Bits #28
delulu is the solulu
Under the paywall today, you will find two mini essays: on the Jerry Springer documentary (and why reality TV wouldn’t exist without it); and on With Love, Meghan (about which I attempt to have an original thought.)
I adore World Book Day and not just because it lands on my birthday. My kids went as Rainbow Grey, Peter Rabbit and generic chick. I’m always stunned by the level of artistry—3 little pigs in Year six built entire houses—but I’m most endeared by the crappier ‘fits. One of the best eps of Motherland is when Julia chucks an umbrella at her son and tells Amanda it’s a book by Will Self
The Women’s prize longlist has been announced and of the 16 entries, I have read and enjoyed 7: The Ministry of Time, All Fours, Fundamentally, Tell Me Everything, The Dream Hotel (write-up coming next week), Dream Count (also coming next week) and Nesting. Can’t make my mind up on what I want to win…
10/10 for this:
Who knew that rodents can give CPR? When a mouse finds another mouse unresponsive it performs—I can’t believe I am typing this—“mouse to mouse resuscitation”
Forget the hate follow, it’s all about the anti-fan, writes Shirley Li for The Atlantic. The fodder for parody is typically predictable—Blake Lively, Emilia Perez—but for the art to be good, it’s got to do more than just hate. It has to have “authentic appreciation for the material being judged. [Actor Michael] Pavano may be mocking Lively’s performance, but he’s also studying it closely”
Millie Bobby-Brown is admirably candid on the social cost of child fame, in the recent issue of Vanity Fair:
“I don’t have many friends… I didn’t go to school, so I don’t have the best social skills when it comes to people my own age and friendships. I struggle with that quite a bit.”
Michael Sheen is my celebrity of the week (although I will never understand how debt can be sold)
My favourite thing on the internet this week is this copiously re-shared thread by @alimilne on the everyday things women do “to feel more whimsical”. The responses are so niche and delightful. Here are a handful:
❃ “if I want to have negative thoughts about myself I have to think them in a cockney accent”
❃ “I say ‘my lady’ whenever I walk past a mirror”
❃ “I tell my dishes it’s bath time”
❃ “I like drinking water at night out of small wooden bowls. It makes me feel like I’m being nursed back to health by spirits”
One of mine—to offset how much I hate mornings—is that that I do a half cartwheel/round-off out of the bed and finish like I’m in the Olympics. Please share yours, I cannot get enough of how daft and feel-good these whimsies are
I totally forgot about this! Last month I wrote a letter to ‘my future self’ for The Guardian (in partnership with Clarins). Here’s an extract:
“My 30s so far have been a decade of chaos, of three young children, of learning to be a mother (a lesson that never ends), of growing and burning out, and growing and burning out … I hope that a decade from now, you are in your era of clarity. A time to know yourself a little better, a time to reflect a little more. For learning the piano again. For relearning Spanish! Perhaps you are still flying by the seat of your pants – never leaving enough time for anything, always racing out the door with one shoe on – but I’m hopeful you’re a little less of a bone-tired husk.”
The thing about brand campaigns which mimic pap shots is that there is an impossible dissonance: they look great—the candidness, however faux, is infinitely more appealing than ‘straight’ styling—but they are based on a horrific period of celebrity culture (the paparazzi gold rush of the 90s/ 00s) which lends a basenote of unease. Often, the campaigns reference Princess Di and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy who were both known to be driven to absolute misery by the paparazzi. One of those initially cool marketing ideas that blanches when you hold it up to the light
