#23: like planet ink
Plus Beckham, The Fraud, queer vampires, Gaza
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Video: Dartmoor looking very Hound of the Baskervilles while I learned about facilitating grief rituals. Video description: a panorama of trees submerged in fog.
Reading
On Immunity: An Inoculation. Immune systems, vaccinations and the relationship between the individual and the collective. What do we owe each other?
Romantic Comedy. Wish fulfilment for straight women in their late 30s. What if a hot, kind, successful 39-year-old man who writes grammatically correct emails was really into you?
The Fraud. Two locations (Jamaica and Willesden), multiple time periods, anarchic chaptering and plenty of Victorian novel pastiche. It’s a lot (too much at times). It’s also a classically brilliant Zadie Smith novel: tragicomic, with her astonishing ear for dialogue and penetrating eye cast over race, class and Englishness. “Everything the English really did and really wanted, everything they desired and took and discarded – all of that they did elsewhere.”
How to light the dark months in
.The Albanian town that TikTok emptied.
Eight of the world’s most amazing trees.
“For 14 generations, the Simantiri women have passed this house down to one another”. I loved this piece on time, inheritance and stewardship by
in her excellent newsletter,.Most read from the last edition:
Watching
Beckham (pure 90’s and 00’s nostalgia and a nuanced portrait of talent and obsession — I enjoyed this interview with the director of the documentary)
Interview with the Vampire (a clever, queer, horny melodrama, with the best pilot episode I’ve seen in a long time)
Past Lives (spare, tender, beautiful).
Listening
My South African pal, Laura, has been introducing me to South African artists. Mabandla is now on repeat.
Talking
In mid-November, I’ll be talking about organisational structures and rhythms with the wonderful Nati Lombardo from The Hum (guidance for self-organising teams) at the School of System Change’s Constellating Change series. I'll be weaving together org design, seasonality and chronic illness. Sign up here.
No one ever said to me, “this is grief". This interview with
is the most I’ve ever shared publicly about my chronic illness journey. I’m glad I entrusted Rae with this vulnerability, she’s an incisive and empathetic interviewer. I talked about chronic illness, grief, cyclical living, crip time, disabled wisdom and organisational design.“This is why I think chronically ill people and disabled people are oracles of the future… Limitless growth, limitless expansion, pushing through—we have to move away from all of that to have a livable planet and a life-affirming society. And I think chronically ill people and disabled people have so much wisdom in how to do that”.
The eldest millenial to ever millenial (me) has talked about
on TikTok.
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Still devastated by…
“… tomorrow in the fist”: the genocide in Gaza. To support a ceasefire, you can write to your MP here. To support those suffering in Gaza, donate to Medical Aid for Palestinians and other trusted charities.
“Your Night Is of Lilac” by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
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Ahh Past Lives is on my radar to watch! I’m glad it was so good. And I’m glad the Beckham doc has been around to keep you company, I enjoyed it a lot too. I also watched the Wagatha Christie doc on Disney+ with Colleen Rooney and honestly really enjoyed that after feeling a bit sad when the Beckham doc was over haha. I’d recommend!