Because the soup is getting cold
hello,
It just occurred to me. This is supposed to happen the first Sunday of the month isn’t it? Ah well. Sorry. World turned upside down. The times, they continue to be interesting.
With just this amount of ado |←→| here are 5 things:
I’m sure many of you will have seen this. But isn’t it nice to know there’s a Portobello Public Pencil Sharpening Project. It feels like a hangover from a time when we thought the internet was going to be nice.
I’m always surprised Tamara Shopsin isn’t a bigger deal (in the UK, I guess). Her sort-of-fictional books are just brilliant. LaserWriter II is the newest one. Essential for all fans of Halt and Catch Fire. Highly recommended for everyone else. Arbitrary Stupid Goal is equally good, especially if you eat food or have been in a family. (That last one is an affiliate link. Always Be Monetising)
I’ve been reading If You Should Fail by Joe Moran; a useful counter-blast to the ‘failure is necessary to success’ movement, though I’m sure Mr Moran would find the word counter-blast much too strident. Mostly, failure is just failure. But that doesn’t have to mean despair. I especially liked discovering that Leonardo Da Vinci’s final words in his notebook were: “Perché la minestra si fredda” (‘because the soup is getting cold’). That’s why he didn’t have time to solve a Euclidian problem about triangles. I know how he feels. (Another affiliate link, that)
I love this bit of The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (more affiliation)
“I let the bath drain while I was still in the tub, a habit I was attached to, the way the receding water pulled at the body, dragged it down while returning its substance, gravity, density, making the body heavier and heavier as the waterline sank. Finally, there was no water, just bones like lead.”
and this bit
“Gasoline was a summertime smell. Long solstice days. The rangy Doppler of a lawn mower.”
and
“The important matter of small-town hair.”
And while we’re talking about soup, this I also love this bit of Victoria Coren (yes):
‘It’s raining soup, and I’m standing out here with a fork.’
Commercial break: We made some posters based on Everything I Know About Life I Learned From PowerPoint. (obvs) If you fancy buying one, you can.
Thank you for your kind attention.
(There are 755 of you. Miniscule 755 is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament written on paper. None of those are affiliate links.)
See you in 2022.