I cried at the Bells. I didn’t think I was going to, but as Susan Calman counted down to midnight – huge numbers flashing on screen as shots of Scottish landmarks whizzed by – I felt something rising up through my chest. Some tangled knot of anxiety and depression and grief and exhaustion. Something that felt, as it leaked from my eyes, a little bit like hope.
If that’s influence, I’d rather have none. Count backwards down to one, and watch me disappear. At least the last one here will see something real. The world’s best art, best architecture, most brilliant writing, even the best retail boutiques, are the manifestation of one person, pleasing themselves, figuring out how to feel satisfied.
Let’s feel it together. No one needs to play puppet or puppet master. Let’s stand in the pouring rain until all those monograms wash off your skin.
It’s not your right to be a writer. It’s not your right to be read. It’s not your right to be a public figure. A just society is one where everyone has a home, food, healthcare, an education, and vacation for four weeks a year. A just society does not mean everybody gets to be a celebrated writer if they want to be. If we consider literature important, we have to critique it rigorously.
[I]f you [criticise] in a fair, sane way there is no professional consequence, except that some people aren’t going to like you. If you’re nice to everyone in a fake way, lots of people aren’t going to like you either. So you might as well be honest.
The assumption that “all relationships take work” also carries the assumption that all relationships are worth working on, plus a whole bunch of underlying stuff about who is supposed to do that work and how much. But sometimes love isn’t enough or there isn’t enough of it to cancel out everything that’s hard, love doesn’t always conquer all, and the hardest breakups aren’t the ones where one person obviously sucked, they’re the ones where everything would be perfect if not for that one insurmountable thing.
When we blur our view of real, adult women, and replace them with nonspecific children, still unformed symbols of potential, our imaginations can fashion these little girls as unblemished and future-perfect, the political equivalent of cinema’s manic pixie dream girl: the fantasized woman who meets our every desire, as opposed to the present woman who somehow, weirdly and inevitably, lets us down.
After eight months at home, and with a long winter looming, I realise how much of my life was based around a) going to work; and b) going to gigs.
Work was the thing that got me out of the house every day: the reason I kept active; the reason I was in town for a spot of shopping or to catch up with a friend over an evening meal deal. And gigs were the bright spot on the calendar; the pile of…
This post contains PR samples, but all views are my own and unbiased.
I always assumed it was better to be spontaneous and carefree. You know? Like those girls in the movies, big-hatted and long-eyelashed, ready to whisk our (floppy-haired, male) protagonist away on the sort of adventure that would open his eyes to a new way of being on a moment’s notice.
This post contains PR samples but all views are my own and unbiased.
I’m sure all of us have gotten into things we never expected to during lockdown. Me, for example, I practically have shares in my sister’s BFF’s Scentsy business (in my defence, this is now a three litter box household, what would you rather it smelled like).
This post contains PR samples, but all views are my own and unbiased.
A couple of months back, as it started to become clear that home working was going to be my future for at least the medium-term, I thought it might be interesting/useful to share my office setup on the blog.
And then I got a kitten.
I suspected that a kitten would be in our future eventually, after we lost Biggie: I…
I cried at the Bells. I didn’t think I was going to, but as Susan Calman counted down to midnight – huge numbers flashing on screen as shots of Scottish landmarks whizzed by – I felt something rising up through my chest. Some tangled knot of anxiety and depression and grief and exhaustion. Something that felt, as it leaked from my eyes, a little bit like hope.
If that’s influence, I’d rather have none. Count backwards down to one, and watch me disappear. At least the last one here will see something real. The world’s best art, best architecture, most brilliant writing, even the best retail boutiques, are the manifestation of one person, pleasing themselves, figuring out how to feel satisfied.
Let’s feel it together. No one needs to play puppet or puppet master. Let’s stand in the pouring rain until all those monograms wash off your skin.
It’s not your right to be a writer. It’s not your right to be read. It’s not your right to be a public figure. A just society is one where everyone has a home, food, healthcare, an education, and vacation for four weeks a year. A just society does not mean everybody gets to be a celebrated writer if they want to be. If we consider literature important, we have to critique it rigorously.
[I]f you [criticise] in a fair, sane way there is no professional consequence, except that some people aren’t going to like you. If you’re nice to everyone in a fake way, lots of people aren’t going to like you either. So you might as well be honest.
The assumption that “all relationships take work” also carries the assumption that all relationships are worth working on, plus a whole bunch of underlying stuff about who is supposed to do that work and how much. But sometimes love isn’t enough or there isn’t enough of it to cancel out everything that’s hard, love doesn’t always conquer all, and the hardest breakups aren’t the ones where one person obviously sucked, they’re the ones where everything would be perfect if not for that one insurmountable thing.
When we blur our view of real, adult women, and replace them with nonspecific children, still unformed symbols of potential, our imaginations can fashion these little girls as unblemished and future-perfect, the political equivalent of cinema’s manic pixie dream girl: the fantasized woman who meets our every desire, as opposed to the present woman who somehow, weirdly and inevitably, lets us down.
After eight months at home, and with a long winter looming, I realise how much of my life was based around a) going to work; and b) going to gigs.
Work was the thing that got me out of the house every day: the reason I kept active; the reason I was in town for a spot of shopping or to catch up with a friend over an evening meal deal. And gigs were the bright spot on the calendar; the pile of…
This post contains PR samples, but all views are my own and unbiased.
I always assumed it was better to be spontaneous and carefree. You know? Like those girls in the movies, big-hatted and long-eyelashed, ready to whisk our (floppy-haired, male) protagonist away on the sort of adventure that would open his eyes to a new way of being on a moment’s notice.
This post contains PR samples but all views are my own and unbiased.
I’m sure all of us have gotten into things we never expected to during lockdown. Me, for example, I practically have shares in my sister’s BFF’s Scentsy business (in my defence, this is now a three litter box household, what would you rather it smelled like).
This post contains PR samples, but all views are my own and unbiased.
A couple of months back, as it started to become clear that home working was going to be my future for at least the medium-term, I thought it might be interesting/useful to share my office setup on the blog.
And then I got a kitten.
I suspected that a kitten would be in our future eventually, after we lost Biggie: I…
If that’s influence, I’d rather have none. Count backwards down to one, and watch me disappear. At least the last one here will see something real. The world’s best art, best architecture, most brilliant writing, even the best retail boutiques, are the manifestation of one person, pleasing themselves, figuring out how to feel satisfied.
Let’s feel it together. No one needs to play puppet or puppet master. Let’s stand in the pouring rain until all those monograms wash off your skin.
Let’s belong to no one all over again.
"
"It’s not your right to be a writer. It’s not your right to be read. It’s not your right to be a public figure. A just society is one where everyone has a home, food, healthcare, an education, and vacation for four weeks a year. A just society does not mean everybody gets to be a celebrated writer if they want to be. If we consider literature important, we have to critique it rigorously."
"[I]f you [criticise] in a fair, sane way there is no professional consequence, except that some people aren’t going to like you. If you’re nice to everyone in a fake way, lots of people aren’t going to like you either. So you might as well be honest."
"The assumption that “all relationships take work” also carries the assumption that all relationships are worth working on, plus a whole bunch of underlying stuff about who is supposed to do that work and how much. But sometimes love isn’t enough or there isn’t enough of it to cancel out everything that’s hard, love doesn’t always conquer all, and the hardest breakups aren’t the ones where one person obviously sucked, they’re the ones where everything would be perfect if not for that one insurmountable thing."
"When we blur our view of real, adult women, and replace them with nonspecific children, still unformed symbols of potential, our imaginations can fashion these little girls as unblemished and future-perfect, the political equivalent of cinema’s manic pixie dream girl: the fantasized woman who meets our every desire, as opposed to the present woman who somehow, weirdly and inevitably, lets us down."
The scrapbook of a twentysomething - THIRTYsomething! God, when did I last update this - multimedia fashion victim. Last Year's Girl, or Lis to her friends, is a journalist, blogger and amateur photographer. Some of these things actually pay her, but mostly she just wants to be liked. She likes social technology, homemade pizza, great-tasting lipgloss, Starbucks cappuccino and rock 'n' roll tales of redemption; makes her home in Glasgow and left her heart in New York City. She doesn't know why she needs a Tumblr account. Keep up with her at pixlet [dot] net.
