The January Round Up
A monthly run down of what I found interesting and/or worth sharing.
I finished my first Hardy novel! ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’ was a lovely winter read (does anyone else like to read seasonally?), and Hardy’s beautiful descriptions of the English countryside made me feel quite homesick. I’m not a huge fan of the romance genre in general, and I found the heroine of the story unbelievably annoying, but I am interested in, and looking forward to, reading some more of his darker novels. Tess is next, on recommendation from my Dad - a true Hardy lover.
I attended my first concert (as an audience member) since before the pandemic and it was a mind-blowing Caravan Palace show at DC’s iconic 9:30 club. My 19-year-old self (the one who tried to learn the dance steps from this video at 01:46) was absolutely dreaming. This band is absurdly creative, crazy inspiring, and serves impossible non-stop energy from start to finish. I challenge you to keep still and listen to their music.
I kind of loved the ideas in this article for The Atlantic, about how we should actually be celebrating our failures! Failures indicate that we tried things, took risks, made ourselves vulnerable. Rejection is SO common and SO un-talked about! And quite often, it’s nothing whatsoever to do with us. Anyone want to try out the 100-failures-celebration-party with me?
Did you know rubbing a walnut over a crack in wood will cover it up and make it almost unnoticeable?! Try it out! (And don’t make the same mistake that I did at first - you must use the actual nut, and not the nut inside its shell…)
This Twitter thread got me thinking a lot about the value of good work that happens quietly and not in pursuit of fame. Some of the most outstanding musicians I have ever met are probably people you haven’t heard of, and yet they are moving mountains in their own communities. That is so very special.
One of my new year’s resolutions is to be better at switching out my toothbrush heads. If anyone else out there is as embarrassingly negligent about this as I have been, here’s your link to get it sorted.
This article in the NY Times articulated so many of my feelings about my frustration with the handling of Covid, particularly by people who continue to want to make this about politics and rules, and not about the virus itself (which seems mad to me);
”But in general, what’s standing in the way of normal life is Covid, not Covid prevention … To have more normalcy, we need less illness. That means doing all the things public health people drone on about, especially getting more people vaccinated and boosted, which still — even with the high number of Omicron breakthrough cases — reduces the risk of infection as well as hospitalization.”An article in The Atlantic about how hobbies have grown into another competitive facet of capitalism, which then prompted a discussion with my friends about if there exists a hobby that is solely “intrinsically motivated” - i.e. that it is something one does merely for the private love and pleasure of it, and with no ambition for external validation or monetary reward.
Is there anything more accurate than this Tik Tok?
These delectable Saturday morning treats from Souk in DC…
As you can tell, I’m playing around a little bit with this newsletter, better fitting it into my life, and hopefully keeping it fresh for those that are interested to read the bits that they want. I miss writing the essays too and haven’t given this up - I plan to intersperse them with these monthly round-ups, so we will see how that goes. Let me know your thoughts and what (if anything!) you would like to see more of.
Thanks for reading x
