229. READ. LOOK. THINK.
The genitals? Miranda July's ecstatic fugue state, the humble craft, Hackney is the 'borough du jour', a perverse situation.
READ.
A lot has happened to me since I last sent out an edition of R.L.T. but one of the major things was reading Miranda July’s All Fours. I can tell it will be a totemic book for me. I’m now listening to it on audio, read by the author. I will revisit many times! There are no limits to what I can find in the text. I saw her live at Conway Hall in 2011. She had a similar effect on me then. (Jude and I often use the voice of the Cat from THE FUTURE: ‘I died.’)
‘Fiction writers are people, supposedly, who have things to say; they must, because they are so good with words. So people are always asking them: Can you say something about this or about this? But the art of hearing the voice of a fictional person or sensing a fictional world or working for years on some unfathomable creation is, in fact, the opposite of saying something with the opinionated and knowledgeable part of one’s mind. It is rather the humble craft of putting your opinions and ego aside and letting something be said through you.’
'Rereading it, I wondered where he felt he lost the book clubs. Was it the scene where the drunk screams in the face of a horse? The scene where a drug addict snorts cocaine from a dead man’s shrine? The pride and delight the drunk takes in what he considers his only skill, the ability to vomit silently?' Enjoyed Nicole Flattery on Patrick deWitt.
'Maybe it’s because our political discourse swings between deranged and abhorrent on a daily basis and we would like to combat our feelings of powerlessness by insisting on moral simplicity in the stories we tell and receive. Or maybe it’s because many of the transgressions that flew under the radar in previous generations — acts of misogyny, racism and homophobia; abuses of power both macro and micro — are now being called out directly. We’re so intoxicated by openly naming these ills that we have begun operating under the misconception that to acknowledge each other’s complexity, in our communities as well as in our art, is to condone each other’s cruelties.'
‘You are always legitimate to do whatever you want, no one else can tell you what you can or cannot do. People who think they are left-wing but put a line between who gets to talk and who should shut up are right-wing.’ Édouard Louis.
I loved my primary school friend Alice Robinson’s new novel If You Go (I was so lucky to get to read it early). I’m afraid I will have to quote my own blurb here! ‘As an exploration of love over time, If You Go is unique and perfect, a work of rare moral beauty, and, ultimately, of hope. Alice Robinson is the Helen Garner of the future.’ You’ll have to read the book to see how especially right that last line is! If You Go is out in July with Australia’s Affirm Press, pre-order now or get your library holds in if you can.
LOOK.
Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow) is an album from 2018 a Yolŋu Aboriginal Australian musician Gurrumul — I always loved his music, but somehow this album eluded me till now? It’s his voice plus an orchestra; it gives me absolute chills and makes me so homesick for Australia.
Very amused by this in Tatler: RIP The King’s Road: How Hackney became the borough du jour.
THINK.
'We are in the perverse situation in which adults are protected from all forms of violence under the law, but if it is a child who is struck it can be justified or even romanticised.' Why is smacking still allowed in England and Northern Ireland?
“He’ll say to me about the grandchildren, Wow, they’re so bright and interesting,” she said. “And I’ll say, You know, your own children were very bright and interesting, too.”
'Only later, after the teargas clears and the leering and laughter subside, do we sit puzzled, in the filth of our own entirely avoidable mistakes, and look regretfully backward.' / The student-led protests aren’t perfect. That doesn’t mean they’re not right.
'Not using a phone taught me what a phone is really for. It’s not for communicating with other people, getting directions, reading articles, looking at pictures, shopping for products, or playing games. A phone is a device for muting the anxieties proper to being alive.'
'I believe that the children of children born this year will be the first fossil-fuel-free generation in modern history' — head of the UN climate change convention from 2010 to 2016.
Jess
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PS. I will have something nice to share soon and I will do it on my IG, join me! Don’t worry that my account is private, it’s just to put off bots and men (not men who read — other men). Everyone else welcome.