The space between
New writing workshop, life updates, recommended reading, and a special playlist
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Happy summer solstice. It’s been a while, but here I am sending a sign of life.
First, some exciting news: I’m doing another live (zoom) Creative Copywriter Workshop with ilovecreatives in July! Sign up by June 29, whether you haven’t taken the Creative Copywriter Course yet or you’ve already completed it, all new and existing students are welcome. If you’d like to strengthen your writing practice and pursue a (or level up an existing) career as a writer, copywriter, brand strategist, freelance writer, etc., I hope to see you there.
I’ve been feeling quiet for the past six months or so, moving between worlds—escaping Brooklyn for the woods, working on my fiction manuscript, and exploring new paths forward. Living with a dissonance between where I thought I was going, what I thought I wanted, and what real needs called for urgent attention. Being with ambivalence and restlessness for change and redirection.
I’m a big fan of Claire-Louise Bennett’s (her book, Pond, in particular) and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about something she said in an interview:
Basic life situations, such as marriage, work, procreation, don’t occur automatically for some people and it’s desirable that fiction reports upon the lives of so-called outsiders because actually when you spend so much time alone you are kind of starting from scratch, on your own terms more or less, every single day, and it’s nullifying and terrifying and occasionally glorious.
It’s a tricky dance, I mean, the lived experience of an emotional creature in an unprecedented-for-her set of circumstances and experiences. What is today? Oh, I suppose I have to make it up. All at once, it is privilege and precarity. (Or precocity, as autocorrect suggests I may have intended.)
Naturally we will be humbled at times in the face of our desires and schemes, and that resistance can be so uncomfortable to be with, especially when it disagrees with who and where we would like to be. Then, new possibilities present to us: opportunities we might’ve missed, had we charged aggressively toward what we thought we wanted. The stuff we don’t like to slow down enough to be with and attend to—but when we do, that stuff begins to shift and makes more space to see how we can align with our values and dreams.
I’m not very tuned into calendar conventions and traditions but I can appreciate a way to mark time passing when “what day is it” becomes “what month is it” becomes a more uneasy, pernicious sort of temporal disorientation. So the solstice seems like a good time to share a few things I’ve been enjoying—good reads, music, podcast, TV, etc., to enjoy while we ease into the summer.
r e a d
Without World: Alex Quicho’s personal-essay-meets-cultural criticism epic on the expanding and collapsing of worlds, in The White Review.
Saskia Vogel’s essay in two parts, Beyond Deep Throat: part I and part II, in Granta.
The Nursery, Szilvia Molnar’s stunning debut novel, which I wrote about in BOMB’s spring issue (read my review here).
l i s t e n
Ambient Abracadabra, Sofie Birch’s monthly show on NTS Radio.
Part of my daily routine is searching “ambient” in the NTS Radio app and listing to the latest shows, and I’m always delighted to hear Sofie’s, as well as the Early Bird Show with Maria Somerville.I’ve been diving into the late, great, prolific Ryuichi Sakamoto’s entire discography since his passing this spring. His theme for the film The Sheltering Sky gets me every time (as does that film).
I’ve learned so many useful and interesting things about our minds and bodies—from what supplements to take to the latest on psychedelic research—thanks to The Huberman Lab podcast. Dr. Huberman is a household name by now, at least at my house.
w a t c h
The Louisiana Channel, an archive of interviews with authors and artists filmed in the majestic setting of the famous museum in Copenhagen, on YouTube.
Topology of Sirens, a film uniting women sound artists/ambient electronic musicians with the brilliant meandering-mystery films of Jacques Rivette, now streaming on MUBI.
Another delightfully weird intersection of music, art, and the screen: Painting with John, on HBO Max. If you have not had the delight of discovering his much earlier show, Fishing with John, I highly recommend starting there. (As a Mainer, the episode co-starring Willem Dafoe in which they go ice fishing is my favorite.)
o t h e r r e c c o s
I’ve been enjoying Open for meditation, breathwork, movement & more — it’s special how they integrate music with credit to the musicians, including some ambient artists I love. Yoga nidra sleep meditations to the sweet sounds of Green-house, is how they got me. Here’s a free month on me.
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