208. READ. LOOK. THINK.

... coziness to abjection, bad writing, barren ease and rich unrest, enchanting mouse architecture, feelings are perfectly safe!

Dec 18, 2022

Hello from Australia — I’m home for the first time in five years, and introducing my children to their birthright (Rainbow Paddlepops, Gaytimes, the Boy Charlton pool, Luna Park, Allen’s Raspberries, suncream smell, sandal tans). Please excuse typos in this RLT, my brain has completely shut down — I get my Wordle on the last try, if at all.

READ.

I was stunned at the truth and beauty of Eloise Grills’s illustrations of what it’s like to publish a deeply personal memoir.

‘I just wanted to grow up and write novels that would help other people accept how messed up everything is, and comfort them for it as much as these books have comforted me.’

‘My boyfriend, a writer, broke up with me because I’m a writer.’

‘There can be a coziness to abjection that is assumed to be communal.’

‘Bad writing’s not about what I don’t like to read or find hard to read. It’s about a tone where I sense the person is trying to be something other than what they actually are, or trying to feel something they don’t.’

‘Babies are a nuisance, of course. But so does everything seem to be that is worthwhile, husbands and books and committees and being loved and everything. We have to choose between barren ease and rich unrest.’

‘But the kids, but the money, but the fear of dying alone.’

‘I related equally to their classic austerity, and their neurotic excesses. The trick, it seemed to me, was to disguise the one with the other.’ John le Carré quoted in this great essay.

Letters to Jeb Bush.

I realised four of the pieces I had saved over the past month or so were from the same place: Parapraxis. Here is my fave by Hannah Zeavin: Composite case: the fate of the children of psychoanalysis. ‘I wanted to be known completely or disappeared completely.’

I spent most of the year reading bootleg psychoanalysis PDFs, child development manuals, ebayed political diaries and histories of 2000s Britain. But my favourite novel this year was My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley. I think about it all the time. My best reading experience was listening back-to-back Elif Batuman audiobooks and podcast episodes during the heatwave.

michelle huang @michellehuang42

i trained an ai chatbot on my childhood journal entries - so that i could engage in real-time dialogue with my "inner child" some reflections below:

LOOK.

I love these stainless steel plates from Bourke Street Bakery so much and they are for sale in the UK for £4.85!

Alert! I searched on eBay for years for a copy of Need A House? Call Ms Mouse by George Mendoza (feat. ‘enchanting mouse architecture’). Now here in Australia I find it’s been reissued and is widely available?!

Evelyn Waugh’s massive house is for sale.

Perfect writing music from Australian composer Oren Ambarchi. ‘Shebang unfolds like a Music for 18 Musicians for the 21st century, each shift in tone and timbre an invitation to embrace the uncertainty and persistence of change,’ says Pitchfork on its 50 best albums of 2022 list.

Time to get a microwave?

Stephanie Madewell, who I have chased around a hundred platforms for years, and actually met once by coincidence at a concert at St Paul’s, has a Substack.

WEIGHTS. Muscles for 2023?

Bumper sticker: We’ve been having feelings for years! They’re perfectly safe!

THINK.

OliverScarlin @oliver_scarlin

Nude, scrolling Earthenware & celadon glaze

When the only thing better than a flip phone is no phone at all.

How do I handle the death of my secret lover?

Who remembers proper binmen?

People who breathe polluted air experience changes within the brain regions that control emotions, and as a result, they may be more likely to develop anxiety and depression than those who breathe cleaner air.

Evidence grows that mental illness is more than dysfunction: 'These psychotic episodes are like fever: it’s not the thing that makes you sick, but the thing that stops you from getting sicker.'

She Extends (Read Pinned!) @68tilinfinity

"Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices" Woman hears voices asking her to get a CT scan because they claim she has a brain tumour. Her psychiatrist orders a scan to reassure her but they actually find the tumor. After her surgery the voices thank her for listening and disappear

In the winter of 1984, as she was at home reading,
she heard a distinct voice inside her head. The voice
told her, “Please don’t be afraid. I know it must be
shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this,
but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend
and I used to work at the Children’s Hospital, Great
Ormond Street, and we would like to help you.”
AB had heard of the Children’s Hospital, but did
not know where it was and had never visited it. Her
children were well, so she had no reason to worry
about them. This made it all the more frightening for
her, and the voice intervened again: “To help you see
that we are sincere, we would like you to check out the
following”—and the voice gave her three separate
pieces of information, which she did not possess at the
time. She checked them out, and they were true, but
this did not help because she had already come to the
conclusion that she had “gone mad.” In a state of panic,
AB went to see her doctor

In order to reassure her, I requested a brain scan,
explaining in my letter that hallucinatory voices had
told her that she had a brain tumour, that I had not,
personally, found any physical signs suggestive of an
intracranial space occupying lesion, and that the
purpose of the scan was essentially to reassure the
patient. The request was initially declined, on the
grounds that there was no clinical justification for such
an expensive investigation. It was also implied that I
had gone a little overboard, believing what my patient’s
hallucinatory voices were telling her.
Eventually, after some negotiation, the scan was
done in April. The initial findings led to a repeat scan,
with enhancement, in May, revealing a left posterior
frontal parafalcine mass, which extended through the
falx to the right side. It had all the appearances of a
meningioma.

[Note: cut short because of character limit]

AB later told me that when she recovered
consciousness after the operation the voices told her,
“We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye.” There
were no postoperative complications. The dosage of
dexamethasone was halved every four days, and then it
was stopped. She was on prophylactic anticonvulsants
for six months. Antipsychotic medication was discontinued immediately after the operation, and there was
no return of the hallucinatory voices or the delusions
which she had expressed.

AB telephoned me last Christmas to wish me and family a merry festive season, and to tell me that she had
been completely well in the 12 years since the
operation. It was this telephone call that brought this
case to mind again.

She Extends (Read Pinned!) @68tilinfinity

I can't speak too much on True Crime stuff because I read medical case reports for fun

It feels good to read this list of 2022’s scientific breakthroughs.

What do you wish people knew about you?

Have a lovely Christmas if you celebrate, and a lovely break if you’re getting one. Thank you to everyone who has read my book this year, since it came out in Feb, and especially thanks to those who DMed me about it — receiving them always made my day 💛

Jess

Jessica Stanley's READ.LOOK.THINK.

Discussion about this post