No. 28
Space colony art; Viking food; a mouse called Jill; 'AI is a lot of work'; smells/clean bodies; seven deadlier sins; SHORT STORIES!; a teenage diary; 'the critical tide is turning'
Hello!
I hope you’re well. Now that people are generously paying for this humble offering (thank you, you kind people) I feel the need to apologize for no newsletter last month. To cut a long (and dull for anyone who isn’t me) story short, I had a bad/rare reaction to an antibiotic (what the heck) - it involved insomnia, panic attacks, more insomnia, and basically I was a wreck and thought maybe I’d die/never sleep again. Anyway, I didn’t die, and all is fine now; the links are ready to go, the art has been chosen, and I hope you find some things to enjoy.
~Ellie
People are endlessly fascinating, part 50,000 in a series: ‘From the opening years of the 1950s, various terrestrials came forward claiming to be in contact with the occupants of flying saucers. Their stories were often quite similar. The discs usually came from our own solar system: Venus, Jupiter, or Saturn. Communication was sometimes accomplished via telepathy, sometimes verbally. Perhaps most importantly, the aliens were portrayed as “perfect” specimens of Homo sapiens, although this ideal was almost always a suspiciously Northern European one. Dressed in crisply tailored ski wear, they preached pacifism, universal love, and a cosmic version of the perennial philosophy. A fundamental disagreement over economic theory coupled with the recent discovery of atomic weapons may have driven humanity to the brink of self-destruction, but there was no reason to fear. The “space brothers”—along with a few space sisters—had arrived in their saucers to show us the true path. Authentic Music from Another Planet: The Howard Menger Story.’ And related: ‘Space Colony Art from the 1970s.’
‘“I want to be Barbie cause the bitch has everything,” said the magnet on the fridge at the Hato Hone St John Helensville Ambulance Station, more than 20 years ago. It belonged to a paramedic, Patsy Carlyle. One night, when she was on duty, someone had to ask: “Do you like Barbies or something?”’ A Barbie fan. And more from The Spinoff: ‘I secretly wore Dan Carter’s signature scent for a day. Here’s what people said about it.’ (lol)
More reporting on rodents: ‘A mouse,’ Jack tells me proudly, ‘is the world’s cheapest pet.’ Jill eats a peanut and half a cracker every day. Her wheel cost him $5. Her home is a little plastic bin, filled with branches and rocks and natural objects he scavenged from the streets. For two years, it cost Jack nearly nothing to keep Jill alive, and she had lived her whole life in the house where she was presumably born. But then he got a job in England, across the Atlantic. And he wanted to take Jill with him.’
Are you interested in what the Vikings ate? A culinary archaeologist called Daniel Serra is, and here’s what he’s discovered.
‘The culture of the American road has been much celebrated — and much criticized. Lawrence Ferlinghetti saw the rise of the automobile and the construction of the interstate system (which began in the 1950s) as a new form
of punishment inflicted on the populace. Driving in their cars, “strung-out citizens” were now
plagued by legionnaires
false windmills and demented roosters…
on freeways fifty lanes wide
on a concrete continent
spaced with bland billboards
illustrating imbecile illusions of happinessThe architectural critic and photographer John Margolies (1940–2016), on the other hand, saw there could also be home-made beauty in the buildings and signs locals built on the American roadside. For almost forty years, he documented the most remarkable examples he found[.]’
Some issues: Thoughts on bail reform in ‘Flawed Assessments’, and a doctor writes on ‘The Soft Tyranny of Modern Medicine’, plus ‘AI Is a Lot of Work.’
‘In the sixties and seventies, the Sullivanian Institute had a winning sales pitch for young New Yorkers: parties, sex, low rent, and affordable therapy’: An Upper West Side cult.
On doppelgängers.
Keith Thomas, writing for The London Review of Books, on smells, clean bodies, and the history of both. (The LRB articles are so dense that even though they’re book reviews they go into the Journalism bit of the newsletter. Is this the right decision? Who knows!)
‘A blockbuster show of “lost” works by the late, and much-marketed, Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Orlando Museum of Art was meant to compete with Disney and SeaWorld. Then the feds came knocking and a small-time auctioneer confessed to knocking them off, leaving their owners in a continuing scramble to prove their authenticity. As the investigation continues, the whole affair has shone an uncomfortable light on the art world’s unceasing need for spectacle.’ And Patrick Radden Keefe has written about related themes in his latest essay for The New Yorker: ‘How Larry Gagosian Reshaped the Art World.
The dealer has been so successful selling art to masters of the universe that he has become one of them.’
‘These days, everyone’s thinking about hell. Social media platforms are “hellsites”. Capitalism is a “hellscape”. If previous generations were worried about going to hell, we’re worried that we’re already there. The sins of the world are more visible than ever, broadcast live to your iPhone, and nobody knows how to deal with it.
Of course, we’re hardly the first generation to be obsessed with sin. In 1962, James Bond creator Ian Fleming published a collection of essays by British writers called Seven Deadlier Sins. Fleming proposed that the classics – pride, greed, wrath, lust, envy, gluttony and sloth – were insufficient to describe the failings of a supposedly brave new world. He suggested a new set: snobbery, moral cowardice, hypocrisy, cruelty, self-righteousness, avarice and malice.
Six decades on, we think an update is in order: Rayne Fisher-Quann’s seven deadlier sins.’
On using the internet in North Korea, from the testimony of defectors.
‘It’s the world of Ian Fleming, le Carré, Graham Greene, but it’s all too important to remember that their rich fictional imaginings were based on a series of scandals that revealed a grim and unsustainable hypocrisy in the way in which this country was governed: that rules didn’t really apply if you were one of the chaps, and that you could lead a life of wild indiscretion – while running the country – as long as you kept your mouth firmly shut. A deep dive into the private life of a public servant with a dangerous penchant.’
On necessary, democratic, precious, under-funded, exhausting-to-work-in public libraries, the people who use them, and the librarians who (often need to) try their best to be social workers they’re not trained to be: ‘Have You Been to the Library Lately? Librarians once worried about shushing patrons. Now they have to deal with mental health episodes, the homelessness crisis, and random violence.’
‘I own nine of the most devastatingly embarrassing books ever written. […] The books are my teenage diaries, and there’s nothing unique about the humiliating and exhilarating experience of being a 14-year-old girl: I re-read my teenage diaries hoping for a dose of nostalgia – instead I was horrified.’
‘After receiving targeted ads promising a new husband in five days, Gabi Lardies accepts the challenge: A doomed attempt to ‘train’ my boyfriend.’ I found this so sweet, so tender, so funny!
‘My psychoanalyst father wanted to prove the existence of the unconscious in the lab—and at home: Growing Up in the House of Freud.’
‘Smoke Week: Suddenly the outdoors looked like indoors, and felt like the indoors.’
‘What Were “Ultra Girls”? Women Artists In 1980s Japan.’ And celebrating ‘Nine Pioneering Female Artists in their Nineties.’
‘Victorian Fashion Dolls and the Feminine Ideal: Before Barbie and American Girl, there was Miss Fanchon. The ultimate toy for privileged girls in the 1860s and 1870s, she and her friends were seen as models of ladylike perfection. These dolls came with an amazing array of dresses, undergarments, and meticulously crafted accessories, from gloves and jewelry to roller skates and calling cards.’
Oh.my.lord! Miriam is here, and she’s showing Vogue what’s in her bag! She’s the Best Person Ever, and while not all people are able to balance a need to be provocative/the centre of attention with being charming and interesting, she really does, and I find the whole thing fascinating and delightful. (Will also add Vogue is lucky to have her, adding colour and wit and hilarity and joyous ridiculousness to their otherwise dull, square, rich-people-only, yawn-fest of a vibe. (I’m sure my valuable opinion will be noted by them.) Although the decor/set they chose for Miriam’s video is gorge, I will concede.) Anyway, enough hating on Vogue, here’s Miriam!
‘On the Aesthetic Turn: The critical tide is turning, once again. The professional critics—and not just the old, curmudgeonly ones—are fed up with moralizing, and they are willing to speak about it in public. From Lauren Oyler’s observation that “anxieties about being a good person, surrounded by good people, pervade contemporary novels and criticism” to Parul Sehgal’s exhortation against the ubiquitous “trauma plot” that “flattens, distorts, reduces character to symptom, and … insists upon its moral authority” to Garth Greenwell’s lament about a literary culture that “is as moralistic as it has ever been in my lifetime”—the critical vanguard has made its judgment clear. For all its good intentions, art that tries to minister to its audience by showcasing moral aspirants and paragons or the abject victims of political oppression produces smug, tiresome works that are failures both as art and as agitprop. Artists and critics—their laurel bearers—should take heed.’
‘“Writing From the Whole of Life”: An Interview with Brandon Taylor.
The author of The Late Americans [and Real Life, and Filthy Animals] on ecstatic first drafts, satirizing the MFA, and characters who stake their lives on art.’
‘Touting your wares when nobody cares: The Casual Ignominy of the Book Tours of Yore. [Was that all meant to rhyme??] One day in 1990, I was flown first class from Dublin to Phoenix, Arizona, to read at the Irish Cultural Centre there. Five people turned up to listen to me. None of them had read my books, and it was clear that none of them had the slightest intention of doing so. They were the sons and daughter of Irish immigrants, and were there simply to see a real, live son the Oul Sod.
That was the beginning of a tour that would take me to ten cities in nine days. Here are some of the highlights, or lowlights, of that jaunt and others like it.’
New Zealand writer Thomasin Sleigh has a new novel out, The Words For Her, which I’m looking forward to. Read one of the many glowing reviews for it here, where its described as ‘a thrilling pandemic novel that beats Black Mirror.’ Get involved!
New books coming in the second half of 2023: ‘The Millions Great 2023B Book Preview.’
A SHORT STORY BONANZA ! !
So Late in the Day, by Claire Keegan.
Headstone Epitaph, (excellent and very funny) by Zara Karschay.
The Semplica-Girl Diaries, by George Saunders.
The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. First published in 1892, it’s described as a ‘feminist horror—a story that explores the societal fears women deal with by facing them head on. It’s gaslighting gone eerie. It’s a masterpiece that every horror fan should read.’
Lynn Tillman is an interesting writer/person (I really recommend her memoir Mothercare), and here she is on the Granta podcast. '“In a sense we are always haunted by our past and what psychoanalysis is, for me, is not about cure but about understanding those ghosts.”’ Lynne Tillman on her books Weird Fucks and Haunted Houses.’
‘Assume Nothing: The Secrets of St Brides. Ireland, 1984. St Brides School for young ladies opens its doors in the quiet fishing village of Burtonport, county Donegal - but all is not as it seems.
The mistresses and ‘girls’ appear to believe that they live not only in a different century, but in an entirely different world.
They are The Silver Sisterhood, a deeply religious group of women who worship a feminine God. They wear Victorian clothing, reject modernity and live by candlelight - but mysteriously they also begin to release a series of strange computer games apparently based on their unique school and unusual beliefs. Their strange way of life soon gives rise to rumour and speculation, but is any of it true - or is their alternative lifestyle simply fuelling suspicion?
Who are these women, what are they doing in Burtonport - and what is really going behind the doors of St Brides?’