No. 26
Hera Lindsay Bird; a rat czar; space burials; teeth; AI in art; unlived lives; Kevin Wilson; a fish pics ban; hikikomori; 'the romance of being number two'; BOOKS!!
Hello, welcome,
Breaking news: I’ve just realised the name Interesting Times could be read as a pun (I think it’s a pun?), which I loathe. When I decided to call the newsletter Interesting Times, I was thinking along the lines of how a person might say, ‘hmmm, interesting times’ about something a bit interesting, not as some kind of grandiose play on, say, The Financial Times. Gahhhh. The horror.
(I have a friend who says that some friends of hers divorced due to one partner’s excessive use of puns, and while there may have been other factors at play, I do think excessive punning is reasonable grounds for separation.)
Anyway.
As always, I hope you find some things to enjoy.
~Ellie
JOURNALISM.
‘The initial job description called for someone with “the drive, determination and killer instinct needed to fight the real enemy: New York City’s relentless rat population.” […] She Has One Job: Get Rid of the Rats.’
But here, a response in defense of rats! ‘For centuries, the little rodents have been the focal point for anxieties around sexuality, hygiene, and the ineradicable power of the oppressed masses. It’s time for a reappraisal!!’
‘South Korea to start paying young people to leave the house: Known by the Japanese word ‘hikikomori’, South Korea faces a crisis of extreme isolation among young people. Could a fat cheque be enough to turn the tide?’
‘During the late 1660s in Paris, transfusing the blood of calves and lambs into human veins held the promise of renewed youth and vigour. Peter Sahlins explores Jean Denis’ controversial experiments driven by his belief in the moral superiority of animal blood: a substance that could help redeem the fallen state of humanity. Beast in the Blood.’
‘Heavenly Bodies: Space burials sell a shot at immortality.’
Dream job! Listening in on other people’s conversations, and then just transcribing them. ‘Listening In on Line at Glossier. “I look disgusting.
We all do.”’Inside the world of Rupert Murdoch. Among many other contenders for oddest/most disturbing bit of intel, this is a stand out: ‘At the age of 91, Murdoch blew up his fourth marriage. Hall was waiting for Murdoch to meet her at their Oxfordshire estate last June when she checked her phone. “Jerry, sadly I’ve decided to call an end to our marriage,” Murdoch’s email began, according to a screenshot I read. “We have certainly had some good times, but I have much to do…My New York lawyer will be contacting yours immediately.”’ What a weirdo.
‘When it came to liquor, there were two modes in Clinton [Arkansas]: alcoholism or abstinence. This paralleled the bifurcated morality I saw everywhere: Girls were either virgins or whores; students were either geniuses or failures; you could go to church or you could be a sinner. The town seemed to operate in two modes—the buttoned-up propriety of the churchgoers, who held power in the county, versus the rowdy hillbillies in families like my dad’s. The rigid divide allowed no room for subtleties or missteps,” she writes. “Even children were sorted into the binary: the upstanding citizens and the ne’er-do-wells.”
“I returned home to find my whole town in a long, slow decline, on the verge of dying itself. Drug epidemics take root in places that are already sick, already suffering. Momma had been right, it seems, to focus on getting us out, guarding us from boys and early pregnancy and keeping us distant from the people she thought would trap us here.”’ On ‘How Rural America Steals Girls’ Futures.’On teeth.
‘In 1982, I wrote a piece about Ian Hamilton’s biography of Robert Lowell. The essay was published in the Voice Literary Supplement and turned out to be one in a sub-genre I called "the romance of being number two." In these pieces—for example on Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, and Lee Krasner—I looked at women in the generation before mine who were raised as almost a first principle to place the value of men before the value of women, including of course themselves. In their minds, their value is as Mrs. Him. Do they believe it? They believe it maybe sometimes, and they don’t believe it.’ Another piece of perfection from Laurie Stone.
An interview with artist Francien Krieg, where she talks about bringing AI into her practice; at first grappling with what it represented, and then learning to use it in ways that felt right to her: ‘At first, her women were conventional figurative images, and she continued with the themes she had developed in the past, but she gradually gained confidence in enjoying some of the strange fracturing the machine introduced. She encouraged it to produce random doubling and broken collaging, then used the results to create new work, straddling the distance between machine and woman, and welcoming the novelty when stacked and fractured homes crunched out of elder bodies. The fractured images resonated with Krieg’s recurrent and reflective themes of older women’s lives.’
From 2002. A heatwave in Chicago: ‘Death comes to the city of extremes.’
‘Babies are the only honest air travelers and that is why other people fear and resent them. The baby recognizes that it is being put through a boring, uncomfortable, and arbitrary ordeal, one that violates what it has already—in just a few weeks or months, with an extremely underdeveloped brain—come to understand as the basic minimum standards of life. It finds itself confined, contorted, exposed to bad smells and loud noises. The baby screams, as anyone else would be screaming if they hadn't been taught to ignore the truth of their own senses: The sky is full of whining.’
On Joan Didion’s funeral: ‘Over the course of a nearly 70-year career, Ms. Didion had written about nearly every aspect of American life: presidential campaigns, tarot card readers, murders, rock ’n’ roll, civil rights and grief.
But the overarching theme of her work was decline — of our politics, the environment, truth, intellectualism. The eulogies reflected that preoccupation.’
‘The inventor of psychoanalysis attracted failed scientists and sexual opportunists, and built his legacy upon myth and error: The Cult of Sigmund Freud.’
Sometimes I really wish The New Yorker would tone down the dork-factor, even just a notch. I find their pieces, no matter how interesting the subject matter/ideas being explored, can begin to grate when they’ve earnestly quoted the lyrics of a Taylor Swift song one too many times. However, this piece, no matter how irritatingly dorky it can be (quoting Talking Heads lyrics etc), speaks of a really fundamental thing about being a person: namely the longing for all the unlived lives that exist within us. And not in that meritocratic ‘you could’ve been/done anything if only you’d tried harder’ way (which is patently untrue), but more in an existential way. (Who’s the dork now?!) Every path you take means another one, leading to a different life, is cut off. That’s not a bad thing, per se, but it’s a thing. And maybe it’s good to acknowledge it? People can become obsessed with the losses their unlived lives represent - something the piece also touches on. Here it is: ‘What If You Could Do It All Over? The Uncanny Allure of our Unlived Lives.’
Quite into a solid, deeply felt, slightly rage-fuelled takedown of a person and their ideals if it seems warranted, and if, as in this instance, the person’s beliefs have morphed into the category of ‘particularly odious’. Here’s a takedown of J.D. Vance (author of the very popular 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, newly elected US Senator, and embracer of the worst ideals of the Republican Party), beautifully done. ‘J. D. Vance Changes the Subject: A senator from the unconscious.’
And here, as an antidote to J.D. Vance: ‘Parrots taught to video call each other become less lonely, finds research’. <3
I’m really enjoying Hera Lindsay Bird’s advice column for The Spinoff - I find it funny and wise. 10/10
A New York Magazine cover story, published in 1975: ‘The story of [the twins’] deaths had, for me, even in its barest bones, that element of stupefying reality that Philip Roth calls an “embarrassment” to the writer’s imagination; here was a reality that could make the capabilities of even the most imaginative writer seem meager.’ ‘The Strange Death of the Twin Gynecologists: A patient’s notes.’
‘Vacations in the Soviet Union were hardly idylls spent with one’s dearest. Everything about them—from whom you traveled with to what you ate—was state determined.’
‘BOMB's Oral History Project is dedicated to collecting, documenting, and preserving the stories of distinguished visual artists of the African Diaspora.’
YES! ‘Baroque, Purple, and Beautiful: In Praise of the Long, Complicated Sentence.’
‘Photos of men proudly holding up their catch of the day have become so contentious on dating app profiles that Tinder has banned them altogether. […] A study by Tinder found that 92 per cent of singles got the ick whenever they came across a big catch while swiping.
Well, so what? If you ask us, a flat-out ban on fish thirst traps feels like an extreme measure to take against people proudly flaunting their wholesome hobby on the app. And think of the other eight per cent of users. If they’re hot for fishermen, how will they ever reel in the man of their dreams?’
Fishing is definitely wholesome, but the ‘look at my big fish’ thing is something else. I just don’t think anyone wants to see a picture of a big, dead fish, which is quite clearly there as some kind of phallic representation. I therefore stand with Tinder’s ruling on the issue.
‘Kendall Roy is a teenage girl and that’s why women love him.’ Is he though? And do they? This is a ridiculous article, but I couldn’t not include it. (Reminds me of those Gawker articles (RIP Gawker) I used to include about horse-girls, and gnome-core (or something).) Anyway, you’ve been warned.
‘Sleeping beauties: the evolutionary innovations that wait millions of years to come good.’
DAILY MAIL MOST-INANE-COLLECTION-OF-SENTENCES OF THE MONTH:
(The DM chose to format the sentences like this, rather than as normal paragraphs, so DON’T BLAME ME.)
‘She [Jessica Simpson] accessorized the look with glitzy gold chain necklaces, including a diamond cross pendant that sat atop her collarbones.
Her wrists were decked out with a variety of cuffs and bangles, as well as a gold hand chain that connected to a flashy diamond ring.
Simpson's long, blonde hair flowed down her chest in Old Hollywood waves and she rocked a fresh spray tan.
A pair of large, orange disc earrings peeked out from behind her voluminous strands when the wind blew just the right way.
As for makeup, the mother-of-three sported a sexy smokey eyeshadow look paired with a glossy nude lip.
Her already stunning features were sculpted with bronzing powder and her cheeks dusted with peach blush.
Simpson carried a stylish hardshell clutch in one hand while tucking the other into a hidden pocket in her dress.
For a pop of fun color, her acrylic nails had a vibrant green and neon yellow tips.
Simpson beamed in the direction of photographers as they competed to snap the perfect photo of the star.’
BOOKS.
RECOMMENDED READING:
If you read any of the books below, can I suggest it’s Strangers to Ourselves? It is so, so good on insights into the lives of people with mental distress. The cover quote says it’s an ‘exploration of the relationship between diagnosis and identity’. Who is the person? What part is illness? What is the illness? How blurred the lines can be, and how often there’s really no answer. I can’t recommend it enough.
For info on the other books, click the links under the graphic thing.
‘F. Scott Fitzgerald struggled so viciously with writer's block that he led himself into believing that inspiration was a finite resource; a well that, after some use, would dry up for good.’ Ten writers on coping ‘with a fear of the blank page.’
An interview with the author Kevin Wilson, writer of funny, wild, ‘delightfully bizarre’ novels and short stories including The Family Fang, Nothing to See Here and Tunneling to the Centre of the Earth, among others. He’s an interesting guy! He’s a fascinating writer! Get involved!
‘A Little Life and misery lit: Have we finally suffered enough? As Hanya Yanagihara’s novel about a self-harming victim of abuse is adapted for the West End, Eloise Hendy explores how trauma and misery became a literary trend.’
‘From her shimmering novels to her ‘living autobiographies’, Deborah Levy’s work inspires a devotion few literary authors ever achieve.’
‘The best thing about a small and sweetly formed new illustrated book on the history of New Zealand badges is its discovery or rediscovery of a great New Zealand artist, who worked, surely, with a range of magnifying glasses, as he went about his business as a kind of miniaturist. Trevor Dick, born 1930, danced on the head of a pin: at his workshops in Majoribanks St in Mt Victoria, Wellington, and later in Petone, he produced untold thousands of badges, designing amazing forms and shapes on those little discs, or "mini billboards" as the book's co-author Stephanie Gibson puts it in her introduction to Tiny Statements: A social history of Aotearoa New Zealand in Badges.’
PODCASTS.
A Phone Call from Paul: A conversation with John Waters.’ In this […] episode of A Phone Call from Paul, Paul Holdengraber and John Waters discuss his new memoir, Mr. Know-It-All (or as he describes it, “a self-help book for lunatics”), what he’s reading this summer, and his experience working for Mary Oliver at her bookstore in Provincetown.’
The New Gilded Age. ‘Philanthropic foundations are a fundamental part of our society: they support media, the arts, education, medical research, and more. NPR, and even this show, is supported by many personal and family foundations. But it wasn't always that way. In this episode, we go back to the beginning — the Gilded Age. We trace the birth and evolution of what many today call "big philanthropy," and ask what all this private wealth means for the public good.’
(All I’ll say is this: just pay your fair share of tax first, philanthropists, and then do whatever you want with your leftovers.)
A Very British Cult. ‘[It] starts darkly, and gets darker. Catrin Nye’s 18-month investigation for BBC Radio 4 into Lighthouse International, which describes itself as “a community designed to empower and help people grow”, is full of shocking allegations from beginning to end. Through in-depth interviews with escapees and recordings of so-called mentoring sessions, we hear a story of coercion, manipulation and mind control.’