Here's some respite - Part I

This week has been a blur, to say the least, so I compiled a list of things for you to read + watch and take your mind off things a bit.

Essays/Short Stories I adore - this will give you a lot to think about:

Joan Didion, On Self-Respect

Joan Didion, Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream

Margaret Atwood, Am I a Bad Feminist?

Zadie Smith, On Optimism and Despair

Jess Zimmerman, Hunger Makes Me

Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa

Édouard'Levé, When I Look at a Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue

An Unexpected Honor by Ursula Vernon - Ursula Vernon‘s acceptance speech when she won the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novelette (Accompany this essay with this whalefall video)

Kathy Acker, The Myth of Romantic Suffering

Adrienne Rich, Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying

Ed Simon, Ten Ways to Look at the Color Black

Anne Carson, Back the Way You Went

e-Books:

Clarice Lispector, The Complete Short Stories (Watch her Interview on her work)

Jeanette Winterson, Art Objects

Mary Oliver, Devotions

Susan Sontag, Debriefing

Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Poetry that made me feel warm inside:

Nazim Hikmet, Things I Didn't Know I Loved

Laura Gilpin, Two-Headed Calf

Naomi Shihab Nye, So Much Happiness

Richard Siken, Snow and Dirty Rain

Joy Harjo, Perhaps the World Ends Here 

Kait Rokowski, A Good Day

Here’s some art I loved this week:

Louise Bourgeois, Fabrication, 1989

Joan Cox, Consequence of Falling, 2013

Paul Wunderlich  -  Frau in Betrachtung eines Jünglings, 1999

Ed Ruscha, THE MUSIC FROM THE BALCONIES NEARBY WAS OVERLAID BY THE NOISE OF SPORADIC ACTS OF VIOLENCE, 1984 (Text is a quote from the novel “High-Rise”, written by J. G. Ballard)

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More to come soon! If you enjoyed any of this, please hit reply and write to me or drop a comment and let me know what you enjoyed the most - I always love hearing from you.

Remember: Take a break from the news, cuddle with your pets and loves, have some cake and stay safe! xx