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Just read Writing by Marguerite Duras in one go which is often either a sign of my mental health going haywire or a book being so tantalizingly real and/or inspiring that time goes out the window and I am hooked into every word like a calf to a teat in search of protein I was especially drawn into these reflections about writing a book and what it means to a be a writer A contradiction that is both of the world and seperate from it that is a witness and being witnessed constantly in two phases Highly recommend for writers and readers that love reading writing about writing
Dec 21, 2024
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This book was insanely hard for me to get my hands on. It is the first and last book I bought off Amazon was one by Durga Chew-Bose, a fellow Canadian who made me feel a little less homesick amidst UK living. Her style of writing reminds me of the dinner conversations I have with my sisters. The pages kept me company as I sat outside on the ground, locked out of my house. The fastest five hours of my life
Sep 18, 2024
holy shit! this was my first book of 2024, and to say it had a big impact on me would be understating the situation dramatically.
picked it up while traveling and started reading on the train back, absolutely could not put it down. i had a delightful and new experience of finding sections of prose that resonated so strongly with me, i felt compelled to just stop and reread the lines a few times in place.
the characters manage to feel both intimately real and magically unreal, in a way that makes the book feel like a dream, familiar but hazy.
fair warning that reading this book is one of a handful of things that helped me realize i was a girl, ymmv
Feb 29, 2024
Unlike anything I have ever read before. Raw. Dazzling. Paradigm-shifting. Tender. I have just been chewing through it. Underlining every third sentence. I was reading it while eating French toast this morning and leaning over to reach the straw of my iced oat milk latte with my mouth because I literally did not want to take my hands off the pages.
Feb 25, 2024
Top Recs from @elidasilvey
Just finished Being a Chair Essays on Choreographic Poetry by Janne-Camilla Lyster and was blown away by her ability to simplify something as abstract as scoring a dance through poetry. She touches on (bodily) time, dance as a concrete image of another person, and books as tools for inspiration all in under 50 pages. The pieces are split into small prose-poetic musings with a subheading that entice the reader, which include; Forgetting your own name, Time and Space, Hearing a Light, and notably the inspiration for the title — being a chair. Picked this up in Stolkholm when I went over last summer. I hadn’t heard of Varamo Press before so I grabbed the oddly small books. I got another book by them I’ll have to read and see what it’s saying.
Dec 27, 2024
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recently I’ve been listening to Portishead again because it made me think of my art teacher in high school who I thought was super cool and she mentioned she had seen them play in Paris in the 90s and at the time I thought wow I can’t even imagine being in Europe at all I’m now I live in London a place than I wouldnt have thought I’d be back then so I started listening to them again from this other point in life that feels enitrly new and yet somehow completely purposeful It’s not as if I believe in fate or anything like that but listening to Portishead in London holds a little bit of magic to it that I have no other way of expressing so I am listening again and now as I write this ramble here because I am tired of internet spaces that feel chockablock with ads and people who exist to be walking ads themselves as if that made them some how better than normal people People whose Tupperware isn’t made of glass and they have jobs that aren’t glamorous or ”clean” that cannot be done wearing a jacquemus dress attempting to make gummies out of scratch with a voice so soft and monotone that it rides up into you like a spell So I am listening to Portishead which is a different kind of spell a waking up spell and writing this here now and hoping to find a space where people are just people and not ads.
Dec 20, 2024
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It was as if all the yearning I had cultivated over the years, spending it hundred, and eventually thousands, of miles away from my family had finally subsided. I was sad that Christmas was spent away. I am looking forward to spending it in a new way I do feel a pang of guilt for this feeling tho. As if my body knows what is expected and feels shame for not feeling what one should feel. I miss them of course I do but I also feel happy with the distance. Are those things mutually exclusive?
Dec 23, 2024