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great(ish) pt 47: space and time and party (politics)
July 19, 2024
Hello! Today: a mishmash. Collective depression, time travel and space travel, party politics (always), girlbands. Article: Welcome to the World’s Happiest...
great(ish) pt 46: oil, fire, sour drinks
April 10, 2024
Hello! I've just come home from an afternoon at the theatre where I saw an excellent updated version of Henrik Ibsen's Pillars of Society. The play is, among...
great(ish) pt 45: clocks, toilets, is the 19th century to blame for everything?
June 4, 2023
Hello! Since I last wrote to you I moved house, I started a new job, I met dozens of new people and spent dozens of hours on trains to Italy. I absorbed,...
great(ish) pt 44: control, low tech, Ibsen
October 13, 2022
Hello! Today: a film about earth and the Earth, an Ibsen play about contaminated water, an essay about control and music by a cellist who sings. I also...
great(ish) pt 43: modernist architecture, Cairo Station, hair like a weasel
July 29, 2022
Hello everyone! Today: a long read about Skopje's fantastic architectural history, a film set in Cairo's main railway station, a collection of Catalan short...
great(ish) pt 42: tree transport; public art; still life
April 22, 2022
Hello and happy Earth Day! Today: public art in Norway; a sad and beautiful Georgian documentary; Argentinian eco-fiction; the paper industry; and a Flemish...
great(ish) pt 41: androids, Ireland, punk rock
January 27, 2022
Hello! Today: a conversation about Irish history, a rom-com starring an academic researching dead languages and a British-coded android, a poem about the...
great(ish) pt 40: shepherds, seasonal music, literature and the market
December 27, 2021
Hello! Today: an interview about literature and the market; a film about Swiss shepherds; a short story collection about being almost happy; and firmly...
great(ish) pt 39: islands, the myth of discovery, Denmark
November 9, 2021
Hello. It’s been a long time, but I’m still here, writing emails! My life has changed quite a lot since the last time I sent out one of these in early June,...
great(ish) pt 38: 80s girlbossing, renaming paintings, supply chains (again)
June 2, 2021
Hello! Today, the unintentional but no less appropriate theme is work: the work of the curator, the work of the 80s girlboss, the work of the PR consultant....
great(ish) pt 37: the myth of the Himalaya, hockey trivia, chairs
May 11, 2021
Hello! Today: an article about the myth of the Himalaya, Chloe Zhao's debut, a novel suffused with "hallucinatory eroticism" (and poetry) and some silly...
great(ish) pt 36: best friends, climbers, getting lost in the Arctic
April 27, 2021
Hello! Today: friendship love vs romantic love; friends who climb together; friends who get stuck in the Arctic together and die together; and, sorry, no...
great(ish) pt 35: gnocchi, teens, expeditions
April 7, 2021
Hello! Today: how outdoor athletes get money to fund their expeditions; a Quebecois film about teenagers; a French-Algerian autobiographical novel about 80s...
great(ish) pt 34: Brahms x 2, Addison Rae, trading for potatoes
March 26, 2021
Hello! Today, yet another longread about the beauty industry, a short Georgian documentary, a short French novel, a Korean drama about classical musicians...
great(ish) pt 33: MLM academia, Farewell Amor, the beauty industry
March 3, 2021
Hello! Is everyone hanging in there? This week, a bunch of things that I've enjoyed over the last month or so but didn't get around to writing up because I...
great(ish) pt 32: baseball, Titanic, logistics
February 10, 2021
Hello! This week, baseball and its employment practices; a new Tessa Thompson film!; a classic novel about friendship and competing orthodoxies; my ongoing...
great(ish) pt 31: heists, gossip, buns
February 1, 2021
Hello! Today: a Frans Hals painting has been stolen for the third time; a Netflix film about archaeology; a novel about boarding school propaganda; a music...
great(ish) pt 30: poetry, Substack, dessert
January 14, 2021
Hello! I hope you're okay-ish. This time, stuff to read, watch, listen to and eat, all of which will hopefully provide some comfort in dreary times: everyone...
great(ish) pt 29: mountaineering, Beowulf, museums (again)
January 5, 2021
Hello! I've been watching Austrian nature documentaries and dreaming about mountains. Today: mountaineering; museumeering; Beowulf; music that makes me feel...
great(ish) pt 28: beasts, travel influencers, romance in train stations
December 8, 2020
Hello! Today, an old British film, a new book translated from Chinese, podcast episodes about LotR, finally learning the truth about Spotify and travel...
great(ish) pt 27: magic flowers, Spanish Destiel, Powerpoint
November 20, 2020
Happy Friday! I managed to cut my fingers twice today. Today, TV and translation, a Forster adaptation, a novel about transformation, and how I party now. I...
great(ish) pt 26: Folklore dancing, headphones, Dune
November 16, 2020
Hello! This week, an article about bad headphones, a film about learning how to set a table, a book about desert imperialism and a video workout that made me...
great(ish) pt 25: Airspace, urban fantasy, Emma
November 9, 2020
Hello. Today’s letter is heavy on distraction and light on anything else: design, urban fantasy, Emma, a lot of random things that have taken my mind off...
greatish pt 24: cathartic reading, possibly fake Leonardo da Vinci, chamberpop
October 30, 2020
Hello! This week, an old article about an art scandal, a film about a Muslim American teenager, a Japanese novel, memes in Thai anti-regime protests and...
great(ish) pt 23: lacrosse teens, pretending, ghosts
October 21, 2020
Hello! This week, sports teens, politics teens, ghosts, trees. Article: The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents by Ruth S....
great(ish) pt 22: high school, space, TikTok
September 21, 2020
Hello! This week, teen and teen-adjacent content: TikTok, a film about high school and a graphic novel about teens in space. Plus, is individual...
greatish pt 21: sweatpants, AOC, Fritz Bauer
September 3, 2020
Hello! I hope you’re well. Today, a conventional historical drama about a remarkable German prosecutor, a classic longread about the fashion industry, AOC...
great(ish) pt 20: Twister, sports journalism, Sufjan
August 19, 2020
Hello! Here's to another week of me showing heroic restraint by not telling you to watch Moneyball. Today: another classic film about people at work, an...
great(ish) pt 19: mushroom houses, Georgian dancers, plums
August 13, 2020
Hello! Today, a beautiful Georgian film, a collection of speculative fiction by writers from China and Hong Kong, a short film about maps and two articles...
great(ish) pt 18: suburban dystopia, Duolingo, lemon cake
July 25, 2020
Hello! Today, a film and a book about teens, an article about the exploitative capitalism that underpins cheap/free language learning, Amsterdam's circular...
great(ish) pt 17: places, spaces
July 11, 2020
Hello. Today: two articles on urban planning, a film about environmental racism, a novel with a strong sense of spatial identity, and a classic of urban...
great(ish) pt 16: space, bronies, Nervous Conditions
June 29, 2020
Hello! Today, as usual, fandom and politics, a film about maths and space, Tsitsi Dangarembga's classic coming-of-age novel, Italian music and a new section...
great(ish) pt 15: coffee, Ousmane Sembène, learning
June 21, 2020
Hello! Today: the history of coffee, a Senegalese film from the 60s, short stories about the lives of Malaysian women and free access to academic books and...
great(ish) pt 14: reggae, K-pop stans, rage
June 4, 2020
Hello! This tinyletter is usually meant to be an informed alternative to real life, but I've spent the last couple of weeks online in a spiral of rage, how...
great(ish) pt 13: Aragorn, borders, dancing
May 25, 2020
Hello! Today's letter is brought to you by my hormone-induced bad mood. I'm skipping my scheduled corporate feminism-related rants and am bringing you only...
great(ish) pt 12: papyri, the desert, deodorant
May 16, 2020
Hello! It's the weekend! This morning I danced around the kitchen to this song while holding my disgruntled cat and eating a vegan mushroom sausage. Today: a...
great(ish) pt 11: online consensus, Nora Ephron, relationships
May 11, 2020
Hello! Today, cyber-utopians and populist politics, ambient music, Nora Ephron and an anthology about relationships. What have *you* been watching and...
great(ish) pt 10: millennial women, Disobedience, more music
May 8, 2020
Hello! Today, an article about millennial women in art, a rainy London film, two excellent books about growing up in Nazi Germany, and rediscovering Aimee...
great(ish) pt 9: wine, Magic, buns and Napoleon (again)
May 4, 2020
Hello! I was asked just now if I'll continue writing this newsletter as things change, and the answer is: you bet. Today, an article and a film about how...
great(ish) pt 8: rebel architecture, Captain America, fate (again)
April 24, 2020
Hello! It's Friday! Today I'm recommending the best superhero franchise film of all time, one of my favourite writers, a great essay on religion and drugs,...
great(ish) pt 7: Marie Antoinette, Harry Potter, Dakar
April 20, 2020
Hello! I'm back again because I thought you might be craving some benign content. Today: a beautiful film set in Dakar, saucy French cartoons, one of my...
great(ish) pt 6: scams, metres, baking
April 17, 2020
Hello! Today: the scam of all scams, the most soothing Youtube content of all time, plus some all-time favourites – 1) the history of the metre and 2) a...
great(ish) pt 5: museums, rom-coms, Alexander the Great
April 8, 2020
Hello! Today: decolonising museums, a favourite mediocre rom-com, classic historical novels about Alexander the Great and my one and only attempt to become a...
great(ish) pt 4: terrible brands, Jimmy Stewart, my favourite podcast
April 6, 2020
Hello! Today: a movie double bill about political corruption, feminism as a brand, my favourite sad male author and... a podcast about celebrities. Plus, the...
great(ish) pt 3: stars, hands, ants
April 1, 2020
Hello! Today: getting to the bottom of why all my friends know what their star signs say about them... plus a beautiful French film about a severed hand, an...
great(ish) pt 2: Arctic crime, Edith Wharton, an architecture indie film
March 25, 2020
Hello! I've decided to send this email out whenever I feel like it, because I reckon we all need more inane, friendly content in our inboxes right now. Here...
great(ish) pt 1: soothing content ONLY!
March 22, 2020
Hello! This is where I share things that I enjoy: my backlog of articles about awful millennial start-ups and remote Arctic towns; nice books that don't make...