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1. Beet juice! Iāve been drinking it before coffee in the morning. I love a morning of slowness. Iām finding that iām in no rush to wake up, which is perhaps indicative of my current unemployment but feels more connected to my wish for intentionality in the beginning of my days. Even when my days are full of activity, i need the stillness of the morning. I've been practicing 30 minutes in the morning without technology, through which my beet juice is my companion. It is quite frightening how deeply ingrained technological dependency truly is. I want to wake up and be thinking about my beet juice and lose track of time instead of counting the minutes until i turn my phone on.
2. That picture of joe pesci at the 2009 vanity fair oscar party. Linked below. I've been thinking a lot about attractiveness, ie. who in a relationship has the right/perogative to be unattractive or act unattractively. I simultaneously deeply love this photo and wonder with skepticism about its implications. Although there is something to be said about the history of conventionally beautiful women with less than conventionally attractive men, i think there's something more interesting in terms of what this photo says about personhood and legibility under capitalism. This idea isn't fully formed in my brain but there's something there about the way men present/gender norms/boundaries of expression/who hollywood chooses to put on screen in positions of power.
3. Anthony bourdainās no reservations. I looooove anthony bourdain. When i see him i experience a strange mixture of gender envy and sexual desire that happens often when i come across tall men with curly hair. I've been thinking a lot about the way he travels and the way he talks to other people and welcomes them in. I once tried to follow his lead and go to a bar alone and order a beer. I ended up experiences unwelcome advances and did not feel safe in that environment. I guess i just wonder what the gendered implications are for the kind of interaction he showed the world. I'm still figuring it out.
4. Music from my teenage years. It's so joyful to hear what i used to listen to when i was 15 and feel those emotions and entirely new ones. It feels like a way to connect with my soul. Because in some ways i am still 15, although i no longer look it. I am 5 and 11 and 15 and 22. I have yet to become 34 but that being lives inside me. I am not this body.
Related Recs
this quote from Jessica DeFino, beauty reporter and more importantly, critic, on the one person from her past that most influenced who she is today (and I really must agree):
"I am going to take the phrase āwho you areĀ todayā very literally and go with Harry Dean Stanton ā specifically, Harry Dean Stanton in conversation with David Lynch; that famous interaction where David Lynch says āHow would you describe yourself?ā and Harry Dean Stanton says, āAs nothing. There is no self,ā and they laugh.Ā
Iāve been thinking a lot about the concept of the self today for an article Iām writing on beauty as so-called āself-careā and āself-expression.ā I bristle when people use these terms because in order for beauty products to be a tool for self-expression, you first must have a self to express, and I get the overwhelming sense that most people saying this donāt knowĀ whoĀ they are outside ofĀ whatĀ they buy and apply. Beauty products are more often used toĀ create an image of a selfĀ thanĀ express an existing self.Ā I donāt know. Iām taking a class on existentialism and Simone de Beauvoir, so that has something to do with it. But the more I think and read about the self, the more Iām convinced there is no essential self, not in any way that matters, and pursuing solidarity with the collectiveĀ is a more interesting and liberating project than defining the self anyway? So yeah, today, specifically, I am luxuriating in the nothingness of being with Harry Dean Stanton (and Buddha before him)."
Mar 7, 2024
does it make you sick to your stomach that you are flesh and bones and hair and a heart that is too young to understand the extent to which it feels?
does it make you sick to your belly that you are going to die one day, or do you savor it?
i think thereās novelty in mortality, and duh, no shit, youāre a 16 year old girl. of course you think thereās novelty in anything bordering on deviation. but the question is really, what isnāt a novelty?!
itās defined as (š¤) the quality of being new, original, or unusual, and arguably everything is original unusual or new. you are new, you are not the woman you were twenty seconds ago deciding whether or not bath time was economic
today in my philosophy class, we, under the lens of Plato other Socratic philosophy, differentiated BEING versus BECOMING.
Being, being ( haha!!) the concepts rooted in an unchangeable context
Becoming, the tangible facets where in these concepts find their applications
FOOORR EXAMPLEE
beauty itself is BEING. while convention and subjectivity are aspects of beauty, they may only be expressed in beautyās application, therefore BECOMING instead.
my beautiful beautiful girlfriend is an example of such a thing. she is becoming, and she is beautiful in all sorts of convention and subjectivity , but the concept of beauty as it pertains to her beauty here is rather an expression of the concept rather than a way it is changed in its foundation
does that make sense to you?
THE POINT IS
nothing is new, rather created under the conceptual framework of such that is BEING. But, nothing ever exists for a moment more than it is supposed to, and to remind you dear reader I am not the woman i was at the start of this post. I am rushing, jumbled, and once again deciding whether or not bath time is economic. All is connected by what is BEING, but we take actions which create NEW UNUSUAL and ORIGINAL applications of these beings.
novelty, as a result, is both impossible to achieve and ignore
every girl deserves bath time i think
Feb 6, 2025
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Interviews:
Writer and translator poupeh missaghi on challenging received narratives from The Creative Independent
Archivist and editor Laird Borrelli-Persson on bringing depth to the superficial from The Creative Independent
Psychology:
Why bad doodles can reveal more about you than good drawings from Psyche
Make it awkward! from Aeon
Philosophy:
Is beauty natural? from Aeon
Against humility from Aeon
History:
The forgotten fossil hunter who transformed Britainās Jurassic Coast from National Geographic
Queen Nzinga: One of Africaās fearless leaders from Grunge
Biography: Victoria Woodhull from National Womenās History Museum
Nov 10, 2024
Top Recs from @jdell
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That album really scratches every itch in my brain. The beats are perfect. It's pure joy. Like most expressions of joy, it's complex and discordant. The words do not line up with the way my body wants to move to the sounds. The words are truly devastating, but in combination with the beats it's a beautiful expression of the humanity of dialectics. These two truths are opposing but they exist as true at the same time: I feel horror and love and devastation and excitement. These things are all true.
Oct 2, 2024
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Brat summer is over itās erotically charged james spader film fall
Oct 1, 2024
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I keep my journal on me at all times. Writing about my thoughts or my surroundings makes me feel so much lighter.
Oct 2, 2024