Hello Litterbug nation. This September I turned 22 and moved across the world! These are as good occassions as any for the inaugural newsletter. I am doing this for a few reasons: 1. to catalogue and remember all the stuff I do and why I do it 2. to get better at long(ish)form writing and 3. because the urge to continuously document and share so much about myself that took hold when I was a child has not gone away, it needs somewhere to go, and YouTube vlogs just aren't cutting it anymore. I can not control this I am merely the messenger. Anyways:
Started off the month in Asheville my beloved. Saw friends and celebrated my birthday and played guitar and scoured another arcade for Windjammers (unsuccessfully). September has long been my hallmark for the beginning of the year, as it's a big turnover all at once with the last breath of summer and my former age. I'm a big proponent of ringing in the year with the people and/or activities you want to define your next season of life: January 1st it was recording (my album!!!), September 1st it was sitting on the back steps catching up, giddy, with a warm beer-- both with dear friends in my most favorite place.
I have been in Ireland for a little over a month now! It is almost always cloudy and rains often, though most times it's more of a spray reminiscent of accidentally walking through a sprinkler. I live in a sweet house in the back of a cul-de-sac with four other students: two english majors, one international relations, one my friend Cora who I dragged here from Boston. There's a turf war happening in our backyard between the neighborhood cats. The children are incomprehensible and fearless-- they follow us around on their bikes and taunt us, and then collapse into giggles and whispers and secret plans. The very smallest one flipped me off last week and looked so pleased I couldn't even be mad. There is a lone corner store run by a sweet old man, whose eyelashes on his right eye are dainty and stark white like snowflakes. Every morning I walk down the hill to the old church that houses the music department. Mondays I go into the city for groceries and get the bus north of my neighborhood to avoid having to climb any hills on the way back. Thursdays Elena and Ana (english major roommates) and I go out usually, pregaming and gossiping on the walk to the city centre, and since the buses don't run late we hike it uphill 40 minutes back home. This schedule is deeply comforting to me; lots of things are dependent on hills. So far it's true what they say, that time moves slower here. I feel it stretching out around me like molasses.
My sweet room :) Not pictured is the desk I made out of two nightstands and piece of plywood. I love having the world's deepest windowsill for all of my things. There's a Japanese maple tree just outside like the one in my mom's yard.
Here is all the media I consumed last month!
Good month for books! Being in a new place has been a bit lonely so far and I have been filling the time by reading lotss.... childhood levels of escapism, reading under the dinner table, running out of class to find somewhere to sit down and go for the next two hours etc. I have perhaps finally achieved my goal of getting back into reading ??!?!? But at what cost...
Just Kids - Patti Smith
Picked this up after being reminded of Patti Smith's existence by Please Kill Me (which is sooo interesting but a very hard book to pick up after setting down for a while. Currently still unfinished). So many of my friends just moved to New York in pursuit of artistry of some kind. This book made me think about them and myself and the persistence of connection and friendship and love in the face of the impossibility of it all!!! Tried to listen to some of her music after reading and it didn't really do it for me, but, her writing is beautiful and I am enamored by the thoughtful documentation of that moment in time in New York, even if it is just from her specific lens. Something so beautiful about the many people who make up a scene and all of their individual recollections coming together to form a larger ecosystem of stories and names that become legends and legends that are just people. Also, the love of art for art's sake, the intrinsic feeling of being an artist, and pursuing that in different forms until you eventually zero in on what you're meant to be doing. I identified with that a lot!
Sunburn - Chloe Michelle Howarth
Going away gift from my BELOVED Kate (heart face kiss face heart face)
Unfortunately.. mid :( Started off on a sour note just because I have a hard time with writing that comes from the perspective of a child-- it's sooo so hard to get right and not feel forced. Like "hey bro" "hey sis" sibling dialogue at its worst. This book did not have that thank god but still. Beyond that I thought the prose was so gorgeous. Really visceral writing. Heat literally coming off the page. Alas that is the only place this book excelled for me. Felt like the characters and the story became pretty suffocatingly one note. Everyone is in love with Lucy and for WHY she is so uninteresting!
Everything I Know About Love - Dolly Alderton
In an interesting juxtaposition to Sunburn... Dolly Alderton I feel, with this book, has mastered the art of getting into your younger self's head and writing from their perspective. Empathizing with yourself on that level, killing the urge to rationalize and explain away how you Know Better Now, but still tying it all together with the multifaceted perspective of age and experience, is near impossible. Genius level. Continually delightful. However, full of unnecessary filler!! When I started writing this I was just thinking of the second chapter, a series of musings on MSN, which (to quote my favorite quote from show I haven't seen) insisted upon itself tbh... killed the momentum. Upon further reflection (and Goodreads trawling) I remembered the satirical emails and recipes that are occassionally peppered in.... which I had completely forgotten about............ because they did absolutely nothing for me. They feel like they're talking down to their audience instead of directly to them. The parts of this memoir that are actually memoir are beautiful (except for the second chapter sorry). The rest. Well. Not for me!
Anarchism and Other Essays - Emma Goldman
So far I haven't gotten past the introduction (sorry Emma). This is my non-fiction pick for a little while while I'm blowing through fiction. Picked it up from a little free library on my last day in Boston. Oh how I miss you little free library. Much of my summer consisted of exchanging with the two that were closest to my house where the turnover was brutal-- you had to be vigilant!!! I saw the whole Court of Thorns and Roses series appear and disappear in a matter of hours! I hope someone is enjoying my copy of 1984. Alas. This is mostly an excuse to talk about how much I love little free libraries.
Delta of Venus - Anaïs Nin
Similarly unfinished. FOUL. Not unfinished because of the foulness I think I just lost interest. I was joking I should start reading erotica to get me back into reading and then I rediscovered my passion without it so... will probably revisit and finish for historical value at least.
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
My year of Ursula K. Le Guin ♡ Started a couple months ago with The Dispossessed and have been slowly digesting more and more of her work as recommended to me by dear friend S3yd. Her philosophy on the novel as a thought experiment really resonates with me! Writing in this one is gorgeous as usual. Most of my criticisms or places where I percieve the execution of the thought experiment to have fallen short were addressed in Is Gender Necessary? Redux. Have been stumbling into a lot of writing recently around the concept of denial and belief and how sometimes the pointed absence of something perpetuates that thing as much as its intentional presence-- for example, how atheism relies on and perpetuates the concept of God just as much as faith does (I have since changed my mind on this sentence but in the spirit of Le Guin, leaving it!). Treatment of gender in this book was much of the same to me. Again though I think my frustrations that more liberties weren't taken (with gender and sex and sexuality and societal form and government or lack thereof and etc etc) have already been posthumously addressed. But more importantly, if Le Guin weren't such a COWARD they would have explored each others' bodies in that tent. I'm sorry Le Guin I should have never said that
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
A little over halfway through this right now... what a wild ride. My word. It's beautiful!!!! I wish I was fluent in Spanish so I could read the original prose. Realizing I'm really into magical realism. It is so potent for startling imagery... really love the normalization of the fantastic vs. the romanticization of the mundane. Everything in this book is just as it is. It doesn't need a cause or mysterious root, though when you do get one it's just as inexplicable. Also really enjoying the lightning fast pacing. The drama... shit just keeps happening to these people. And they do it to themselves! Poor Ursula damn!!!!
As a rule I'm not great at watching things... I just don't often think to make time for it! So I'm pleasantly surprised there ended up being so much here this month.
Twin Peaks
Okay to be real as I'm writing this it's October and this is such an October pick but I digress... watching with Cora right now we are COOKING through season 2! I ♡ Maddy Ferguson. It's true what they say about the middle bit of season 2 being a little hard to get through but imo it's still Twin Peaks. It still has that quirky and absurd vibe and I am still entertained! Except by the Marsh storyline but we all know this.
Sex and The City
Finally finished Sex and The City after maybe two years of on and off watching ?? My most reliable cooking companion... nothing will ever reach the high of season 3 and 4 to me but I truly loved all of it. I am a Carrie apologist! She might be annoying but she is free!!! Big can chew rocks though like actually I stand by that.
Notting Hill
Watched on my birthday with sweetest Sara and Clara and S3yd :DDDD Such a good rom com. The ones where you really have to suspend your disbelief are the best. And disbelief was suspent... not even just because of the situation but because the act three comeback was just ridiculous to me.... sigh. I do love Hugh Grant SO much. Though I do think he's hotter when he's being evil a la Bridget Jones' Diary.
Girls
Another recommendation from Kate which I LOVED for the first 5 episodes and then had to stop watching because pirating has proven impossible here and I don't want to pay for a VPN. So funny and so hard to watch I will surely revisit!!
Intermission
Part of my pre-Ireland research with my mam :D Reminded me a lot of Love Actually if Love Actually was violent and weirder and less sad so maybe the only similarity really is the ensemble cast? Regardless love that setup very much. The asshole detective plot lost me a bit. The opening scene was just ELECTRIC lowkey I wish the rest was more like that buuut in general everything felt like it could be justified by the general absurdity. I can't believe Cillian Murphy's girlfriend takes him back though (sorry spoilers)
The Banshees of Inesherin
Also deeply absurd and hilarious and troubling and good. Part of Ash's required viewing for me pre-Ireland. I think it is the reason I had a dream about trying to pull a hangnail and ending up pulling my whole finger off.
Eno
I have to be so honest I knew nothing about Brian Eno going into this. He's so whimsical! Watching him on screen was the best part I think. There was a really endearing segment in his garden. Also some cool clips of the sessions he did with U2. Maybe this is a movie for prior Eno appreciators because I was significantly enlightened regarding some parts of his career and left wanting a lot more in others (the pitfalls of a movie that changes every time you see it). Generative movie is cool but I will not be going to see it again at least for a few years. Definitively liked it more than the Bob Dylan movie.
500 Days of Summer
Started watching before my plane to Dublin took off and then the generator to the plane died (?) so I only got like 30 minutes in. But I was remembering it based only on my recollection of YouTube video essays (lol) and I guess I expected it to be a more subtle/less stylistic movie? Tom is DELUDED I don't know how anyone identifies with him as a hero to be honest. I think we're just watching the mishaps of his expectations and that is okay. It's so charming it's the whole point of the framing I feel!!! To watch him get whipped around and pity him a little bit but also know he will eventually recover because he lives in a world of fantasy. Did this movie invent the MPDG? Summer did not fw him not even really that much. Ok I need to actually finish the movie before talking out of my ass
I started making this playlist at the beginning of August that I believe is some of my best work... was listening to it a ton while packing up my life and driving around in NC. Transferred to YouTube for peak accessibility. Also because I'm in the process of getting off of Spotify (fuck Daniel Ek and why are they running ICE ads?). Gonna try Qobuz for a bit and see how it goes. Anywaysss here are some specific picks:
69 Love Songs - The Magnetic Fields
The misses are misses but the hits are HITS. Have only really listened intently to the first disc but I don't know if there are songs that exist that are better than I Don't Want To Get Over You and I Think I Need A New Heart. Yeah yeah yeah normie picks. They're so good though.
No Life For Me - Wavves & Cloud Nothings
Soooo solid. No prior experience with either band though interested by the briefest briefest mention in this article of Wavves spearheading the early Garageband days. X played Hard To Find for me when I was feeling sick on a train and could only be fixed by rowdy ass music. I think specifically I asked for really loud and really melodic. Which this whole EP definitely is!
New American Language - Dan Bern
Got so many good recommendations this month from a mix reference playlist I got from Dina of Good Judgement. I feel like Dan Bern in this song is speaking directly to me and also is me. The lyrics are this perfect mix of conversationally flippant/noncommital with a deep yearning. Also the part in the middle where he does his best Bob Dylan really cracks me up
Today - The Innocence Mission
Such tasteful part writing and organization and PERFECT guitar tones ...... the vocal lines in this tear at me.
Snack Monster & Camelot - Star Moles
Really incredible story rec from Trent. I keep trying to describe this music to people and the best I can come up with is, for these albums that is, if Aimee Mann were maximalist. Or like some of the stuff off The Dreaming (Kate Bush). Overstimulating and jangly and hooky in the best way ever!
Bleeds - Wednesday
Feels so good to see them continuously getting their flowers. And literally getting better with every record, as if it was even possible. Karly's writing is like nothing else. And she always has the best references!! Started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude because of her favorite books list. Wednesday is just so dear to me because it picks so tenderly at my North Carolina nostalgia... which is especially ripe right now.
River Euphrates - Pixies
Every fall I have to get back into this song. It's a non-negotiable. Excellent for driving and the feeling of orange (fall staples). And every time I hear it, I think about when I put it on in the car and Adrienne really did not enjoy it
Orioles at Dusk - 22° Halo
Masterclass in songwriting I think. So evocative. Feels so much like falling in love !!!!!! This whole album excells at pulling together small and seemingly unrelated moments to form the outline of a much larger and overarching feeling. Here there is traffic and tenderness and surprise and plastic grapes and it is the shape of someone you have a big huge crush on.
Monday Morning Merle - Cody Johnson
Wow I wish I was driving down I-40 right now. I like when he goes MOnday MORNing MERRRLEEE
My Stove's On Fire - Robert Lester Folsom
Another song that feels so very much like falling in love except this time, maybe in spite of the lyrics expressing something yet to be explored, it feels like the kind of ironic declarations of desire and outrageous romance that appear with deep familiarity and friendship that also includes kissing. Maybe because the kitchen is such a domestically romantic place to me. And maybe because the song is so damn danceable!! It feels like being married 35 years!
The Color Clear - Starcharm
Tragic post Boston moment was getting asked to open this show at O'Brien's and having to say no... this song is addictive.... the bass sounds so good ......... listened to it one million times!!!!!!!!!!
Plant: Fuschia
Feeling: The hot air from underneath the dryer
Experiment in delayed gratification: pomegranate
Visitor: Alfie
Habit: Dream journaling
Vice: Decapitator on the master
Method of transportation: The 202 bus
Drink: Oat mocha
Outfit: All black
Featuring Tony Pants (tm) and a little clip like Marianne from Normal People.
Wild card: Conversations with strangers
This soup is perfect and delicious and lasts me so many days. Combined from a chicken noodle soup recipe and a photo from Isha's story (thank u Isha). Been making with chicken bc I'm trying to bulk up but have tried here to make it veg friendly!!! No measurements bc we cook with the heart. Here is everything you will need:
