Tons of reading recs for you, this Friday eve. But first - some tidbits from the week…
Delighted to learn that there is an actual name for mishearing lyrics - a mondegreen. The author of this newsletter thought for many years that ‘Out of Reach’ by Gabrielle was ‘Powderine’ (not a word) and ‘Drinking in LA’ by Bran Van 3000 was ‘Swimming in a Lake’.
Another absurd word that thrilled me this week - brobdingnagian, which simply means: colossal.
I picked up a pouch of Fiid’s smokey black bean chilli the other day - a revelation! Tasty, easy and the same price as a sandwich. I added cheese and rice to mine and foresee myself eating it twice a week forevermore.
This piece by Freya India on why Gen Z need moral direction gave me a lot of pause for thought. India, a twenty-something writer who regularly contributes to Jonathan Haidt’s After Babel, is an astute societal commentator with a trad bent. I don’t agree with all of what she writes, but this piece grabbed my attn because: firstly, my own 2020 essay collection begun, too, with what I saw as an ambient anxiety among young women about how to live and what to believe in; secondly, because I’ve become increasingly conflicted by the concept creep of ‘boundaries’ and therapy speak; and thirdly, because I despise how commercialised wellness and self-care has become. Writes India:
“If we feel anxious today we are advised to analyse our past and problems and relationships, rarely our own character. We are asked what would make us happy, never what would make us honourable. We are told to love ourselves, with little care for how we conduct ourselves. We are reminded to find self-respect and self-esteem, forgetting that these things are earned. Self-development is more about ice baths and breathwork than becoming a better person. Living authentically is more about buying products. So much talk about mental health and so little about morality—how we orient our lives, our private code of conduct, whether we even have an overarching sense of good guiding us.”
The whole piece is worth a read. Would love - if you have any - to know your thoughts.
I fell down into one of my regular Google Holes, after mentioning Rachel Cusk in the last letter - and came across ‘Raising Teenagers’, a 2015 piece by Cusk for The New York Times. I read a lot about the raising of tiny people/ the navigating of young motherhood - so it felt refreshing to read about teens. Funny, acutely observed, terrifying.
“Adolescence, it strikes me, shares some of the generic qualities of divorce. The central shock of divorce lies in its bifurcation of the agreed-upon version of life: There are now two versions, mutually hostile, each of whose narrative aim is to discredit the other. Until adolescence, parents by and large control the family story. The children are the subject of this story, sure enough, the generators of its interest or charm, but they remain, as it were, characters, creatures derived from life who nonetheless have their being in the author’s head… But it is perhaps unwise to treasure this story too closely or believe in it too much, for at some point the growing child will pick it up and turn it over in his hands like some dispassionate reviewer composing a coldhearted analysis of an overhyped novel. The shock of critique is the first, faint sign of the coming conflict, though I wonder how much of what we call conflict is in fact our own deserved punishment for telling the story wrong, for twisting it with our own vanity or wishful thinking, for failing to honor the truth.”
At dinner with friends this week, I introduced a game to the table that was met with a poor show of enthusiasm - and then turned out to be so fun that everyone ate their words. (And no, it wasn’t Dobble, or Uno, although those are also MVPs in my household.)