Hello…!
Dusting this off after a long absence. Like everyone, I have had some Things Going On: some good, some bad, some neutral; just time filling Things that pushed writing further and further down my to do list until it was shunted right off the bottom.
Not writing for a few weeks turned into a belief that my writing wasn’t really worth doing anyway, which turned into a total inability to write at all, which eventually turned into stress. In the absence of any belief in the divine or astrological, what I tend to do during these phases of acute stress or general malaise is blame it on the change in weather. I learnt via a podcast recently that Kate Fox in her book ‘Watching the English’, found that 94% of British respondents admitted to having conversed about the weather in the past six hours, while 38% said that they had talked about it in the past sixty minutes. So she worked out that that means that at almost any moment in England, at least a third of the population is either talking about the weather, has already recently done so, or is just about to. Indeed it has become suddenly cold here, and I am retreating inside, and feeling how truly lucky I am to be able to do so.
I’ve found a lot of comfort in art recently. I like this quote from Jeremy Deller about art being a way to stay in love with the world, and the world certainly feels difficult to love at the moment. I saw the Nicole Eisenmann exhibition at Whitechapel over the weekend - it’s a really good show, if you’re in London and looking for something to see - I like big paintings very much, and she is really good at big paintings. I don’t know if it made me fall back in love with the world necessarily, but it certainly made me feel better to stand and lose myself in a massive, layered, textured painting. It was comforting and inspiring to me to get out of my head and into Eisenmann’s. There’s a section where she paints people using screens, and I loved this one of a person on their laptop on a train, and of this one of someone watching TV:
The TV one could be a painting of me for the foreseeable cold winter midweek evenings. And perhaps you, if you’re after:
Something to watch
I have finally finished the Wire. As everyone says, great show. This hardly counts as a recommendation, does it? It’s like recommending buttered toast. But what can I do? It consumed my TV evenings for the last few months, with its hour long episodes and its 5 seasons. I really loved it, and I have enjoyed learning about the world of the show itself; that the writer was a Baltimore journalist himself, that lots of the cast are real life Baltimore figures - it is truly worth your time. And I love this video of the late Michael K. Williams, who plays amazing Omar, dancing in the park.
When you only have a limited window for TV consumption the ending of a series is a liberating time. What will I fill my TV evenings with now! Possibilities stretch out in front of me for a new multi season watch… and I think I will go with Rev, Tom Hollander’s old sitcom. Someone mentioned it to me recently when he popped up in the White Lotus, and I’ve been meaning to watch it. So I’ll let you know how I get on.
Other things I watched and enjoyed recently: Anatomy of a Fall in the cinema, which I loved. It made me think about storytelling, about perspective, about relationships and independence and gender, and I thought it was very stylish and funny / Wayne Rooney vs Phil Bardsley / Our Hobby is Depeche Mode, a lovely documentary made by Jeremy Deller and Nicholas Abrahams, about Depeche Mode superfans / legendary punk Penny Rimbaud being fantastic on It’s My Life / the Curse, the new Nathan Fielder/singular Safdie brother thing… I am finding it compelling (only a couple of episodes in) although I don’t think I like it much, partially because it just feels so NOW in a way that is repulsive to me. It feels like the show is aging as I watch it, which I don’t appreciate. This isn’t because I don’t like when art speaks to the time it was created in. I actually do. For example, the recent film Dream Scenario, another extremely A24 thing (like the Curse) - I felt spoke to the current moment with maturity, insight and (for want of a better word) panache, and I don’t think the same can be said for the Curse. It’s contemporariness distracts me, although I will likely finish the series, and I do think it will get better as it develops. This is an idea I need to think about further and develop, but I’m noticing this repulsion happening more and more in TV and cinema. Anyway. Back to Tom Hollander:
Something to listen to
Having not sent this newsletter for a while, I have a lot to share here, but I will try and be selective. Of course I share music every week on the show, but some particular favourites: I’ve been listening to the new Eartheater album a lot, and really loving it. Transportive, melodic dream pop from a unique artist. My favourite tracks so far are Crushing and Face in the Moon. It’s hard to make good pop-adjacent music I think, so I really appreciate it when someone pulls it off with a different take. I also recently greatly enjoyed and learnt a lot from this amazing NTS show about raga, which soundtracked a morning at home perfectly, and this other fantastic NTS show about North American indigenous music. The host played this incredible song from the mid 60s called My Land which especially stuck out at the moment. Highly recommended listening.
Other things on my recent rotation: Hurtboy Error by Isaiah Hull, a young Mancunian now based in London - so good, this / 80s wonky funk by Rick Dash, total earworm / Swerve by late 80s group Dub Sex, born out of the Kitchen in Hulme Crescents - I strongly recommend reading this piece about the estate / great Rochy RD song I shazammed in Gillett Square / brilliant new music from Holy Tongue, Beatrice Dillon, Lamin Fofana & LABOUR / beautiful Yussuf Dayes / possibly the most contentious ‘In Focus’ ever broadcast - The Grateful Dead, the band probably more people ask me about where to start with than any other / Take Mine, by the Motifs - could be in 500 Days of Summer which is fine by me / Irish musician Elaine Howley, specifically this song: she came on the show and did a live performance (starting mid way through this episode) and was just a very lovely person to top it all off.
And lastly, I loved the new Andre 3000 album, as it seems did everyone. I wasn’t worried it would be bad, because I don’t think he could really make anything bad, but I thought it might be more gimmicky than it is - foolish me. It’s beautiful, serene, restrained; a tonic. And I really enjoyed watching that interview with him in the laundromat. He said something about enjoying washing his clothes that resonated with me.
Or maybe you’re after something to listen to that isn’t music, as I often am. I would point you towards This Cultural Life, the BBC programme where guests are asked about culture or moments that have shaped their life. I love it, and listened to loads recently when I was sanding and painting some skirting boards. My favourite episodes so far are Es Devlin, Maggi Hambling, Melvyn Bragg, Gilbert & George and my favourite living man Michael Rosen, but I haven’t listened to all of them. There’s something in every episode, even if you don’t particularly like the interviewee.
Something to eat
Recently I saw Rachel Roddy post about this dish called bordatino allo livornese, which is an old Tuscan peasant soup made with beans and cabbage, thickened with polenta (or any cornmeal). I knew immediately I must make it, that this soup would be the thing to lift my spirits on a cold miserable evening. And how right I was!! I read a few different recipes and watched this excellent youtube recipe (with english subtitles) and got to work.
The recipe in the video is the one I mainly used, but: I didn’t add bacon, and I didn’t use dried beans. Instead I used 2 cans of borlotti beans because I needed to make the soup IMMEDIATELY. So don’t fear if you want to make it tonight and don’t have time to soak the beans, just use canned. Additionally, I blended one can with the water the beans were in, and kept the other one unblended. I added the blended beans at the same stage of cooking as the unblended. I had read about blending the beans in a different recipe which is why I did it and I think it worked very nicely. Say blending beans one more time! I also used a bit of spring cabbage because I needed to use it up in addition to the cavolo nero - I only wish I had shredded it finer - and added parmesan at the end. The cornmeal is essential for the texture and consistency of the dish; it lifts it from a soup into something a bit heartier and more warming. I cannot recommend this recipe enough. It’s a great one for using up cavolo nero if you have that growing, as I do, is cheap to make, takes extremely delicious and is very satisfying.
While we’re on food, I spoke to Thea for her Substack ‘What’s that You’re Cooking Thea?’. Her recipes are fantastic, and it was lovely to chat about tuna sandwiches. I highly recommend reading her newsletter for proper recipes (not just blending beans) and really great food writing.
Something to read
I’m still deep in my Elizabeth Taylor era: I just finished Blaming, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont and At Mrs Lippencote’s. Next up will be A View of the Harbour. If you are not interested in 20th century eccentric old commie English women, I cannot help you at the moment. I truly love reading her novels and I don’t want to read much else (although my sister did give me Rosemary Tonks’ The Halt During the Chase for my birthday, so I will deviate from Elizabeth for her, but same world imo). They’re so funny and small and contained and insightful, and there’s something very comforting to me as a 2023 reader being put into her world.
Usually here I also put funny things I have read or seen on Twitter, but I have not been on there for months. I miss the memes. I am becoming someone who is seeing the memes weeks late filtered down through Instagram. I will have to ask the chatroom to send me some good stuff for this section for the next edition!!! Or just give up and rejoin the hellish platform: the Traitors is about to return to TV so that will also encourage me to go back. But hopefully this is enough for now.
Till next time xx
What a nice read :)
Eisenman**