no. 27: an abundance of muses 📚
from Aristotle to Harry Styles
Hi friends,
Last week meant a lot to us. Maybe we were a bit nervous coming back from a short hiatus, but reading your kind words makes us excited to keep coming back to this space.
A video for you all:
J:
an open journal on the internet
“I am always, and always will be,” writes Anne Truitt, “vulnerable to my own work, because by making visible what is most intimate to me I endow it with the objectivity that forces me to see it with utter, distinct clarity.”
This is one of my favorite excerpts from Truitt’s Turn: The Journal of an Artist. It came to mind while I was sorting through the 40,000 (!) photos saved to my camera roll. My iPhone spent the entirety of this past week alerting me that I had reached the maximum storage capacity, so I (begrudgingly) spent a good chunk of Thursday afternoon finally sorting the mess.
I’m drawn to the idea that one can find strength in vulnerability - maybe because it sounds so hopeful, but maybe because I can’t wrap my head around two concepts that seem inherently incompatible. The idea is implicated in contradiction. The word itself - vulnerability - is derived from the Latin vulnus: wound. How, then, can we train ourselves to see a state that leaves us open to harm as being the very source of strength? And, more importantly, what does it matter that we can?
Truitt continues: “My vulnerability to my own life is irrefutable. Nor do I wish it to be otherwise, as vulnerability is a guardian of integrity.”
I think this is the reason I love things like late night conversations: pajama-clad friends, embarrassing childhood stories. That the openness that comes with being vulnerable can be as much about connection, humor, and joy then it is about running the risk of pain. In these moments, vulnerability feels much more like lightness: the ability to be our most authentic selves. The same goes for Kopi Club - and why, for the last seven months, it’s been the highlight of every week. This newsletter is essentially an open journal on the internet, a space where our most vulnerable ideas reside. But I agree with Truitt: I would never wish it to be otherwise.
N:
life is in the waiting
Frank Herbert writes in his book ‘Dune’ of a word: “spannungsbogen”, meaning the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing (@blisstweeting). In the German dictionary it literally means “the bow and arrow under tension”.
It reminded me of something I read of one of my favorite writers, Rainer Maria Rilke: “The arrow endures the bowstring’s tension, so that gathered in the snap of release it can be more than itself.”
We endure the tension of waiting because it is intrinsic to living. Whether it is delayed gratification, or simply waiting for something to happen. Things that are far away, or things right in front of us, just graspable beyond reach.
With a lot of things, we wish our efforts could be made visible and recognizable sooner. Working so hard doesn’t feel worth it if the feedback loop is long. With writing, health, knowledge in any subject. The pen doesn’t budge, the weight is too heavy, the movement is too difficult.
The external world doesn’t give us the validation we want when we want it. And the world doesn’t owe us any recognition for what we do. Maybe a more important idea is that when we are sinking deep in the middle of the waiting, we find contentment in actions toward positive growth. We try to swim. We ease into creation and movement, even with no end point in sight.
When I talk about waiting I am talking about something larger than waiting itself: the emotional structure, the ugliness, beauty, desire, fully-submerged experience of being there and being within. Where waiting is not a static state, but an endless process in itself. Our true selves are built through the ways we endure it, even if we do not recognize it as so.
Aristotle: patience is bitter but the fruit is sweet.
J:
songs i thought i forgot about
The year is 2013: the Arctic Monkeys was actually releasing good music, I couldn’t stop watching Nicholas Hoult in Warm Bodies, and the Internet was freaking out over Lorde’s dancing.
N:
French Lounge Music
I’ve been loving listening to French music in the morning when getting ready so here’s my small playlist.
J:
philly is a color field painting
(an ode to my favorite season)
N:
Art that Inspired Me This Week
Winter Ghosts by Sean Fitzgerald
Brendan George Ko
Every photograph is “a document of a memory, a document of a person; a time and place, a feeling… of something that once was”.
J:
“...the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.” – Annie Dillard, The Abundance
N:
“Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.” – Dawn Powell
J:
a backlog of very important questions:
Where can I find clothes like the ones Beth Harmon wore on The Queen’s Gambit? (Follow-up question: why did everyone hate on this blue coat number? I’m obsessed.)
How necessary is it that we still have Daylight Savings? All motivation is lost by 5 PM.
Why am I losing sleep over a show? The show in question: Start-Up.
Is this proof that Harry Styles is in the midst of recording new music? (And more follow-up questions: how is he pulling off those jorts so well in the latest Gucci campaign? Where can I find a pair?)
N:
I did a poll on my twitter and thought this result was kinda fascinating:
Hugs,
J & N