No. 30
Sauna culture; fake TV brands; 'Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream'; BOOK RECS!; technology/concentration; petty landlords; Nell Zink; 'revolting' foods
Kia ora, hello,
It’s election season here in NZ, but you’ll be pleased to know I’ve restrained myself, and not gone down the path of turning the newsletter into a radical, left-wing rag, and it’s just the usual high and low of the www. (Vote Green!)
Enjoy the links, enjoy the art.
~Ellie
On sauna culture in the UK. ( ! ! )
On finding out that pictures of your feet are on wikiFeet, and they’ve only been ranked as ‘okay feet’.
‘“All my water is Prada flavored,” says John Robert Barnes, a 29-year-old who works at a start-up and sees his $180 Prada water bottle as a means of engaging in ikigai, a Japanese concept referring to that which gives life meaning. “It isn’t just about what you do, it’s also about how you do it.”’ As you’ll see from the rest of the piece, John Robert Barnes does a lot of mental gymnastics to get to the point of feeling that his Prada water bottle isn’t about saying ‘I can afford a $180 Prada water bottle’, and is instead about meaning, life, sacrifice. (On reflection, I did buy a $110 Diptyque scented candle on after-pay during lockdown, and did a lot of justifying re. why I should spend money on such an indulgence, so who am I to judge. Enjoy your Prada water bottle, John Robert Barnes!)
Joan Collins, who’s had a fascinating life, and is also the ultimate in camp, is 90! ‘You have to eat life or life will eat you!’
‘I’m a fake brand, in a fake world: The secrets behind designing a great fictional brand for TV and film.’
‘“That’ll do pig, that’ll do.” Three separate friends claim to hear the farmer from 1995’s Babe when they finish something.
“Probably a bottle of something… look at the shape,” – another friend hears Gareth from The Office whenever she sees a bottle of wine.
Bilbo Baggins whispers to writer Amelia Tait when she's sending emails, while her friends hears Monica from Friends while shaving their legs. Curious as to why, she dived into the weird phenomenon of Quote Brain.’
‘How a small computer chip company, owned by the author’s mother, became the target of a sprawling pan-Asian crime ring that operated throughout Silicon Valley. […] Eight years ago, I began researching a story that took place at this very office in August of 1995. It was a story I’d heard many times as a child, though in far vaguer terms than are delineated below. The story went like this.’
Who gets to say which foods are revolting? Thoughts on a museum of disgusting food, cultural dominance and shame.
‘Ohio University sits in a region that’s part Rust Belt and part Appalachia, and like a neutron star, it warps everything around it. Close to the university, the public elementary schools have historically been full of high-achieving kids, the sons and daughters of professors and provosts. Near the edge of the district, though, was a struggling school populated by a rural underclass that had its own name peculiar to the area: the Rutters. Over the course of six years of reporting, Dan Xin Huang followed the attempts of the district’s superintendent and a group of reformers to integrate the two populations: The Rutters of Athens County.’
‘This is a story about love and death in the golden land, and begins with the country.‘ A piece by Joan Didion, written in 1966: ‘Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.’
‘Two years ago [Chanel] Contos prompted a national reckoning on sexual consent. Now the 25-year-old is filling venues as she reintroduces radical feminism to gen Z.’ On ‘consent, porn and “out-of-fashion” feminists.’
‘America's National Parks celebrated on silk.’ [see the beaut above]
On why painter Lynne Drexler’s work was overlooked during her lifetime, and how two decades after her death, it’s being recognized for its significance. ‘“My vision is simply the world as I would like it to be,” Drexler once said. “Any of these highfalutin talkings about painting, that is beyond me.”’
God, landlords are so petty. If I had to sum up 20+ years of renting and dealing with landlords, I would say that without exception they have all been petty, so very petty. e.g. during a property inspection complaining about some cleaning product I’d left on the door of the shower: “Please clean that off later.” I won’t include all the other examples of their ridiculous behaviour, or we’ll be here all day, but honestly, it’s all so pathetic. GROW UP LANDLORDS, YOU PETTY, GREEDY BORES! Anyway, this is the piece that inspired that quite immature mini-rant: ‘Their house, my garden: My war with the landlords.’
‘A dispatch from the security services: “Listen lad, if you don’t let me past I’m going to bounce this off your fuckin’ head.”
These were the words of a furious man about to steal a microwave; words I will never forget.
I didn’t choose the supermarket security life, the Asda chose it for me.’
From 2013: ‘In the Day of the Postman’: Rebecca Solnit on communication, technology, concentration.
‘A literary history of fake texts in Apple's marketing materials.’ [The deep dive you didn’t know you wanted?]
‘Justice for Neanderthals!’ This is an interesting piece, but I really only included it so I could bring out the below classic:
This little piece is funny and very sweet. Painter, writer and illustrator Bob Kerr interviews his grandson Owen, age 11, and asks him to explain the difference between books and computer games. ‘Thank you for explaining that, Owen.
All good. How do I stop this recording? You press that red button there.’ <3
‘Animal Science vs. Morality: A Look at Aesop’s Fables.’
An interview with author Mark O’Connell on his excellent book A Thread of Violence. (See recs below.) ‘[His] book […] tells the true story of a crime while scrutinizing our desire for such true-crime stories and the often simplistic explanations they offer for the terrible things people do.’
‘Author Nell Zink lives in Brandenburg, Germany, but writes mostly about Americans and their countercultures and excesses. Her novels tend to be funny, immensely contemporary, and a little chaotic—in their careening prose style as well as in their joyfully unwieldy premises.’ In this 2022 interview with Bookforum, she chats about ‘her new novel, righteous heroines, and keeping things unpredictable.’ (See her 2019 novel Doxology in the recs below.)
BOOK RECS ~