Creating Dangerously: ‘Spare Us from Living in Interesting Times’
As society slowly opens up, I felt myself closing in - and with that came a considerable silence. There’s been a higher intake than output of writing on my part and I have been absorbing Infinite Jest, The Leopard, and Albert Camus’ essays vivaciously. In Camus’ essay, “Create Dangerously”, he writes something that I am sure cannot help but resonate with many of us as we enter a slightly altered world
In Defence of the Chaotic Method
Much to some of yours horror, I must admit that some books I have read backwards (from the end to the beginning), others I’ve started on the last page and then have flipped back to the first, and others yet I’ve started in the middle, worked my way to the end, only to start up again from the beginning and finish in the middle. This, as some might call it, is the chaotic approach. Here’s why it works.
The Machine Stops: ‘men made it, do not forget that’
In 1909, E. M. Forster writes of a society in the far-off future that ‘had long since abandoned the clumsy system of public gatherings’. People entertained themselves in self-isolated cells, able to ‘see [one another’s] image […] on the other side of the earth’, and ‘never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine’.
Quarandreams Diary #2: Existential Ice Cream
The past three nights have been characterised by recurring dreams about deeply existential ice creams and their rather tiresome penchant for disappearing/being stolen/snapping in half and/or melting. Not only that, but they have been coming in slightly unorthodox flavours…
You my friend are lonely… a lament.
I flipped through the pages at random and stopped at a text that tugged at me. I was immediately captivated by the delicate craftsmanship of the words that drew me into a mournful lament - a lament at the loss of fellowship, where words are used for ‘pointing fingers’ and splitting ‘fragments and parts’ against ‘the whole’.
Jane Austen on the Disagreeable Richness of Cake
In times of quarantine, I say, sneak a cake or two, steal a cookie from the cookie jar, no one’s watching anyway. Jane Austen writes of the outlandish sort of individual who would “earnestly try to dissuade [guests] from having any wedding cake” due it being far too rich a treat. Safe to say, she finds it truly bizarre…
Take Light and Colour, and Write Me the World
Today, two quarantine book recommendations about light and colour that will inspire you and give you a newly-found wonder at creation and what we see every day: “The Secret Lives of Colour”, and “Six Facets of Light”.
Tell Me Your Stories
Tell me your stories! Any fun and fantastical stories you have heard or experienced over the years. Could be a family anecdote, a story you overheard in a cafe, or one of your own…Start a storytelling thread with me so we can combat boredom together!
The Sky and Sea were the Original Drama Queens (and I love it)
If anyone ever tells you to stop being dramatic, tell them to spend some time with the sky, and sea, and wind, and embrace the bizarrely wonderful drama queens they all are - because they put on quite a show. And, without them, I’d say we’d all be hopelessly and irrevocably bored
The Hiatus of the Ordinary
The midsummer night, the eve preceding May Day. What did you do with your midsummer night last night? In any case, I’m sure it did not involve falling in love with a donkey’s head, getting waited on by fairies, and switching bodies with your best friend…
Quarandreams Diary #1: The Peaches of Immortality
Recently, I’ve been reading about a rise in #quarandreams (extremely vivid and stranger than usual dreams occurring during quarantine). I’ve been having many myself, and that’s saying something because I’m a VERY vivid dreamer as it is. Tune in here to read about last night's magic golden garden, the peaches of immortality, and dream deja vu (because that’s a thing).
‘The swallows will still come’'
Messages from St Andrean shop windows; ‘the swallow has come, bringing lovely seasons and lovely years’.
‘Out damned spot!’: The Lady Macbeth Method
Need advice on proper hand-washing? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Store run out of soap? You can make your own here!
‘The growing terror of nothing to think about’
‘you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen / Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about’ (III.20-21). The answer to this dread of monotony is perhaps then to ‘be still’, to allow monotony for some time, for ‘there is yet faith, / But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.’
On Epilogues (for St Andrews)
I have always said that St Andrews was at the edge of the world. Here, time lags, and seems to draw out the sun each morning and night to more colours and directions than you thought possible, as though stretching for time…
‘Don’t Eat Too Much Chocolate or Imbibe Too Much Gin!’
Today’s light-hearted thought is only this: in literature, you often find just the pearls of wisdom you were looking for. In today’s post, we have five literary quotes for times of quarantine.
Why Do Birds Sing?
Today, amidst the silence, I heard a single bird practising a melody. I wonder if it knew that the world was now listening - that the streets had fallen silent and the people had retreated to listen from the inwards out.
Quarantina - 40 days
It’s interesting to me that during this time of Lent, we’ve all been constricted to quarantine, a word whose origins come from quarantina, Italian for “forty days”.