I’m not a person to turn away from an adverse situation and pretend it’s not happening. I decided I couldn’t deal with the lightness of Lyly tonight, nor the loose banter of Ishmael and his ship pals in Moby Dick. I’m reading Tyrant Banderas by Ramon del Valle-Inclan, because if the world’s going to be a truly shitty place for the next four years, I want to fortify myself for what’s to come.

The immediate future is going to be pretty dismal in all sorts of ways. We will see some unconscionable abuses on the part of any Trump administration and some fairly catastrophic consequences for world affairs generally. What remains is to endure these circumstances stoically (and people will be shocked by how badly this turns out, make no mistake) and be prepared to fight back when the time comes.