WHAT I SAW THIS WEEK: 3rd April

ngl lads, i’m not rly feeling this whole art thing atm. not in a ‘i wana quit, i hate art!’ way, in a ‘i cba to go to galleries, i want to have fun and work hard’ kinda way. for some reason gallery trips don’t really come into that whole hard work business.

part of me wants to berate myself for not taking my job very seriously, wants to say ‘get back to it! back into a weekly routine of going to see something’ but then another part of me knows i am busy! i have a book to write! friends to see! places to be! i am too busy having fun i don’t want the party to slow down bc i need to pop into a small room isolated from the rest of the world and look very intently at a thing in that room – now i say it like that that actually sounds quite nice.

but i also know i’ve been engaging with other kinds of culture. here they are, and here’s what i did instead of looking at art.

• i am reading Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet

it’s so nice and soupy, pleasant and sad writing. it doesn’t stretch me, it doesn’t actually ask anything of me. it just scribbles a scene in my mind as i plod along through the text. it’s a nice novel! i can see why it won awards, why it’s still kicking around in shops. it is a good book in a way that is widely agreeable. there’s this nice bit

the writer (lmao, ‘the writer’ – like we don’t know who he is. but in a way, saying his name bursts the bubble of the redirected focus so i get it) ’s wife is speaking to the writer about how their son has j died (not a spoiler, it says that on the blurb, WISE UP!) how can he leave! well, it’s bc there’s a space in his head that is more important, a practice, a place where he must constantly return. i feel like that. it’s funny, we’ve been interviewing artists a lot for Long Term Secret Project that you definitely know about &&&& – they all talk about making art like it is a compulsion, an addiction. they know it doesn’t necessarily bring them money, acclaim, eve acknowledgement. it’s a pretty draining thing to do with your time, effort, money, life. but they have to do it anyway, they are compelled. everytime someone says this exact same thing in agreement with the other people we interview, i smile bc i think the same thing about writing.

writing is, to me, this reflexive practice. this thing i have to do so i stay sane, so i know who what when where and why i am. it just comes out of me, against my will and regardless of quality. it is like a pocket dimension i am transported to, and i simmer around in that pocket dimension like it is just as real as the rest of the world. i have to be there every so often or i start to unravel at my seams. it is a compulsion, i have to do it bc i can’t stop.

it was nice to read a neat sentence that basically mirrored this same sentiment back to me, nice to feel affirmed by a writer writing about a writer. it was also nice to have it described spatially! bc i think about it q spatially too. it’s nice, i liked this. thought i’d share :)

• watched wrestlmania most dramatic entrances

  

they were actually proper dramatic. there are whole storylines, whole theatrical turns of phrase and direction, production!!! it’s art, sentiment, sweaty sweaty drama. love that!

• look at this philip guston painting, isn’t it great?

  

it’s called: Painting, Smoking, Eating (1972) i love it. it’s all my fav things in ONE painting. i wonder how much it costs. someone buy it me for my birthday. thanks!

• wore a jumper w a cow on, felt like a bag lady

  

om ggggg why’s this on its side?? ugh. it’s ok, i’ve come to terms w the fact i am not a style icon.

• spent the bank holiday doing fun things! having a break! i went to the SEASIDE!!!!

  

  

  

  

had a nice time! stomped down the pier, got a fancy lil coffee, sat in the sun like a great big lizard woman – the 3 components that make up my ✨PERFECT DAY!✨

also! went to an aquarium and saw some sea turtles!!! which was really nice bc wow they’re such beautiful gentle majestic creatures. imagine inhabiting the body of a sea turtle!!!?? it’d be soooo strange and different. those big ol alien freaks. lovely!

it was a bit sad tho, lowkey, bc idk if you’ve been to an aquarium recently but it’s like… they’re a bit depressing? the fish are all quite sad and squished and if you think about it they’re meant to be out in the big wide ocean dashing about for miles and miles and racking up the distance like it’s nothing. imagine being squashed into a tank for your entire life? that makes me so sad! i want to go back and pull off a one-woman heist, free all the fish and the turtles and j lead them to the sea on like a liberatory pilgrimmage. free the fish!!! i wonder if that’d be possible. wonder if they’d survive? i hope so. i am now thinking that i’d probably go to jail, but it’d definitely make the news. so, lots to think about.

i also got a tattoo ! DON’T show my dadi! of this tiny CEREMONIAL KNIFE. on my right wrist. it is pointing away from me. as i type it is pointing at my laptop. not to be cheugy or banal or even (god forbid) trite but if the pen is sharper than the sword that feels like a silly measly compromise. i want to write sharp words, have sharp energy, an edge that can slice slice slice for more than j my writing. i want to be precise, make clean cuts, bc maybe sharpness is a kind of virtue. i like that all of my tattoos are like little totems of energies i admire or want to take and plaster across my body in the hope i will absorb them. i think that is a nice way to bumble through the world, collecting images and slapping them across my skin in the hope that they will give me access to different kinds of power (bc images have got a kind of power of their own, a different kind of logic). they are more than decoration, they are TOTEMS! to guide me, i will kiss my cowboy, kiss the knife and write clean and sharp and be free! hopefully lmao.

• i finished watching season 1 of white lotus

  

  then these are j some nice flowers. £14!! can you believe it!?!! – daylight robbery if u ask me.

yeah, finished watching s1 white lotus. i put off watching the last episode bc i wanted the murder to Hit Right, wanted it to be EPIC, a WHODUNNIT for the girlies (ME). tbh i think i was underwhelmed by the actual murder – didn’t care about that bit, there was good suspense but when the bubble of it burst, i was a bit like ‘o…?’ no offence. but i guess it was a b-plot amongst many otehr tangled b-plots.

it was fun! i’ll watch s2 after i finish watching the new love is blind. it j takes me ages to get thru tv bc i literally only watch tv at weekday lunchtimes and when i’m with other people who are wathing tv (which is p rare! not to be That Person about it, it’s not special or interesting, it’s actually v weird if u ask me.) if i’m bored i prefer to read my book or if i want background chat i prefer to listen to a silly lil podcast – tv doesn’t fit well into the shape of my life unless i’m eating lunch and want to turn off my brain for a juicy lil break.

so, tbc on white lotus s2: i’ll get back to you in november when i’ve finally finished it (not joking) but for s1, i thought it was actually very funny, very good. love jennifer coolidge, the alcoholic lunatic – she’s exactly the kind of woman i aspire to be (in fiction and in real life) – so glamorous and carefree! literally, i think she j doesn’t give a single shit and i love that. she does what she wants to do!!!! the two girlies with the racial tension set me on edge, AS IT WAs MEANT TO — there’s j so much to feel in that weird wonky desire and jealousy that white women direct at women of colour. AND THE WRITER LADY WHO MARRIED THE RICH GUY WAS MY IDEA OF FUCKING COMEDY idk if i’m j morbid but what a fascinating character study. psychological, cerebral, i want to invite them all over for dinner and quiz them about their lives, their dreams, their deepest fears. i want to be a fly on the wall in their therapy sessions. i guess that’s the whole and entire point of the show. well done!

:･ﾟ✧(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

hope u had more art in ur week than me – or actually, who cares. as much or as little art as u like. hope u had a good bank holiday. can’t believe u actually read all this way thru, my terrible rambling thoughts. i think i j like using the blog as a literal LITERAL blog. like an internet diary. maybe these follow the tradition of like ~culture diaries! that terrible journalists write for terrible newspapers. hopefully this is more interesting or at least more honest!

goodbye and see u next time love u lots take care etc BYE xxxx