July roundup
We made it to August, and I am exhausted! July felt like an eternity and there’s something about this year that has been deeply energetically draining and challenging…which is sometimes how it goes, I guess. Lots of change is in the air, uncertainty too, which obviously I love and am coping with incredibly well! It is in part for this reason that I’m going to take August off writing my newsletter. Consistency was a part of my goal for the year, and I’m really proud of what I’ve been able to achieve in keeping that up (this is newsletter number 14 of 2024). With all that being said, I need a break. Some time for my ideas to percolate a bit. To consider, to ponder, and to rest from always having something to deliver - alongside working, having a twice-monthly newsletter and once-monthly radio show meant almost always existing in a state of: when do I need to have that done by? At this point in the year, before the energetic shift of back to School that September tends to bring, I felt it was important to consciously give myself a break.
I can be very hard on myself, so this in itself constitutes a win. This self-imposed high standard and expectation is both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes, it allows me to get things done even when I really don’t feel like it. Without it, I often would give up when I didn’t need or want to. And at others, it is a prison. Pushing through all the time can make it hard to listen to yourself and know when you need a break. Perfectionism is often valorized but in reality is a burden, making it painful to begin, and often even more difficult to complete something. Learning to work with yourself, and against your own bad habits or unhelpful coping mechanisms is such a huge part of trying to make anything happen. It’s something I’ll be consciously meditating on when I have this month ‘off’. I will likely still write and think and plan, but with the freedom of no delivery date. The beauty of a deadline is it forces you to get over yourself a bit and crack on. I find this useful as someone who gets in their head and thinks too much. I’m not sure if that is a sustainable approach, though. I’m considering is how to loosen my white-knuckle grip. Not only sitting down because I’m scared of failing to meet the deadline I so want to meet (teacher’s pet forever). Can I practice sitting to do my work and not be driven by fear and adrenaline? In part, I think, this is to do with befriending the long-game. Thinking and embodying practice as integral to your growth as a writer or [insert your discipline]. Not being so afraid and enjoying the work for itself. I have no doubt social media makes this difficult, as we consume too much that it can become paralyzing about thinking how to begin making something of our own. These thoughts are on my mind, and they feel unfinished, probably because I need more time to pause and reflect on them.
Given it’s the Olympics I’ve also been thinking a lot about devotion. I have always harboured a fantasy about being an athlete. Not me, in fantasy land again! There’s something that my mind enjoys thinking about that singular devotion to something you care about. It removes some uncertainty. Decisions are made through the lens of what will benefit your practice and development in your chosen sport. I’m flattening this for ease. I guess, simply, it offers up a more obvious framework for training and practice. However, the framework for training isn’t the difficult bit. Showing up for it is. An athlete also gives up a lot in order to do what they do. This is something it’s easy to forget, that sacrifice, is integral to devotion. There is no success, no glory, no award wins - or, applicable more broadly, no finishing your project or achieving your goals without sacrifice. It is always there, in one (or many) way(s), sometimes big and sometimes small, often unseen, the root of the iceberg underwater.
Being honest about what we want is important. At some point we also have to confront the reality that if you want to get from A to B, you might have to give up X, Y, or Z. Understanding that, integrating it into your awareness and process - could that help us show up better? I’m thinking too about how attention is best devoted when you have multiple interests or passions. The framework may be different than that of a single devotion, so you may well have to experiment in figuring out what works for you. Maybe (likely) it will be a bit of trial and error. Maybe we can find the fun in that, the creativity in that.
These half-baked thoughts and question need some time to simmer and brew. Maybe I’ll have something interesting to say afterwards about it. Or maybe the process is internal and instead you’ll just see how it filters through into the writing or the work I’m doing. As ever, I’m grateful that you are here and reading as I try and figure things (my life, mycareer, my vocations, my philosophies about life) on the page. On the email doesn’t have the same ring, so suspend your disbelief for that one please!
Now, recommendations!
To read
The Rachel Incident - Caroline O’Donoghue
I have loved Caroline for some time thanks to her podcast Sentimental Garbage, which I’m sure I’ve recommended before, and gives me the warmest feeling when I listen. The Rachel Incident, her latest novel but the first of hers I’ve read, I absolutely adored. It’s a perfect summer read, full of charm, but also, drama! The story centers around Rachel and her gay best friend James, coming of age in Cork in the time of the financial crash. There are secrets, there is chaos, there are big dreams waiting to be realised, there is great pain to be faced, but they do it all together. It is, above all, a story of a devoted friendship. The beautiful, complicated co-dependent kind that is all too easy at that stage of your life. It captures so wonderfully the special bond that can exist between a young gay man and a woman. Loved it.
For Your Consideration - Ellie Johnson’s Substack.
Friend Ellie Johnson started a Substack and I am so proud of her! Through personal essays and criticism, she explores the films that mean the most to her. Great cinematic criticism that understands the cultural context of the movies so well but also weaves in a personal narrative that reminds us that what we consume is deeply embedded into our own stories. I loved this on The Social Network and the opening essay on Charlie’s Angels. KEEP DOING YOUR THING ELLIE WE SEE YOU!!!!!
Raveena - Creative Independent
I love the artist Raveena, and her new album is so brilliant. If you don’t know her, I am so jealous of what you’re about to discover. Her TinyDesk performance from 4 years ago is a great place to start. I obviously love The Creative Independent, but I was particularly struck by Raveena’s thoughts on discipline and routine.
That’s so interesting because I feel like a lot of artists that I’ve spoken to have very polarizing thoughts on routine and discipline. I’ve heard a lot of people say that a routine will make them feel kind of stuck or confined.
It’s so easy to spiral and just get on the internet and be so sad. Everything I do is so that there is a plan set in place so that my body is feeling good, my vessel’s feeling open, I’m feeling creative and inspired. Especially as an artist, you can have so much noise if you want to just go find hate about yourself or find a reason to be upset. So I think if you have too much time on your hands, it’s not a good thing. I love discipline, but it’s hard. And I definitely have days where I say, “Fuck it, I’ll scroll.”
Ordinary Human Failings - Megan Nolan
I actually listened to the brilliant audiobook of this, but I highly recommend Megan Nolan’s second novel to read or listen to. I loved her first novel Acts of Desperation so much, and this follow up, whilst entirely different in scope, does not disappoint. The novel centers around a scandalous death of a young girl. Suspicions point to the Greens, an Irish family who have their own complicated backstory. It was gripping, empathic and I can’t stop thinking about it. Already excited for the novels Nolan will write in the future.
To listen
Clairo - Charm - I’d never really known Clairo before but wow this album is so brilliant. It feels like the perfect late-Summer album to listen to in the morning whilst you’re making coffee and folding laundry, or winding down as the sun sets late. A short album so best enjoyed listened straight through.
Raveena - Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain - a continuation of Raveena’s signature ethereal, emotive, other worldly sound. A beautiful album to soak yourself in.Haley Nahman’s Sleepy Summer playlist - Haley Nahman, the writer of my favourite Substack Maybe Baby shared this simply divine playlist which is perfectly named and does what you need it to do. The high production, party Summer music is so obvious it doesn’t need recommending so I propose this playlist is the music you might need after a BRAT Saturday night out.
The Critic and Her Public - Doreen St Felix - a compelling conversation with the singular Doreen St Felix about her journey to being a staff writer at the New Yorker and thoughts on criticism at large.
“Weddings” on Straightio Lab - On Straightio Lab, the hosts, comedians George Civeris and Sam Taggart have guests on who each bring a topic that they consider to be ‘straight’ and they unpack it with a hysterical + intellectual rigour. This episode on Weddings with Hunter Harris and Peyton Dix was so fucking good I was crying laughing. I’m also excited by their new podcast Lemme Say This, which feels like it’s coming about ten years too late. Hunter & Peyton are a delicious combo and can’t think of two better people to dissect culture and what is happening on The Internet.
To watch
To be frank what I’ve been watching mainly as a form of escapism and light relief is Bridgerton, Season 2 and 3. It would be gauche at this point to recommend a cultural behemoth like a Shondaland show which everyone watches in about 1.5 days when it drops. I resisted Bridgerton originally because it is well documented that “I don’t like old”. Look, it’s not groundbreaking, it is what it is, but taken as that it is fairly charming, apart from those hideous orchestral covers of modern pop songs - a gimmick that is tacky and is so on the nose by season 3. I found the acting from the older women in the cast to be really the most compelling by far, and I wasn’t expecting to be moved by the acting at all to be frank! I love Nicola Coughlan and would do anything for her. Jonathan Bailey is so hot and the chemistry he has with Simone Ashley is truly erotic. Obsessed with Benedict’s menage a troix and I hope Season 4 has more homoerotic horniness in store for him. It’s not like Shonda doesn’t know how to do it - have you seen HTGAWM? Also I fucking love Eloise!!!!!
I also just started Thicker Than Water, a French tv show on Netflix which is lead by Fara, a TV journalist who fights against the racism and Islamophobia of French media to realise her dreams of being the first Arab presenter on French TV. In an attempt to help her brother, who has hit a cop in the van he had been driving and left in Fara’s garage, Fara and her sisters decide to burn the van, hoping to hide it amongst the riots in the projects. Unbeknownst to them, the van contained 2million Euro of drugs. NOT ideal. The series follows the fallout of that. I’m excited for the rest of it and I love French TV because when they do it well, they do it well. Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent!) and Lupin are both great examples of brilliant, well executed, brilliantly crafted television that are worth watching!
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That’s all from me. Back in September.
Love,
David x
x❤️❤️❤️x