You may notice that this is coming on Monday instead of our regularly scheduled Sunday meeting—but since it's a holiday weekend, it's kind of a tomato-tomato thing, right? Right??
Well, not really. I fully meant to send this out yesterday, but got sidetracked for a few reasons: Sarah and I spent a really lovely weekend with family and friends in St. Louis; I'm still just really, really drained as a result of current events; and I feel a tad silly, writing this newsletter about writing, when my progress on the novel and other projects remains glacial. So...maybe it's more tomato-potato.
But that's okay! All of it is! I'm trying to do a better job of giving myself grace, with the world being the way it is, and I encourage you to do the same. This is your reminder to do something kind for yourself (and for a loved one!) today. That's what this weekend has been for me—and by giving myself that time and space, I know that I'm that much more full, that much closer to being able to pour myself back into the things I care about.
Sending love and wishing you peace!
☕️ Project Curses
As alluded to above, my progress on the novel has been minimal since the last time I wrote to you. In that last newsletter, I mentioned that I'm working on making the revision part of things as frictionless as possible by getting all of my notes, documents, outlines, and other materials in order. I have made progress on that, but not as much as I'd hoped—and again, that's okay! I'm focusing on taking things one step, one day at a time, and finding joy in the process. That's been working for me—so I know I'll find my flow and come back up to speed soon.
I look forward to having more updates for you soon!
📚 Reading
Orbital by Samantha Harvey | Let me start by saying that Orbital is a brilliant, beautiful book. That's no secret—it won the 2024 Booker prize for a reason. Its prose are as atmospheric, perspicacious, and dreamy as you might expect from a narrative set in a space station in low-Earth orbit, following lives of the astronauts (and cosmonauts!) floating within. It's a human, heartfelt narrative that is, as much about a few individuals as the entire planet. But—but—it is also dense, indulgent in its diction, and flowery in a way that may turn some readers away. It's a book I do think most will enjoy, but only if read at a comfortable pace, with space for reflection and meditation. A good one to try if you're looking to slow down and appreciate some perspective!
Tele Novella are weird and wonderful in exactly the way I like bands to be. Their Spotify description, which I find apt, reads "Coin-operated medieval country songs through a 1950s western lens," and like...yeah, what more could you want?
This album, Poet's Tooth, is their most recent, and a great listen all the way through. If you're just looking to try one song, however, I'd recommend "Eggs in one Basket", which has become a personal anthem. Go put in a coin and play a song!
🍿 Watching
Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music | I've drifted from watching SNL over the past few years, for various reasons—but this documentary from Questlove captures the magic at the core of the show. It's kind of mind boggling how many huge, influential, and genre-defining artists have performed on the show, and how those performances have influenced art and pop culture in singular ways. Beyond the content, this is an excellent documentary in its own right, with some of the best sound editing I've ever heard. Now you just have to find someone with a Peacock subscription...
The Brutalist | I'm not one to watch all of the Best Picture nominations every year (or many films at all, unfortunately), but I'm sincerely glad that circumstances led me to see The Brutalist. Not that it's a fun watch, mind you—it's difficult, and upsetting, and unafraid to pair mountains of subtext and metaphor with explosions of explicit context. But its cinematography is lovely, its performances excellent, and its fictional story painfully relevant and raw. It also had an intermission, which I vote for being a more common concession in our age of three- and four-hour long films. I say this with very little knowledge of the other contenders—but I won't be surprised if this film cleans up at the Oscars next month. We shall see!
In the frame: Sarah, her mom, and I went to an orchid exhibit over the weekend—these guys were my favorite. I think they look like little bodhisattvas sitting in a flower.
“Certain forms of human finitude are easy enough to perceive: our limited amount of time, for example, or our limited ability to control how others act. But it can be harder to notice one of the most significant ones—the way we’re hopelessly trapped in the present, confined to this temporal locality, unable even to stand on tiptoes and peer over the fence into the future, to check that everything’s all right there.”
I don't mean to always default to Burkeman quotes for my Show & Tells, but...he's just so good. He has a quote for everything! Take this one on human finitude and temporality, for instance: is this not something that's immensely helpful to hear, right now? Something that's nice to have articulated by another human? Something that speaks to a feeling of disquiet in the core of your being, and a longing for knowledge that can never be? No? Just me? Cool cool cool, I'll stop then.
Seriously, though—this is something I've been struggling with quite a bit, as of late. It's hard not knowing what's coming next—to know that I'll never know what's coming; that I can never be fully prepared. So it's good to remember that this isn't a bug in the human experience—it's a feature. It's an opportunity to practice flexibility, and resilience, and to learn how to navigate calmly amidst a storm. Those skills will serve me far better than hopelessly preparing for the future.
That's it for today! Go do something good for yourself and the world (even if that's just petting your cat or singing to your plants). It helps! Until next time 🫶
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