Links to read, links to see
Links to read, links to see
Another edition of Discovery, a link roundup
Welcome (back) to Discovery—the Celebration link roundup—where we celebrate great writing, explore new ideas, keep abreast of newsy items, continuously reframe our understanding of the world, and also (ahem) laugh at memes.
As I’m recommitting to this newsletter this year, I’ve been flirting with the idea of standardizing the link roundup format so it’s the same each time. But then, I change my mind so much, I’m wary of being tied down to one approach.
So, here we go! This may look the same next time or it may look different. Nobody knows, least of all me.
Poems
Recently, as I was recovering from surgery impatiently, wanting it all to be over faster—thumbing the puffed swell in my jaw daily, willing it to disappear—a dear friend recommended a book called Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. And while, admittedly, I haven’t actually read the book yet (although it is on my kindle), I loved the verb “wintering,” and latched onto it as a word that succinctly captures the instinct to slow down in the greyer months. There is cozy respite in retreat from the gloom.
Part of my “wintering,” has been staying inside, listening to music, loading my limbs up with blankets, and reading—in particular, reading more poetry than usual—and I thought I’d pick two poems to share here.
The first is a popular, blockbuster of a poem (if such a thing can exist), and I’ve re-read it a hundred times. It is that good: Good Bones by Maggie Smith.
Good Bones by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
The second poem is by Sharon Olds, a master of the form, whose words continuously crack me open. This one, The Enchantment, spoke to me for many reasons, one of them being that I too have a default face of confusion, furrowed and slack-jawed, so much so that throughout my life dozens of strangers have approached me to ask me if I am lost. Enjoy.
The Enchantment by Sharon Olds
When I say, to my mother, What was a good
thing about me as a child?, my mother’s
face seems to unfurl from the center,
hibiscus in fast motion, the anthers
and flounces spring out with joy. Oh you were
enchanting, she breathes. What do you mean—
crazy? No sense of reality?
No-no, she laughs, with many little notes—
half a scale, plus grace notes—I don’t
know how to say it, you were just. . .
enchanting. Possessed? I ask. Brain-damaged?
No . . . she smiles. There was something about you—
the way you looked at things. I think I get it:
that stunned look on my face, in photos,
that dumbstruck look, gaze of someone
who doesn’t understand anything.
But a week later, I decide it was a look
of wonder, it was bemused pleasure.
Days later, I see it—that light
on my mother’s face—she loved me. And today
I hear her, she did not say enchanted.
The woman in whose thrall I am
is in my thrall, I came into being
within her silks and masses, and after we are
gone would she caper here, my first
love, would she do me the honor of continued ensorcelling?
Work and Life
As January sputters into a full hum, many of us are getting back into a rhythm at work after the sleepier pace of the holidays. I loved Roxane Gay’s recent piece in the New York Times, which offers some helpful perspective: Yes, Your Job Is Important. But It’s Not All-Important. For those who can’t see this behind the paywall, here’s two wee excerpts:
“In the United States, we have an obsession with work as a virtue — the harder we work, the closer we are to God. It’s a toxic cultural myth that contributes to the bizarre valorization of people sacrificing almost everything at the altar of an extractive economy.”
“As we think about this new year and what we want our professional lives to look like, we should all take some time to reflect on who we are and what gives us meaning beyond what we do. We should think about how to nurture who we are beyond what we do. The greatest shame would be to reach the end of our lives and have the epitaph read, ‘They worked really hard.’
Related to nurturing who we are beyond what we do, I recently read Your Art Will Save Your Life by Beth Pickens and found so many treasures within.
The book’s message for creatives is: You are an an artist because your vitality, well-being, and happiness are contingent upon making art. Artists wither when they are not creating. Consider your writing/making practice as a core tenet of self-care, analogous to drinking water, getting fresh air, sleeping, and moving—it is that central to your survival.
Although the book was written when the catastrophe of DJT’s election was still fresh and is preoccupied with that specific tragedy in a way that feels distracting in 2023, you can easily substitute any number of traumatizing world events as a stand-in for his presidency and the message will be just as relevant: Misery in the world is not an excuse to abandon your practice; your practice is what will provide clarity around how you can apply your gifts to help the collective.
My three favorite takeaways from the book—
ONE: “Artists have to make art because it’s how they process being alive.”
TWO: “I don’t know lazy artists; I know artists who are living in fear. Here’s why I believe this: Artists have a whole extra job they are compelled to do, one that may or may not yield any income, in addition to their paying jobs and all the other parts of a functioning adult life. This is not the marker of a lazy person or a procrastinator. Artists may not realize this, but we non-artists don’t typically pick up extra, non-paying jobs that contribute to inner anguish. Artists are driven and compelled to make art; the source of this drive is not laziness. But it can be hampered by fear.”
THREE: “You need a foundation comprised of three things that must be balanced in your practice:
1. An ongoing art practice
2. A community of working artists
3. Lots of varied art consumption”
Miscellanea
This Wirecutter piece promising the death of passwords gave me hope. I just don’t think I have any many more passwords left in me, how about you? We are tired.
After years wondering about the origins of the superstition around Friday the 13th, I finally googled it this past Friday, which fell on the 13th of course, and found this fun Vox explainer. There’s more to it, but basically, it’s Chaucer’s fault we think Friday the 13th is unlucky (and the author refers to Chaucer as, “an internet troll before the internet”).
It’s officially been over a year since the web-based puzzle game Wordle stormed into the collective consciousness. I’m a devout wordler as are many of my loved ones—but we all have awful memories and it’s reached the point where we’re getting into disputes over whether or not a word has repeated, or if we’ve ever seen a particular type or tense of word before e.g., the recent past-tense answer LEAPT. Thank goodness for this running list of every single past Wordle answer, organized alphabetically. I’ve got it bookmarked. Consider your wordle-based disputes easily resolved from here on out.
Have you ever been annoyed by internet person and professional contrarian Matt Yglesias? You’re very much not alone, says this Washington Post profile.
We’re a long way off from mosquito season, but if you’ve ever wondered why you get bitten and your companions don’t, this Scientific American piece explains the phenomenon. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer much hope: “Certain compounds in our skin determine how much we attract mosquitoes, new research suggests—and those compounds don’t change much over time.” If you’re a mosquito magnet now (as I am), you’ll probably be that way for life.
And finally, as always, some tweets!
That’s all the discovering for this edition! Thanks for reading.
Until next time, take it easy.
Maggie Smith’s poem is about living in a Manichean world of cohabiting Good and Evil. Although this philosophy was declared heresy by the church centuries ago, it has proven impossible to eradicate. As times darken, Good and Evil have cased to be poles or extremes. They have become coterminous, which has only made for greater and more widespread personal struggle. The fog of this millennial war is everywhere. There is now no other hope of peace but individual calm and clarity.