Here’s what I’ve been reading (and also thinking about) these past couple weeks
Friendship is not a pale imitation of sexual romance. It is a romance unto itself: The art of loving and losing female friends
“Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us—a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain—it’s also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves,” from Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison– this made me immediately want to read her similarly titled essay collection because holy !!! shit !!
Ever read a book you’re indifferent to and then read a review of that book and it’s everything? Everything that appeals to you, makes sense to you, draws you in? This one talking about Normal People, drawing a parallel to (my favourite) Jane Austen and the ordinary, intimacies of romance is it.
“Once you reduce all living beings to the equivalent of market actors, rational calculating machines trying to propagate their genetic code, you accept that not only the cells that make up our bodies, but whatever beings are our immediate ancestors, lacked anything even remotely like self-consciousness, freedom, or moral life—which makes it hard to understand how or why consciousness (a mind, a soul) could ever have evolved in the first place,” from David Graeber’s what’s the point if we can’t have fun?
The rise of therapy-speak: how a language got off the couch and into the world
I tried watching Pretend It’s a City (mostly out of my love for Scorsese) but reader, I couldn’t do it. I left it mid series and I don’t plan on going back to it. So here’s a review of Pretend It’s a City that doesn’t entirely get my feelings on it but one I can definitely get behind
“The lasting effects on suicide rates, depression and anxiety are still being measured, but in interviews, a dozen mental health experts in Europe painted a grim picture of a crisis that they say should be treated as seriously as containing the virus.” Young people’s despair deepens as covid-19 crisis drags on
they both have no sense of direction…. it was fate
NO FUCKING WAYYYYYYYYY
Hugs in Film
I’ve been thinking about Howl’s Moving Castle and how Sophie’s curse is a physical symbol of her self belief of being romantically unlovable (especially after growing up with beautiful, sought after women in her family.) How Howl tries to undo the curse the moment she steps into his castle but he *cant* because Sophie doesn’t want it to be broken. How, in the film, Sophie gets so close to breaking the curse in the field, but hearing Howl call her beautiful went against her self views, so she reinforces her sense of self by turning 90 again.
And the way that her love and kindness make her younger again and again. How film Sophie sacrifices her long hair, perhaps what past Sophie would have seen as her only beauty, for Howl but she’s grown so much that she still remains young, perhaps even confident about her grey hair, showing that Sophie no longer links her appearance to her lovability or worth and she learned to accept herself as she is. In this essay I-
hand studies and exploring fun colour stuff
also somwtimes when you dont understand a piece of art it's not bc ur dumb it's bc you havent had the very particular emotional experience that it's trying to invoke in you and you just cant relate. which is also why sometimes you will hear a mountain goats song and say Meh and then you go through some shit and you listen to it again and lose your fucking mind at how real and raw it is. art is how we communicate with each other about experiences that cannot be adequately represented straightforwardly with language. sometimes you have to abstract your representation of the experience in order to truly communicate how big and insane it felt
• *someone says something* “what?” *repeats themselves* “sorry?” *repeats themselves again* “pardon?”
•"hey, y'see the red thing at the top of the shelf, will you get it?“ “Sorry, what?” “On the sh-” “oh yeah sure, I’ll get it.”
•*doesn’t hear teacher because someone’s pen is making a scratchy sound at the back of the room*
•*replays video 10 ten times to figure out what they’re saying*
•teachers asking, “why do you always stop writing in the middle of a sentence, just write down whatever I’m saying,” followed by the response, “I’m just processing it,” rebuked by, “we’ll stop processing it and just write.”
•*gets really focused on staring out the window and goes through four songs without hearing a single on*
dont care if i sound corny or cliche but to love and be loved back and not having to second guess where u stand in someones heart is such a warm and safe feeling & everyone should have the luxury and pleasure of having it always
Yeah you're right. It WOULD be pretty fucked up if you were a swan but you were raised by ducks and you grew up never seeing another swan or even knowing that such a thing as a swan even existed so you just thought you were a duck with something super wrong with it.