Cecily Brown, Untitled (Paradise), 2014
Hello! I am in Tulum right now at a wedding. It’s very nice! It feels like I haven’t been home for a complete week since mid-December and I’m intensely fantasizing about my desk and bed. At the same time, I’ve done three trips this month with friends and I’m increasingly coming to believe that Doing Things with your loved ones is the point of life (S reminded me on the phone that I’ve been vowing to travel less for, oh, about four years at this point). I’m trying to adopt that as the official philosophy for Bookbear Express, too—more lightness, more experimentation, more willingness to go along with the bit.
I’ll be back with a longer post on Sunday but for now:
Another round of matchmaking is open—we have ~400 people signed up and I’d love to double that :) (It’s $5 but I’m happy to refund you if we can’t match you or you’re unhappy.)
I’m doing a matchmaking party at Green Apple Books on February 10th—please register if you’re interested! I opened it up to paid subscribers first and we’ve filled around half the spots. I’m trying to make it demographically balanced based on existing attendees so I won’t be able approve all the signups, but there will be more in the future and I will give you first priority if you sign up and I can’t get you in this time.
I’m not done yet but I’m really enjoying The Motherload—super sharp and interesting portrait of the art world, of the author’s marriage, and of motherhood itself. I was reading it on the plane ride to Cancun and found it totally gripping.
I really liked this piece about the Met’s Buddhist mandala exhibition: “Either way, you are doing with your eyes what Buddhism says you can do with your life: proceeding from outer to inner, base to noble, ignorant to enlightened. The crawl from one to the other matters as much as the enlightenment itself—skipping the charnel grounds isn’t an option”
Emma Corrin and Maggie Nelson on vulnerability:
M.N.: [Getting published in] The New Yorker or in the trade presses wasn’t a badge of honor per se. There were people who demonstrated the kind of career that I wanted. Eileen [Myles] in particular was like, “Don’t write a bad book.” When I think about my 20s, I think of the phrase “an age of striving” … and not even knowing [what we were] striving toward.
People, especially young women, will sometimes ask me questions about confidence, and I don’t mean this to sound cocky, but that was not the question [I struggled with]. The question was not self-doubt. It was more like, “Where are you reading tonight?” or “What are you reading now?” It was a constant output into the world. And it was fun. Some of the fun is [in having only] the eyes of your peers on you. With more eyes, there’s more work to do
I really enjoyed C.S. Lewis’ An Experiment on Criticism. Such a great meditation on books and taste.
Found the Neil Gaiman story very sad and disturbing, especially because his predatory behavior seems to have started relatively late in life. I love American Gods so much when I first read it. I’ve been thinking a lot about Alice Munro too and the way we so easily fall into believing we understand the artists we love.