Gilded age, stumbling, quirky dancing, big pants, and more
Seven thin(g/k)s I explored this week
Hello dear reader,
Here are seven links to bits of the world I explored this week, shared with the hope that you will find them to be an inspiring springboard for deeper thinking.
Something that has enhanced my life, immeasurably: the audio version of George Saunders’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.
Wrapped up both seasons of The Gilded Age in a speed I wish not to disclose out of embarrassment, but it was such a good comfort show that provides a lens into how the people of New York in that snippet of history ‘made’ themselves, particularly against a seemingly iron-forged ‘in’ crowd.
Stumbling can be lovely — the beginning of this lovingly longform essay deals with falling off a bike, and it instantly took me back to last September on the Aran Islands of Ireland, where one minute I’m admiring the views of ocean waves and the next I’m taking a downhill speedy head dive on my bike (after foolishly trying to catch my hat, which got dislodged by gusty winds). The irony of that day was that my husband, who is in his early 30’s, doesn’t know how to ride a bike (or so he claims out of fear); but he still got on and stumbled his way into a seamless path; and there I was pedaling from a place of certainty . . . until I ended up stumbling into a full stop. The author writes,
We pretend at certainty all of the time, even in the stumbling that life almost always is.
. . . while reminding us that life’s sweetness is in the learning, which inevitably entails stumbling.
What is the word for that? For the wild surprise of life we make possible by learning, each day, how to live?
This music video — watching someone you love be their quirky happy self. Swoon.
Some thoughts halfway past Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights — Almost done and the best way I can describe this book thus far is by harkening on the raw tormented chaos of its characters; its bewildering display of inherited trauma; and its chilling portrayal of how memory, left unexamined, can turn its inhabitants into captive, vile casualties of themselves and of others prior to/absent tools of psychology. To have depicted this, and the home—ideally one’s inner sanctuary—as a prison, and love—ideally one’s home—as a disfigurement of identity and impediment to life, is to have used the pen to reach the pinnacle of great writing, which Emily Bronte so seamlessly has done here. PS, I often see the lines— “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”—quoted by people who try to find in them a blueprint for romance and passion; and I shudder to think, let alone to entertain, what their vision of love is.
Observation on big pants, in which the writer notes, “In strictly physical terms, no article of clothing does more to articulate and augment the line of our bodies — to beautify us or deform us — than pants. They tend to occupy the most visual square footage in any given outfit. They also tend to move more than other clothes as our bodies move through the world, which creates more inflection points where they can attract notice — and where they can go wrong.”
In honor of Oscars tonight, and hopefully Cillian Murphy’s win, here’s a podcast episode with him chatting about film and life.
See you soon! ♥️
Warmly,
Ani