to stalk antique watches. [IMAGE] black background: blue bead fragments [TEXT] It turned out that even very ancient beads were often cheap, simply because ancient peoples made so many of them. [IMAGE] black background: rabbit shaped bead [TEXT] I stored my finds in drawers divided into little rectangular compartments, lined in velvet. The ethics of this collecting are uneasy. Often these beads have reached me through some act of cruelty [IMAGE] black background: long faceted beads, one broken [TEXT] (looted from graves, sold in desperation, appropriated, desecrated, stolen) [IMAGE] black background: string of pale glowing beads [TEXT] but all I can know for sure about the previous owners is that their beads have survived, and they are gone. [IMAGE] black background: cylindrical bead [TEXT] When we left the U.S., we did it quickly. There wasn’t much time to pack. [IMAGE] black background: round striped bead [TEXT] I told myself I would be back in a few months—not realizing how dangerous border crossings would become. [IMAGE] black background: millefiore bead [TEXT] So I left most of my collection behind. In Lisbon I started collecting pottery shards instead, but I kept hoping
[IMAGE] Author by the water [TEXT] that the river might give me a bead. [IMAGE] Author by the water, speaking: “Anything made of glass, with a hole. The oldest thing you have made by human hands.” [IMAGE] Author by the water, speaking: “Please.” [TEXT] And then one day, it did. [IMAGE] Riverbed with stones and shells visible [IMAGE] Riverbed with stones and shells visible [TEXT] I didn’t even look at it right away; I just held it in my hand. I knew exactly what it was I’d found. [IMAGE] Author holding bead: “Thank you” [TEXT] It felt uncomfortably as if something had heard and answered my request. [IMAGE] Online bead forum: post of blue bead fragment and posts responding: yeah looks like part of a nueva cadiz in rough shape; New Cadiz bead? Or part of one I have one with a twist like that; Nueva Cadiz, c 1520s. Where’d you find it? [TEXT]The bead forum agreed with me: [IMAGE] Hand holding bead in post [TEXT] I’d found part of a five-hundred-year-old bead. [IMAGE] Bead fragment showing where it would fit in full bead [TEXT] A fairly rare bead, in fact— a Nueva Cadiz.
[IMAGE] Hooded paramilitary guy assaulting a man in a black shirt[TEXT] The beads we call Nueva Cadiz are long, square, the color of the sky. [IMAGE] Hooded military man is choking man as a woman comes to intervene [TEXT] First noticed by archeologists at Nueva Cadiz, a Spanish pearl-fishing colony destroyed by earthquake in 1541, [IMAGE] A struggle. Behind them a truck and two small figures are visible [TEXT] they were among the earliest beads Europeans brough with them to Africa and the New World in the early 1500s. [IMAGE] Hooded man tries to force man in t-shirt into SUV [TEXT] In Angola around this time a woman was buried with two of these beads braided into her hair; [IMAGE] Bystanders approach to witness the struggle [TEXT] in the Yucatan a boy was buried with a string of them around his wrist. [IMAGE] Man in t-shirt resists being forced into SUV [TEXT] And not far from where I live in Lisbon a wealthy nobleman had them embedded in the façade of his house [IMAGE] Pan out to Author, seated at computer with mug, watching the attempted abduction on her laptop: “Fuck” [TEXT] to memorialize an ancestor famous for killing Moors. [IMAGE] Closing laptop [TEXT] I only know all this because I research old beads. Anyone could have seen that piece of glass on the sand and not recognized it. But I did. [IMAGE] Author putting on hoodie and leaving [TEXT] Finding that bead felt like a sign; it had to mean something.
[IMAGE] Night scene near the river , people strolling [TEXT] But what? [IMAGE] Night scene near the river , people strolling [TEXT] A sliver of glass and I had collided, both of us propelled by an explosion that was still expanding, [IMAGE] Night scene near the river , people strolling [TEXT] five hundred years after the initial detonation. [IMAGE] Author going down the steps by the water [TEXT] My collection of beads is in storage now. We rented our house to friends. [IMAGE] Author at a distance, picking something up from the sand [TEXT] I’ve found three more trade beads here—not as old, but whole. More pieces of a sequence I’m still trying to discern. [IMAGE] Author standing looking at her find [TEXT] I’m not sure there is a sequence, though. Maybe that’s not what history is; maybe history is only an explosion. [IMAGE] Author’s arm reaching across the panel to one side [TEXT] I’m drawing comics again, but I don’t understand what I’m trying to describe. [IMAGE] Author’s hand open [TEXT] Maybe I’m just making another kind of collection: every page a drawer divided into its velvet-lined compartments, [IMAGE] Sand, water, and land [TEXT] each moment stored away safe until I can find a better way to carry them with me.
EPILOGUE [IMAGE] Josie and author walk by the shore. Author: “So, I think the bead comic is done. The question is: So what?” Josie: “It’s a good comic.” Author: “I mean, who cares about my fucking bead collection? Boo hoo, my beads are in storage and I have to live in Lisbon.” Josie: “It’s not even about beads!” [TEXT] EPILOGUE [IMAGE] Author walking toward the water: “I’m going to walk on the beach for a while” Josie: “’K, ‘mgonna go get an acai bowl.” [IMAGE] [TEXT] [IMAGE] Author’s sandaled feet by the water [IMAGE] Author: “Oh” [IMAGE] Author looking into her palm, face gently lit with a blue glow [IMAGE] Author lying near a wall on the beach [IMAGE] Josie, seated under a patio umbrella with phone and bowl before her: “Hey, how was—Are you ok? What happened??” Author: “You are not going to fucking believe this.” [IMAGE] Author’s open palm holding a long blue bead. Josie, out of frame: “Oh my god. Is that ANOTHER Nueva Cadiz? Author: “Yep” [IMAGE] Josie and author under umbrella together. Author: “This is weird. This is weird right.” Josie: “Oh. It’s weird.”

PREVIOUSLY:
TRANSMIGRATIONS (an introduction)
TEETH BEACH: A Stranger Told Me a Secret

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NEWS ON FIRE

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Hang with me here. On an earnings call Wednesday afternoon, the high-tech company Oracle reported a negative cash flow of about $10 billion last quarter, the result of a gigantic AI data center spending spree. This would be an item of interest mainly to Wall Street, were it not for the notable fact that Oracle is controlled by Larry Ellison, the megabillionaire father of Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, who put in a $108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery only two days ago.

You might wonder where Ellison the Younger found the spare cash, but don’t be silly: he got a lot of it from the Gulf states. Among the backers of Paramount’s bid are the “sovereign wealth funds” (read: state treasuries) of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar. Together, these royal families contributed $24 billion to the proposed deal. 

That’d be the same David Ellison who has already Bari Weiss-ified CBS News and is said to have promised Donald Trump a similar ravaging at CNN if and when he takes over. And the same Saudi royal family whose crown prince was responsible for the murder of  journalist Jamal Khashoggi. People, in other words, with bone saws they might prefer to remain concealed. — Zach Rabiroff

TIME Magazine cover, January 2, 1928, with a a charcoal drawing of aviator and fascist Charles Lindbergh on the cover as THE MAN OF THE YEAR “He defeated fame.”
The inaugural Man of the Year (1928), legendary fascist Charles Lindbergh

In a move that has everyone groaning at their bullshit, TIME magazine, which apparently still exists, has chosen “The Architects of AI,” which still does not actually exist, as their 2025 Person of the Year. 

On one of the two covers “digital artist” (if you know what I mean) Jason Seiler has recreated the famous 1932 “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photograph. Sitting on the beam are Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Lisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Fei-Fei Li of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Sam Altman of OpenAI, and Demis Hassabis of DeepMind Technologies. Whether the imminently-plummeting position of this crew was meant to be a metaphor for the entire AI marketing operation remains unclear. — Luke O’Neil

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