this week’s Thought (singular)
no thoughts this week ladies, only the vague and foreboding feeling of having left a part of yourself behind every time you board a flight
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that they never miss the train again. thank you for joining us. may you reach the platform well on time and even get a place to sit to boot.
hi
this issue is inspired by the following tweet (which has been included with permission from the author).
it was a very lovely thread, with each reply containing increasingly beautiful and painful and gorgeous combinations of art, poetry, and prose that revolve around a specific theme - a collection of web weaves.
although i’ve come across countless web weaves in the past few years, - seeing as how they began to grow in prominence on tumblr at first - i only really considered their significance and appeal after seeing the above thread, after seeing delightful row after delightful row of compilations of media that seemed to interlink so perfectly.
it drew my attention to the ideas of how we interact with media and art, and how we find interconnectedness in themes across all the culture we consume. how i think of the word ‘grief’, and a painting1, a verse2, an article3 will rush to the forefront of my mind. how i eat a cucumber and remember the smell of the cucumber juice i was given during a third-grade field trip, and i’ll think of the themes of childhood and its ephemerality and however bad the juice tasted, the ensuing grumbles of affront and disgust from my batchmates will forever remain a moment of unity and bonding - ripe plucking ground for a web weave.
the verb ‘to weave’ itself makes me think of tapestries, makes me imagine cloth woven together by different, otherwise disconnected threads. from another angle, how lovely that across history, countless artists and poets and authors and lyricists and other assorted saving graces have felt the same joy, the same pain, and translated that emotion to art so beautifully that today, this minute, in a specific moment in time, we get to put it all together to express our own?
it’s been a few issues since i told you this phrase, but i’m afraid it’s time to bring it back into circulation - this one is a bit all over the place. if you have a favourite web weave (or a favourite anything, actually), i’d be honoured to see it.
English Recitation Competition
Good Bones, Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
Castnet Seafood, Karisma Price
We chew the back meat of the unlucky things, stew in the love that surrounds us like a pot with our spines and heads still attached. Look at what the brain makes the muscle do: remember. Joy is the membrane covering us, the tissue that keeps a family situated around a table when they could be running from one another. My uncle taps the murky glass to make the orphaned thing move. He turns to us: Could you imagine us living like that? All hard on the outside with an exoskeleton? No, no I can’t. There’s so much in us. We’d fall apart.
The Forest Road, Charlotte Mew
The forest road, The infinite straight road stretching away World without end: the breathless road between the walls Of the black listening trees: the hushed, grey road Beyond the window that you shut to-night Crying that you would look at it by day— There is a shadow there that sings and calls But not for you. Oh! hidden eyes that plead in sleep Against the lonely dark, if I could touch the fear And leave it kissed away on quiet lids— If I could hush these hands that are half-awake, Groping for me in sleep I could go free.
The Good Side of the Internet
(subscribe to my standalone publication
for consolidated and extra links at the end of each month!)When was the last time you howled with laughter? from
Delight is no joke.
TV Recaps Taught Me How to Write Criticism
They provided a blueprint by showing the critical apparatus in a container transparent enough that I could see the inner workings.
My boyfriend, a writer, broke up with me because I’m a writer
The ability to bend an inch at a time while seeming to stand up straight is a useful and gendered skill
I don't need to arrive at a lesson after every traumatic event. from
I used to brag about how high my tolerance for pain was, but now I don’t wish to wear that tolerance with pride. I see the need to do so was out of a place to ensure I wasn’t a burden to other people. I’m not, though, so if I’m in pain and I need help, I should get help.
Every “chronically online” conversation is the same
At what point does discourse become punishment?
Middle School Book Review
your regularly scheduled book recommendation has been temporarily halted. watch this space over the coming weeks so you don’t miss the next one!
find all shared books here.
A Picture!
this week’s Song
Dhoondti Firaan by The Yellow Diary and AKASA
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3
yes? no? maybe? let me know!
from Greensickness by Laurel Chen
My wild grief didn’t know where to end.
Everywhere I looked: a field alive and unburied.
Whole swaths of green swallowed the light.
All around me, the field was growing. I grew out
My hair in every direction. Let the sun freckle my face.
Even in the greenest depths, I crouched
Towards the light. That summer, everything grew
So alive and so alone. A world hushed in green.
Wildest grief grew inside out.
