Happy almost-fall. Here's some art, internet, and ideas for you:
“So, your life. There it is before you—possibly a road, a ribbon, a dotted line, a map—let’s say you’re 25, then you make some decisions, do things, have setbacks, have triumphs, become someone, a bus driver, a professor of Indo-European linguistics, a pirate, a cosmetologist, years pass, maybe in a family maybe not, maybe happy maybe not, then one day you wake up and you’re seventy. Looking ahead you see a black doorway. You begin to notice the black doorway is always there, at the edge, whether you look at it or not. Most moments contain it, most moments have a sort of sediment of black doorway at the bottom of the glass. You wonder if other people are seeing it too. You ask them. They say no. You ask why. No one can tell you.” Anne Carson on Parkinson’s, and everything.
Another way to get into the discussion we all had in eighth grade: Is my blue your blue?
I wouldn't call myself a huge TV Person, but recently while my spouse was out of town I remembered that HGTV exists and it was all over for me. I can recommend: Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse (sadly unrelated to the Reeves/Bullock film classic). It was my first exposure to the home-renovation juggernaut that is Chip and Joanna Gaines, and at just a few episodes it’s not a huge commitment if you want to dip your toe in. Some football players show up for some reason? Second, For the Love of Kitchens (a Gaines-land production that they don’t appear in), which is essentially a beautifully shot infomercial for a small UK-based kitchen and furniture company called deVOL. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a blend of a design and renovation show with some lovely interludes on craft and design that reminded me of forever-fave Repair Shop. The main characters are one of the founders and the creative director, who are also life partners, and a man called Robin who can make anything with a lathe. I’m currently preparing a PhD dissertation on the contrasting relationship styles between Fixer Upper’s Chip and Joanna and Kitchens’ Paul and Helen. Let me know if you want to discuss.
Related: Want home decor in the shape of tomatoes? Great news.
“The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.” (Of course I was going to link to Ted Chiang's evisceration of AI. Have you met me/this newsletter?)
TV recommendation: Monsieur Spade on Netflix. A grizzled Clive Owen is the Dashiell Hammett investigator, now retired and living in southern France, who gets pulled in for One Last Job.
Imagine waiting 15 years for Oasis to reform only to lose out on tickets to Chloe, 21 from Stockport who just wants to hear Wonderwall live. Imagine your jealous fury, normal comforts turned to ash, all pleasure drained dry, tastes bitter, colours dull with injustice etc., tears welling up in your eyes as you sit at the bus stop waiting for the bus to take you home from the venue box office which you have, in tradition's name, lined up outside of instead of just buying the tickets on your phone. At least you have looked your foe (Chloe, 21 from Stockport) in the eye. Now imagine you have the chance to win the ticket back. Imagine you both lined up on two sides of a vast battlefield. You: shoulder to shoulder with others just like you, ready to fight and die in a final battle for what matters. Chloe, 21 from Stockport: also shoulder to shoulder with people like her, although those poeple are younger and treating the whole thing like a bit of a joke. You scowl fiercely at them, and they scowl back, but not as fiercely and with an ironic detachment which is so annoying. With ragged voices they sing Wonderwall. You and your side are also singing an Oasis song, but one that Chloe, 21 from Stockport, has never heard, or heard infrequently, or skipped over in favour of Wonderwall. Or just enjoyed less than Wonderwall. Or enjoyed more than Wonderwall but still made the decision to sing Wonderwall as the anthem of cultural consensus. You are ready to fight, and to die, if that is how God has ordained it, in this final battle. If that is how God has ordained you pursue a ticket to Oasis, having waited 15 years for them to reform. If Chloe, 21 from Stockport wants to hear Wonderwall live, if she wants to take your ticket to Oasis after 15 years in the wilderness, she will have to plunge the sword into your heart herself, if she thinks she can. Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you.
