200. READ. LOOK. THINK.
Treasuring normality, writers shouldn't talk, Brooklyn restaurant outfits, Diana bob, DYOR, ADHD, California cookie recipe
A pile of rags used to wipe paintbrushes in Celia Paul’s studio.
Hello,
I sort of hinted I would come back with something special or different for the 200th RLT — I forgot! It’s just a normal one.
READ.
'She treasured normality as only a freak can; for she was a freak, by her intellect, by her awareness, and by the strange juxtaposition of a raw history with a playful, merciful, fastidious mind.'
'In our line of work, a person can find themselves coerced, contractually or otherwise, into doing a lot of things they don’t want to do. I suppose it’s a point of pride for me, one of the very few I have left at this stage, that I can at least refuse to be coerced into being emotionally vulnerable in public. No! As far as my public statements are concerned, I am completely invulnerable, and I have never suffered a day in my life.' Sally Rooney x Patricia Lockwood
'Some people talk to me and ask, "How did you write this personal book?" I'm like, "Look at anybody's TikTok or Instagram; it's way more personal than anything I write!"'
'I used to think birth was the opposite of death, but now I know they are close cousins plaited together.' / Emily's birth story she sent me and Meaghan seven (!) years ago.
'I have a pact with myself about my work: I simply go to my study every day and wait. I read, I write things, but when I’m not writing a book, I don’t necessarily expect anything to happen. But I still go there. It seems to create the necessary psychic space and also the necessary tension out of which something will be formed.' Jeanette Winterson (via Lisa Owens' Twitter which is where I steal most of my stuff.)
'The day after my husband first said he didn’t love me any more, I made a Nigella recipe for parmesan french toast...'
“You need the time to get arrested and I had little to do yesterday,” they said. “But it felt good to get arrested. This is civil disobedience.” Eileen Myles watches over an ever-changing New York
Reading: Ella Risbridger's new book The Year of Miracles (I made something from it half an hour after I opened it). Sharlene Teo's Ponti. Various other books too personal and revealing to specify here.
As I suspected the new Elif Batuman was sublime and I am obsessed with her: 'I had a great education in how to be critical, and I was overthinking everything and reading everything. I had access to a lot of information. I wasn’t uncurious. I wasn’t unobservant. I didn’t live under a rock. And yet I reached all these conclusions that now seem to me to be wrong.' / Her By the Book / Her Grub Street Diet.
I printed out this poem for my girls' bedroom 🥲
LOOK.
Jennifer Egan on Talk Easy pod / ('“You know, caricaturish people, horrible dialogue, stupid and obvious moves, blundering historical context,” Egan said, when I asked her what about her manuscript had so revolted her. Her voice grew hard with disgust as she catalogued her failures.')
The Diana bob is BACK!
London's unexpectedly fantastic Elizabeth Line.
Recipe for the biscuit my children are obsessed with at Violet Cakes:
THINK.
Thread:
'What does it mean to make room in a social movement for younger people? How does one accommodate oneself to the idea that a movement one is used to thinking of as one’s own is, in fact, never just one’s own, and that its destiny is always beyond one’s control? And, indeed, that this is a good thing? What does it mean, in other words, to build radical coalition with the future?'
DYOR.
'Punctuality is paramount as we are going through a re-evaluation of our relationship to time.'
Why are so many women getting diagnosed with ADHD? / Is therapy worth the expense?
The $5000 face /Staring at an image of yourself on Zoom has serious consequences for mental health – especially for women (everyone knows this, but this is a good explanation of why).
Poster's disease / 'I think that is the perfect middle ground for a man, where they speak the language, but they don’t give it enough attention to develop brain worms.'
“When you think of the way the social hierarchy is structured, it has the potential to work for kids [...] High-status people don’t get injured by low-status people. If I signal ‘I’m not injured,’ it’s a way to signal my high status.” On playground conflict
'I had personally Googled myself into believing I’d meet a strong resistance from people who would give me a hard time for choosing not to nurse, but ultimately this wall of resistance lived entirely online. But in the real world, nobody cared, just as in the real world, nobody truly cares if you wear your baby or do Baby Led Weaning but when you’re in new motherhood world it seems like life or death, both in terms of your baby and your reputation.'
'That almost all these hyped artists are women and people of color is not incidental, surface diversification being a key strategy to solidify the status quo. Give away a little social capital and you can keep all the financial capital for yourself, and even lower your tax bill in the process.'
“We are afraid that the interruption of the gas supply will cause an economic catastrophe,” we say. But what if our stated fear is fake? What if we are really afraid that an interruption of the gas supply would not cause a catastrophe?
Jess X