Dispatch #1: Let’s Start at the Very Beginning
The Dispatch #1
Dear friend,
Coming up with a good opening line for this first letter is monstrously difficult, so I shall be sneaky and borrow from one of the best. Here it is: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
L.P. Hartley wrote this indelible sentence to open his novel, The Go-Between in 1953, but don’t you agree that it might also be the perfect phrase to describe this very strange moment we find ourselves in? In our case, even a period as recent as January of this year sometimes seems not just a foreign country, but a different continent altogether. I feel that the comedian Julie Nolke’s video, in which her April 2020 self tries to explain the bewildering trajectory of current world events to her January 2020 self is a perfect encapsulation of Hartley’s words: a bleak comic moment that every one of us can relate to in some small way.
So why start a newsletter? I don’t really have an answer to this (but does anyone really?) The only thing I can say is this—during this weird, precipitous, once-in-a-generation moment, we need art more than ever: to entertain us, to console us, to challenge us and to help us process the strangeness of the way we live now. So this newsletter is a tribute, a record, a love letter to all of this, and hopefully a dialogue too. If you have any thoughts, recommendations or (gentle) quibbles please email me. I would love to hear them, and share them, if you are so generous.
Much love,
Claude
SCRIBBLINGS
Lately I’ve been meditating on the ways in which our lives are more closely in parallel with those who lived during the Medieval period than ever before. If you’re similarly (and whimsically) inclined, might I direct you to the YouTube warblings of Hildegard von Blingin’, who has ingeniously arranged and rewritten contemporary songs into minstrel hits worthy of, well, Hildegard of Bingen. There’s a rather mesmerising version of “Creep” by Radiohead and a winsome “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga, but the best tune currently on offer must be the paean to archery, “Pumped Up Kicks, or henceforth: Buskin Boots.” It’s a parody of passing wondrousness.
If textiles are more your style but actual embroidery is beyond you, consider trying your hand at creating your own (digital) medieval tapestry via the Historic Tale Construction Kit. The possibilities are endless. For example, how great would Lizzo’s lyrics look on a medieval tapestry? If you do make something, please send forthwith.
ART & PODCAST
Consider that this very moment might be a great opportunity for looking. As in gazing, meditating and contemplating a great, big, beautiful piece of artwork type of looking. And if so, why not look—and I mean really look—at one of the biggest and most beautiful of all works, The Night Watch by Rembrandt?
In May this year, the Rijksmuseum published the largest and most detailed photograph of this great work yet taken, allowing you to see details that you likely would never have registered before, even if you have visited it in real life. While you look at this crown jewel of the Dutch Golden Age of Painting, I highly recommend concurrently listening to a very short segment of Simon Schama on the BBC Front Row podcast (starts 20:23), as he guides listeners through the profound drama and detail of the work. It’s a lot of fun. Evan Puschak’s video essay of the painting is also very illuminating too.
BOOKS
In my mind, epistolary novels are highly underrated. It’s such a deliciously readable literary form. Some masochistic part of me has always wanted to read Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, which at 1,534 pages is one of the longest novels ever written in English, is composed entirely of letters and is terribly depressing. I haven’t tackled that book just yet but I do have some (much shorter) recommendations to offer:
The plot of Les Liaisons Dangereuses will be familiar to you if you have ever seen that (fabulously ridiculous) film, Cruel Intentions, but this tale of intrigue and revenge is best served congealed in its original form, in the epistolary novel written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos in 1782. The best modern English translation is said to be Helen Constantine’s as part of the Penguin Classics imprint.
Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster is one of my favourite childhood novels. I still attest that despite an unprepossessing name, Jerusha Abbott is one of the most delightful heroines in all of English literature—an orphan foundling who finds herself attending a very exclusive Ladies College in Boston at the turn of the 20th century. Written in the form of letters to the anonymous titular character (whom Jerusha has only glimpsed as a spider-like shadow), and full of literary tidbits, Daddy Long Legs is a passionate defence for the education of women and is extremely readable—even if its central romance seems kind of unwieldy to modern sensibilities. You can read it for free on Project Gutenberg, but then you’ll miss Webster’s amusing illustrations.
I also recently read The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and loved very much. It’s an epistolary novel of the highest order. More words on it here.
Also: my review of N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became and my review of E.M. Forster’s Where Angels Fear to Tread.
MOVIES
The vivid and haunting Moonlight (2016) directed by Barry Jenkins is finally available on Netflix and so worth your time to watch (or rewatch). A lush tri-portrait of young love, masculinity, queerness and Black identity, it is surely one of the most beautiful films of the last decade.
For a great, Aussie homegrown rom-com that gives you all the wedding tropes you could ever want, but with a heart-on-its-sleeve cultural specificity that makes the film truly special, Top End Wedding (2019) has also been recently released on Netflix.
If you like the idea of an acerbically romantic film that’s also a withering (and still prescient) critique of corporatism, don’t skip The Apartment (1960). Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Apartment is directed by Billy Wilder and stars Shirley MacClaine and Jack Lemmon (Stan).
TELEVISION
If you love flowers and The Great British Bake Off (assume this is so for many reading this), I direct you to The Big Flower Fight (Netflix, pictured above), which is basically The Great British Outdoor Flower Installation Off. It’s both stunning and soothing, and it’s produced in largely the same delightfully cheery format as Bake Off. Perfect for lazy Sunday viewing.
Imagine if your (perfectly loveable) little brother achieves all your wildest dreams and becomes a tween pop star ala Justin Bieber, circa the Baby years. This is the premise of The Other Two (Stan), a tart comedy about two siblings grappling with the fear that their best performing years are behind them, as their brother rapidly becomes a bonafide celebrity. An acute but also rather sweet satire on fame and family.
If you want something twisty but also fun, why not try Imposters (Stan), a darkly funny comedy that focuses on Maddie, a suave trickster who finds herself pursued by three of her marks (The Bumblers) in a highly entertaining revenge plot. There’s something undeniably satisfying about seeing a well-executed con, but this show is also surprisingly open hearted about the reasons why people perform cons, and the ways in which we dissemble our real selves, even with the people we love.
RECIPE
Chicken shawarma, minus the chicken.
This recipe offers just the most magnificent melange of ingredients. In fact it’s so magnificent, that you can delete the eponymous ingredient, and still find yourself with a tremendously moreish dish. Katrina Meynink’s Chicken shawarma tray bake with sweet potato, feta and cranberries published on Good Food features so many foolproof elements (Persian feta, papery thin ribbons of sweet potato, paprika, almonds and honey) that you can remove the chicken from the recipe with little fuss and with fantastic results. If you need a veggie side dish, or prefer a meatless meal, you only need to follow this recipe using the same amounts noted, just sans the chicken. It goes without saying though that this dish is delicious with the chicken as well.