This week’s edition is full of goods, even as horrific events happen around the world. It’s never something nice to address, but peace and diversity are necessary goals we should aspire to. I hope this week’s links are ultimately uplifting.
We start off with some philosophy from Foucault.
And in the wake of people being banned from public spaces because of their comments, this piece on “no-platforming”, which I may have already posted, is particularly necessary.
Remember last week’s Latin American article? Here’s another take on it.
I love this piece on writing and the politics of representation.
And this one on beauty
And high heels.
I also like to return to pieces on Chinua Achebe, whom I love for Things Fall Apart, a book I began while studying African history in the UK (though I loved him long before then). Here’s his Paris Review interview.
And while you’re at it, here’s a bit of author ego.
And for when you want to run away instead (that was my Thursday last week). Do a Thoreau and give it a feminist perspective. I’m hooked and adding to my never-ending TBR pile.
The death or anniversary of a poet reminds me to read something I haven’t in a while (and it’s a good morning ritual over coffee). This week, W. S. Merwin passed away, so enjoy this profile. And importantly, heed his adage that “we must want to listen”. Pertinent, you might say.
Things get overwhelming sometimes. Here’s one on emptiness. Huh? Yeah.
There’s been a lot of talk about the media, social media, and normalisation in the past couple of days, for very good reason. Here’s why.
Then read this conversation on trauma.
Then discover some tales of survival with Maria Popova of Brain Pickings – Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, and Leonard Bernstein. I often return to all three when I need some hope and a pick-me-up. Enjoy, and read and read again.
Ok, this one I loveeeee. It’s about the Viennese scenery from the movie Before Sunrise, one of my fav movies of all time. This piece has some real gems, and makes me feel completely hopeful about the world.
Finally, I leave with you a poem, W. S. Auden’s As I Walked Out One Evening (partially extracted in the previous link):
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
‘O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/i-walked-out-one-evening
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
And with that, I’ll see you next week -nat 🥀🖤