236. READ. LOOK. THINK.
Rightmove art, he's a taker, a shaky, presumptuous, a dubious bid by the novelist. Worrrrk, Gunk, gender neutral photo poses, RIP to my most used emoji. And so on.
Surprised by the lovely wall art in this beautiful house (thanks to my Rightmove alert). It’s also on the same street as this one — the clutter is very artful.
READ.
Well he’s a taker and you’re a giver I hope it works out,
was all she said after she met him.
Give and take were just words to me
at the time. I had not been in love before.
— Anne Carson, The Glass Essay
“People don’t want to hear about you doll. It’s not your job to tell your story. It’s your job to make people tell their stories to you! You have to listen. You have to make people feel special. That’s what I do. Listen, ask questions, make them feel like the most important person in the room. Watch what I do! No one wants to hear about your mom."
'... a century later this conceit—which John Berger called “a contract agreed between writer and reader” based on the premise that the two of them can understand a fictional character “more fully than he can understand himself”—had come to seem shaky, presumptuous, a dubious bid by the novelist for his own importance.'
'Ridiculous, I used to think, addressing our little projects and papers as ‘worrrrk’, as though any of us knew what we were doing, but it made you sit up, try harder, take yourself as seriously as she appeared to take us.'
I’m trying to think what I have read recently. Stone Yard Devotional (very good). Anything is Possible (not the Elizabeth Strout where Olive meets Lucy Barton, the sort of head-hopping home town one).
Gunk, the new novel by Saba Sams, arrived in the mail today, and I have somehow raced through half. It’s giving Notes on a Scandal? (Without the scandal.) A bit Margaret Drabble somehow? I’m failing to make comps. It’s unusual and very good. I am very into it.
LOOK.
Zadie Smith on Bella Freud’s Fashion Neurosis podcast.
Margot (prints of St. John restaurant).
I bought these nice pasta bowls.
I also paid money for India Knight’s brilliant substack and immediately bought an exfoliant.
THINK.
Three very good UK-centric documentaries: Undercover: Exposing the Far Right | Panorama: The Chris Kaba Shooting | Shoot to Kill: Terror on the Tube (about the Met Police shooting a completely innocent person after the 7/7 attack).
A book: Justice on Trial: Radical Solutions for a System at Breaking Point (sample chapters: Why we should close all prisons/ Why we should legalise all drugs / Why children are never criminals / Why people are neither good nor evil)
'One of the reasons I resent the tradwife and Mormon moms of Instagram is that they have all but monopolized social-media storytelling about happy families. […] It feels like they’ve appropriated the entire narrative of family life [...] When my friends share pictures of themselves taking pleasure in some domestic task, they might joke that they’re tradwifing, and I object to this. You are not tradwifing. You’re participating in family life, which is where radical change can take root. Representing this life, with all its joys and labors, is not the exclusive domain of the MAGA-pilled. Don’t let them have it.'
‘What psychoanalysis adds to the conversation about parenting is that the parents, the authorities, are at their most dangerous when they believe too militantly that they know what they are doing.’
'If you are someone from a privileged background, you are likely used to people responding to you being upset and acting to make you happy right away. I suspect this is why so many people post terrible news on social media expecting someone to act, as if that knowledge is enough.' / 'Is it possible that we have come to feel responsible for too much, for everything, even things outside of our control, and that this makes us feel like gods who have been unfairly disempowered? Isn’t it depressing, feeling like a demoted god?'
‘By aligning himself with right-wing narratives, he has constructed a worldview that feels predictable and ordered. His admiration for figures who present themselves as “strong”, decisive leaders will be tied to his need for clear, unambiguous answers.’
“They kept talking about being ready for when ‘they come,’ ” she recalled. “Just ‘they.’”
Is the red heart emoji MAGA? ❤️ (Noooooooooooo. I didn’t mind when I looked old using it but not this)
Jess
X
Ok, that's one of like five emojis I use. Ugh.