no. 15: a seasonal mix 🍃🍂
a summer paradox, the month August, and smol delights
Hi friends,
The end of July is upon us, and with it brings the reality of leaving home again to return to Philly. Just when we feel our roots have taken hold back home in Singapore, there’s an uprooting once more. We’re wondering if University City will feel like it always did, or if our senior year will feel empty and unfamiliar.
At least, one thing we’re looking forward to is seeing each other and truly working side by side. In the four months we’ve been doing Kopi Club, we’ve met up, IN THE FLESH, just once. Finally, we’ll be able to work on this project together, instead of calling on disparate Zoom screens 🥳
btw: whenever we write these newsletters, we notice how much of our inspiration comes from incredible women. Look out for our “what we’re listening to” section for a new KC playlist featuring boss girl anthems.
J:
meditating on the ordinary
Intimism is an artistic movement that emerged towards the end of the 19th century, describing works of art depicting quiet scenes of domestic life. Though similar to Impressionist paintings, Intimist works by artists like Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard dial up both color and texture: these paintings read as grittier, moodier. It seems, at least to me, less about the preservation of the scene’s accuracy than it is about registering aura and sentimentality. As the French art critic Camille Mauclair puts it, it is “a revelation of the soul through the things painted, the magnetic suggestion of what lies behind them through the description of the outer appearance.”
Pictured: (top) Still Life with Leda, Eduoard Vuillard (1902); (bottom) White Interior, Pierre Bonnard (1920)
I came across this term through the Tate Gallery’s instagram (another recent favorite), and the #ArtWord series. I was quickly sucked into a rabbit hole of Intimism paintings and accompanying essays, articulating the appeal of what are, on the surface, scenes of the mundane. Dustin Illingworth’s “At Home with the Intimists” is a standout; while he is writing about the world behind these paintings, this essay also offers a renewed outlook into our own spaces, and how we approach the ‘ordinary’. I’ll leave you with this beautiful last line:
“A drawing room is also a mood, a fantasy, a chimera….It is, above all, a suggestion—that in meditating on the ordinary, one is sometimes granted a glimpse of the sublime.”
N:
nicole’s smol ideas (sry no big ideas this week)
I want to share something by Geffen Refaeli, titled “Why Do You Speak so Vaguely?” In many occasions, words tumble around in the mind, fade, and dissipate before you can properly grasp onto them – rendering you unable to articulate what you truly mean. As Refaeli writes on the top of the piece, “it’s so fragile but in that moment everything exists inside me.”
Tangentially, It is almost August. I am reminded of the time someone once mentioned ‘you seem to have a special interest in August.’ I do, probably because August marks the end of a season, and it’s never clear how one is meant to step into a new year. Sentimentality, sentimentality.
J:
As promised, here is a new KC playlist featuring our favorite songs by some boss women - the perfect motivator for the week ahead.
N:
Sarah Kay’s “A Bird Made of Birds”
Sarah Kay’s poem starts off with the fact that the heart of a blue whale is big enough that a person can stand up fully inside of it. She says this is a “reminder that the universe has already written the poem you planned on writing.”
What she means is that as a writer or any type of creator, you might wonder what meaning you could possibly contribute to the world that already contains so much beauty and grandeur. But though we may be small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, maybe it’s not our job to invent something new – maybe instead we can just witness the universe, and listen to what it has to share.
J:
There is a certain paradox about summer: it is both the season of lounging around and intense workout challenges; it is indulging in sundaes and starting a ‘detox’. For me, it makes figuring out how to practice self-love harder to understand. Half of me is trying to stay motivated, making small changes in the hopes of seeing results; when the other half doesn’t see any, I can’t help but feel the urge to quit.
Instead of an app, a show, or a workout video, this week’s wellness highlight is just three words: patience, forgiveness, and gratitude. These are the simple but important values that came out of some incredible and much-needed conversations this week.
N:
From Adrien Alfieri at The Proof: a weekly reflection and life audit –
✨Reflection questions I really like ✨
Does my calendar reflect my priorities?
What 20% of actions drove 80% of results?
What’s giving me energy?
What’s dulling me?
While this sounds a bit productivity guru-esque, I took it more as a nudge to think more carefully about who and what brings joy and happiness to my life.
J:
“So today I’m recalling the utility, the need, of my own essayettes to emerge from such dailiness, and in that way to be a practice of witnessing one’s delight, of being in and with one’s delight...it also requires faith that delight will be with you daily, that you needn’t hoard it. No scarcity of delight.” - Ross Gay
(Side note: I feel like I’m late to the game, but Gay’s The Book of Delights is slowly becoming a 2020 favorite. My favorite essays: “Fishing an Eyelash: Two or Three Cents on the Virtues of the Poetry Reading” and “Touched”)
N:
“It feels good to love what you have and love what you don’t have with equal passion. Surrendering to reality includes surrendering to fantasy: You acknowledge the richness of everything within your reach, but you also acquiesce to the sweetness outside your grasp” – Heather Havrilesky
J:
This tweet from Netflix India that prompted a solid 30 second chuckle.
An Instagram Account That Makes Me Smile: for example, these dogs
An Album That Isn’t ‘folklore’ (Except, Let’s Talk About That Too)
I stumbled across the New York Public Library’s Spotify account (yes, they have one) and found a playlist of sounds capturing the spirit of their iconic city. Serenity Is a Rowdy City Park made me especially excited for solo picnics back in the US, featuring my deeply-missed Trader Joe’s snacks (I’m looking at you, parmesan twists).
(But on the topic of folklore: I think I’m a seven girl, but my tears ricochet ?? hard to pick a favorite)
N:
Calling at OATLY lovers – a super interesting Twitter Thread about OATLY and the way it rose from being an underdog to a beloved consumer product ft. a lawsuit against dairy conglomerates, marketing tactics, and humor + design: just look at old OATLY vs the OATLY we know today.
This week, we’re signing off from a beautiful, Parisian summer’s day under the Eiffel Tower. Adieu - until next week!
Hugs,
J & N