In Praise of Cats

I have just started reading Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain.

When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there - in sunny weather - stretched at till length, asleep and blissful, with her furry belly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then that house was complete, and its contentment and peace were made manifest to the world by this symbol, whose testimony is in-fallible. A home without a cat - and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat - may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

I must entirely agree with Mark Twain here. A cat absolutely completes a home and reminds me of all the wonderful cats who’s company as companions I have revered and lavished affection on!

Just Give me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie

This week I have finished reading Just Give me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie by Maya Angelou. This was the first time that I have actually read anything by Angelou. I was throughly absorbed and read many of them aloud to myself in the flat. Dog earred favourites are:

Late October: Sprinkle down the tiny sound of little dyings

In a Time: In a time of furtive sighs/ Sweet hellos and sad goodbyes/ Half truths told entire lies

Sounds like Pearls: Roll off the tongue…to grace this eager ebon ear. Doubt and fear, ungainly things, with blushings disappear.

Times-Square-Shoeshine-composition: (go look it up and sing it to yourself)

My Guilt: My sin is “hanging dying from a tree”/I do not scream/ it makes me proud. I take to dying like a man

Here’s to Adhearing: I went to a party in Hollywood, the atmosphere was shoddy, the drinks were good and that’s where I heard you laugh…

Poor Girl: You’ve got another love and I know it/ Someone who adores you just like me/ Hanging on your words like they were gold/Thinking that she understands your soul/ Poor Girl/ Just like me.

Alone: Lying, Thinking/ Last night/ how to find my soul a home where water is not thirsty/ and bread loaf is not stone/ I came up with one thing/ And I don’t believe I’m wrong/ That nobody, but nobody/ Can make it out here alone.

Wonder: A day/ drunk with the nectar of/ nowness/ weaves its way between the years

Take Time Out: When you see her/ Barefoot in the rain/ and you know she’s tripping/ on a one way train/ you need to ask/ what’s all the/ lying and the/dying/ and the running and /the gunning/ all about. Take Time Out.

I have found Angelou’s poetry to be musical, sad, poignant. I appreciate the world weariness of a soul who has experienced much in their life and is able to speak from the heart about it. Of the injustices they have faced, to speak of discrimination, loneliness and heartbreak with direct frankness. An apt observer of life she sees it all for its beauty in all its contradictions and allows to reader to empathise with her like any good soul singer does. She does not shy away from the pain of life but invites you to sit in those feelings with her and admire the beauty of the natural world. To take all in hand and hold in it perspective and still find things to reflect on that make life worthwhile.

Rereading Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar in context with The Barbizon

I have read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar about three times. I have also read The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren, an equal amount of times. I think prior to reading The Barbizon I did not entirely grasp the social context and period of history in which The Bell Jar is set. Sylvia Path lived at the Barbizon in the summer of 1953. The Bell Jar, borrows heavily from her own life. Esther Greenwood lives in The Amazon, a women’s hotel, with the other eleven girls who work as guest editors and with upper class girls training to be secretaries. In Bren’s book, The Barbizon she chronicles the experiences of such real life women and the hundred and thousands like them, who stayed at the hotel. More then the biography of a building, the book is an absorbing social history of labour and women’s rights in NYC. The story arc of the kind of women who stayed at the Barbizon from the 1930s-1970s to an extent mirrors my own. An independent minded young woman leaves her small country town and sets off to pursue her dream- she seeks her fortune in the big city. Except these large women’s hotels did provide that advantage of company of one’s own age. My own journey of moving to London to find work in the Film Industry, was a good deal more solitary in the beginning and is now populated with a wonderful community of friends that feel like family to me.

Did you know that the Unsinkable Molly Brown of the Titanic lived at The Barbizon? Contending with Flappers? Generations of women at different stages of the feminist movement rubbed shoulders at the Barbizon. The older generation would sit in the lobby downstairs chiding the young ones who went out the door. On the Corner of East Sixty-third Street and Lexington Avenue, a stage of films and novels, the Barbizon was a mainstay of society pages. Actresses like Grace Kelly and Liza Minnelli resided at the hotel in their formative years. It’s very existence is a reflection of the class and sexual politics of the twentieth century. Look no further then the boast of Malachy McCourt, brother of Frank McCourt of Angela’s Ashes fame. Malachy liked to boast that he had managed to get up the stairs of the Barbizon, to have his way with a resident, where no men were permitted. NYC once had more than a hundred hotels, in a time when living in a hotel was more of a possibility. Places like the Algonquin and the Carlyle- where President Kennedy kept an apartment. Most of these hotels were curiosities of long since reformed real estate and fire safety regulations- so long as guests did not have kitchens in their rooms, why not? Some such hotels opened in the 19th century, though most were built around the the time of the First World War. Living in a hotel is a novel experience that genuinely feels anachronistic. When travelling for work I have lived in Hotels. It is liberating and strange. I think one of my favourite facts about the Barbizon is that despite the redevelopment, behind a door on the fourth floor in this building- lies a portal to a different time. There are still women who came to reside at the Barbizon in the fifties and never left. Amongst the expensive redeveloped apartments, there are women who live on the fourth floor and pay around $113 dollars a month in rent. They have their original deal. That are provided with maid service two days a week, a front of desk staff to take her messages, and a private bricked terrace at the end of her hall.

A room of one’s own is indeed vital to any creative endeavour. You need to have control over your own time. The Book that I have just read for Rebel Book Club The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel reflects on how financial freedom exercates us from the mundaneness of pure survival. However, such freedom can only ultimately be obtained if we observe roughly five rules in how we think about money. One. Know what is enough. Two. Don’t be greedy. Three. Don’t compare yourself to Others. Four. Frugality Pays. Five. Small consistent gains pay off in the long run. I think that women’s endeavours for financial freedom and inexorably linked to agency in our own lives and how we get to spend our time. The greatest takeaway for me from the Psychology of Money is;

The Ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend that money pays.-P81, The Psychology of Money

I think that Sylvia has a deeply witty, observant sense of humour born out of her struggle with mental illness. I think that it must have been incredibly difficult to be that bright and to live within those societal expectations with such a narrow list of ways in which to make money and the expectation that she wouldn’t work after marriage. I am sympathetic to how such boundaries could drive someone to despair. Last year, I visited Jane Austen’s cottage where she lived with her mother and her sister before tragically dying at he age of 41. Chawton village was tiny. The Austen’s were beholden to the charity of her brother Edward. Who was adopted by Thomas and Elizabeth Knight and eventually inherited their estates at Godmersham, Kent, Chawton and Hampshire. Living in Chawton in the 19th century must have been deafeningly quiet. My friend and I reflected on how living one day at a time like that…and when your only possible way out was marriage- must have been difficult and desperately claustrophobic. There were references in Jane Austen’s letters to occasionally indulging in a drop of Laudanum in her evening tea. I don’t blame her. May I also add that Jane Austen was an excellent maker and sewer- indeed the neatest of the party.

Continuing in a feminist lease, although slightly off topic, a quote from Letters to Change The World: Pankhurst to Orwell has my soul singing.

To be militant in some way or other is, however a moral obligation. It is a duty which every woman will owe to her own conscience and self respect, to other women who are less fortunate than herself, and to all those who are to come after her. -Emmeline Pankhurst

Paperback Café

I have just spent the morning at paperback café in Ealing reading the first ten chapters of Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night. It is situated across from St. Mary’s Church and a little shop called 50 Shades of Taupe. The cinnamon roll was excellent and the coffee is deep, rich and strong. I really like the tin mugs. I’m really looking forward to reading Alice Winn’s latest release from last year- alas I am 60th in line for a paperback copy. My favourite maxim from Mother Night so far is nation of two.

Only one thing counted-

The nation of two.

And when that nation ceased to be, I became what I am today and what I always will be, a stateless person.

Those Red Soles

Laboutin shoes. They were Gorgeous. It was the wrap on The Bubble. I got to try them on. Most expensive shoes with which my little feet have ever been graced. I took an appreciative strut around the costume department floor. Sadly, these shoes were assets and not for sale. They were also more then half my monthly rent. So they went to the big Netflix’s asset store in the sky. When we pack off costumes at the end of a shoot, they all go to where we cannot follow… imagine the great fun of that expensive designer warehouse in the sky….

Atonement by Ian McEwan

I have recently reread Ian McEwan’s Atonement and rewatched the film. I have not read this book since I was seventeen.

I have found myself drawn to contemplating the character of Briony and to considering why I find her so unlikeable, comparing the film and the novel to try and draw out my distaste. I enjoyed the vignette at the end of the film version of Atonement. Where an older Briony within an author’s interview reflects on her final novel, revealing that she is dying. She has been diagnosed with vascular dementia. Consequently, It will be soon be difficult for Briony herself, to truly discern what is fact, past, present and fiction. As her dementia progresses, will she be able to trust her own eyes and her interpretation of reality?

Atonement will be her last novel. As it is revealed that Briony has given Robbie and Cecelia a happy ending in which they are reunited after being separated for many years. A future in which Robbie will be able to marry Cecelia and in his own words, live without shame. In reality, they were separated by Robbie’s sentence and subsequent imprisonment, and the outbreak of WW2. Robbie and Cecelia never saw each other again. At this point in the story, we have witnessed the full scope of the havoc of Briony’s childhood testimony against Robbie and its consequences. Briony’s testimony that saw with her own eyes her cousin Lola being raped by Robbie lead to his false imprisonment as a rapist. I think the fact that Briony walked in on Robbie and Cecelia in the infamous library scene, prior to her witnessing Lola’s attack is significant. Did the shock of her sister making love to Robbie in the library and her immature understanding of the nature of adult intimacy, ultimately colour what she saw later? The sense that we can make of a situation is incredibly subjective, based what we already know or what we have been indoctrinated to believe. Truth can be fungible. Briony in that moment did not understand what was inappropriate to her. What we understand as the truth is filtered through our experience and informs our interpretation. We cannot always trust what we attest to see with our own eyes. It is this conviction to one’s interpretation of a situation, that leads Briony to regret her actions and atone through fiction later in life.

All of which leads, in my mind, to a little more sympathy for Briony's fatal testimony in the book. Although changing the ending feels like deus ex machina, can we place that much blame on a child with a limited understanding of adult relationships?

In the film, the consequences of her actions are clear, but her motivations seem fairly simple. She endeavours to tell the truth of what she saw to right a wrong. Comparatively, within the original text Briony’s conviction’s seem vastly complex, caught up in a web of justification and self-invention, in her triumphantly over-the-top image of herself. The childish, creative arrogance that leads her to imagine herself an Olympic nettle-whacker in the scene above similarly leads her to imagine herself as a righter of wrongs and a champion of justice when she accuses Robbie. But it's even more complicated than that-she's also caught up in her transition between childhood and adulthood. In her writer's sense of narrative balance, and in her resentment over the fact that she wants to be mysterious and important, but she completely lacks secrets.

Nothing in her life was sufficiently interesting or shameful to merit hiding; no one knew about the squirrel's skull beneath her bed, but no one wanted to know. None of this was particularly an affliction; or rather, it appeared so only in retrospect, once a solution had been found…

To conclude this think piece, maybe this longing for secrets makes her less sympathetic. Her longing for experience that is expressed in her propensity to not tell the truth. An instinct to want to embroider, to lie, refashion reality. She puts words in Lola’s mouth it was Robbie Certainly in the book, she's a far more nuanced character, but maybe understanding her will just make readers hate her more. Anyone can get something wrong; it takes a particularly complicated, self-important, and childish conscience to get things this wrong. To misidentify a rapist. Which is why I must conclude that what she saw was filtered though her lack of understanding. What I dislike most is what this has to say about authors- that as Neil Gaimen puts it- all stories are pretty lies spun from the truth. Stories that lack truth can lack conviction and inhabit the suspension of disbelief. Briony’s childhood longing for secrets is phyric as she finds herself saddled with the load stone her adult understanding of events and thus her grown up regrets that ultimately give weigh to her stories as a novelist later in life. It has been noted that reading fiction is an empathic experience that can teach us to feel more broadly by immersing us in the lived or imagined lived experience of an ‘Other’.

Briony asks what value could a reader gain from knowing the truth of Robbie and Cecelia’s separation and deaths in its entirety? Especially when she lays out that she has tried to put forward and fully honest account of events in her last novel. What hope has complete honesty to offer? That we live in a world that lacks second chances and that consequences lead to regrets that are immutable? I think that through denying the conflict of the situation with the happy ending- Briony is being self indulgent, but then again she is a dying woman. She regrets not having the courage in the war to visit her sister before she died in the flooding of Balham station in October 1940 during the Blitz. This is where I have the least sympathy for her- in her cowardice. To quote my all time favourite Novel The Master and Margherita Cowardice is indeed the greatest sin. As cowards seek to save themselves both pain and humiliation by not confronting truth or avoiding stepping outside their comfort zone in life. A great quote that has stuck with me recently is a ship is safe in its harbour, but that’s not what ships are for…

On other reading notes, I have just finished reading Stolen Focus which is the book of the month at Rebel Book Club. Love those events and I will certainly make the next meeting. I am currently reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night and in non-fiction I’m reading Letters to Change the World. I also recommend Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagen and I’m curious to read his other book Be Near Me.

If your fond of sand dunes & salty air…..

I am so sorry for having not updated this blog since January! I am a disgrace. In my defence I have been busy making movies and travelling. I am currently on location in Malta subject to my NDA. Where I have been living in a five star hotel & spa for several weeks. Due a joint strike of both screenwriters and actors filming has paused on the production I’m on. I can give you a hit as to which one that is- Colosseum. Rome. A Man in his 80s still making movies. Features prominent young up and coming Irish actor who was the male lead in Normal People.

Malta has helped me focus despite the current blistering heat of the Cerberus heatwave. I have been drawing and reading a lot.

I’m going to batch write a number of reviews of the books I have been reading while on location. Which are going to drop each Wednesday at 11am. If I can!

Please note the picture below of the lace bookmark. It was hand crafted on Gozo. Gozo is stunningly Beautiful. Gozo and Malta have a long tradition of lacemaking. I purchased this bookmark along with a broad lace collar and a silk shawl with lace insets near  it-Tempji tal-Ġgantija. I resisted buying the very expensive shawl… for the moment. There were also numerous doilies on display of irrefutably good workmanship. The lovely shop owner explained that the lacecraft was dying in the village of Ggantija and that the young people of the village were not keen to learn it from their elders. Although the doilies are beautiful… I cannot help but reflect that doilies peaked in the mid 19th century and did go out of fashion in the late 1930s. As a keen crafter, I’m not sure if doilies are going to save Gozo’s lacemaking traditions. I think my only doily purchase shall be ironic. To top my 1930s sewing cabinet and to prevent a ring forming from the vase of flowers I’d aspire to maintain on its walnut lid. I really think some initiative needs to be taken to make something a little more sexy than doilies to save lacemaking in Ggantija.

May I add that the day I choose to visit Gozo it was 37 degrees. I prepared myself by dressing head to toe in white linen and lace accessorised with a satin Chinese sunshade. I took respite in the black cat café in Victoria which was run by a lovely pair of Australians. A Delicious salmon & Avo bagel accompanied with a iced coffee later I was ready to visit Ggantija’s famous temple. After visiting the temple and the lace shop I then visited the salt pans and I was so overheated…it was forty degrees…I folded my clothes and I threw myself into the Mediterranean sea in my slip. I dried off in the sun at the beach’s tuck shop while enjoying a lemoncello spritz before hightailing back to the ferry port.

While our production is on hold, what shall I do with myself? I guess my tax return calls and I shall return to Ratoath for a visit in August. I often think that possessing the time to do whatever I like makes me feel like a 19th century landed gentry. It’s in those moments I literally have all the time in the world… and often so much I’m at a loss to do with it.

I have recently just finished reading John Van Epp’s How To Avoid Falling In Love With A Jerk And I’m currently reading an easy novel full of heart called The Authenticity Project by Claire Pooley.

Other titles I have read while in Malta:

The Post Office Girl by Stephen Zwig

I am, I am, I am by Maggie O’Farrell

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

The Tastemaker by Tony King

Let’s Talk by Nihal Arthanayake

Can’t Even by Anne Helen Peterson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

A crack in Creation by Jennifer Doudna

Good Omens- by Neil Gaimen & Terry Prachett (Third Time ahead of prime releasing the TV adaptation’s second season)

And… Chapter 8

I am one stride at a time. I am still working my way through Ulysses by James Joyce. So far, dear old Jim has tried to weaponise language, in a way to put me off comprehending him a number of times. James Joyce must have had a busy mind. If Ulysses represents just over a day- do we ever stop to consider how many thoughts we have in a day? Although I do find value in his stream of consciousness, the raw honesty, the details, how language appears in the mind and on the lips… the unique sound of Dublin…how thoughts often crop up unbidden…how we all have a different voice… He has been obscene, obscure and obtuse. It’s like following someone around the town and they keep trying to give you the slip into a crowd- kicking trash cans down in their wake. He has thrown multiple cultural references out of the frame of my context, he has been deliberately rude, he has used Jewish slurs. He is walking me through a Dublin I don’t recognise. I understand why challenging the passivity and expectations of an audience is important. One of my favourite examples of this is John Cage’s 4’ 33. Everything we do is music. Are you still following me through Dublin Amy? Oh Yes Jim…Mr. Bloom.

As the book I read this month for Rebel Book Club Four Thousand Weeks pointed out, sometimes it’s a necessity to focus on giving a complex novel the time it needs. I am currently on chapter 12 of 25. I really applaud anyone who can get past chapter 8. It is a meandering intellectual conversation that argues in a circle around Hamlet being involved in a grandfather paradox. Interlaced with ample references to Greek and Roman mythology. All to emphasise how educated and clever and impenetrable we must find the mind of Stephen Daedalus. Who I am thankfully acquainted with from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I am a huge fan of Shakespeare. I have seen 12 of the 40 plays preformed. My next Shakespeare experience will be Titus Andronicus at the Globe. My favourite sonnets are; 8, 9, 27, 29, 35, 36, 94, 116, and 154.

Thankfully, chapter 8 ends - this grand philosophical distraction for bloom ends and we get to move on with the story. Which is Bloom avoiding going home because his wife Molly is having an affair with Blazes Boylan. How will he avoid going home next??

Six Titles to start the New Year!

Over the past two weeks I have read six books; Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Idol by Louise O’Neil, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and I reread A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

I also went to see Hex! at the National Theatre last Saturday. The 14th of January is important. It is the anniversary of my survival of an accident on the M25. (The very busy four lane orbital ring road motorway around London). I was my commuting to Warner Brother Studios in Leavesden at the time. On the 14th of January 2019 at 07:07am a left hand drive articulated truck collided with the passenger side door of my blue Renault Clio. The Truck did not see me when it was changing lanes. My car spun at 60 mph and then I was pushed 100 yards up the M25 on the bonnet of the truck before finally spinning again into the motorway crash barrier, only to end up facing oncoming traffic. My car was destroyed. Written off. The accident held up 4 lanes of traffic for two hours. I was lucky to have survived. To toast to four years I didn’t think I’d get to live for a hot second, Hex! Had show tunes to sooth my soul! My favourite songs from Hex! Are Sixteen https://youtu.be/EXqyUnsoKl0 and Above It All https://youtu.be/cN5CjJ4469o

Side by side comparatively these six books have me pondering the nature of time, memory and pleasure. We often forget that the past is a different country. I have also recently watched Paul Mescal’s new movie Aftersun on MUBI. Which is a director’s semi-autobiographical account of a last holiday with her father. The father in Aftersun suffers from depression, something which he hides. He shows himself to be a good Dad but beneath he is struggling with his divorce. Outside of the flashbacks, Our lead protagonist has recently become a mother herself. The finality of this last holiday is especially poignant as it is hinted that the father died afterwards. A flashback that occurs throughout the film is of our leading lady trying to reach out for her father in a familiar memory from that final holiday. In this memory, she’s dancing with him in a club as a child-but in the flashback she is an adult- she keeps trying to reach for him, to hold him- but the memory is painfully slipping away from her. Fragmenting and distorting out of being. It is a masterful depiction of the nature of grief that shows- not tells.

I have read so much! I’m going to be a terrible reviewer and say- I think I just reviewed a film instead of the six books! And six is far too many to give good comparative analysis for! How terrible… and I am currently reading Ulysses. I will have to just review that one next time. However, since Ulysses is a title by which it’s own towering reputation proceeds it- I will likely be reflecting on something else! Please be placated by the image of the beautiful bookshop that is Foster Books, located in Chiswick, West London.

Useless Magic; Lyrics, Poetry and Sermons by Florence Welch

I adore Florence Welch. I adore Florence +The Machine. I have her albums on Vinyl and now I have her verses on paper in this book; Useless Magic. I was at the 02 London last month when Florence broke her foot on stage. It was a concert for the ages. She put on an amazing show. She crowd surfed, she danced with utter abandon. She left it all on the stage- blood included. Her dress is something that myself and my friend have made a pact to recreate. It was the beginning of the UK leg of the Dance Fever tour. Florence’s first London performance since pre-Covid. Florence knows she is indie rock soul gospel for the modern woman and she plays up to the image. Her stage design included an alter strewn with candles and Liberace style candelabra. It gave off a distinctively witchy vibe.

Useless Magic is beautiful. I gobbled it in one sitting. Although it is mostly a songbook in a sense that it’s the collected lyrics to Florence’s songs- It differentiates itself as it contains Florence’s hand written drafts. Florence also shares a list of favourite songs I will definitely make into a playlist. It’s so emotive. Handwritten lyrics are always deeply poignant. Florence is generous is sharing her feelings and clear struggles with depression and self-worth. Her doodle for What Kind of Man is very raw. Equally raw is her self deprecating doodle Florence the coffee machine. Florence Welch feels the world acutely. She is able to articulate this sensitivity in a profound way. Some of my favourite poems from this collection include titles such as; Moderation, Haunted House, Rage, I Guess I won’t write poetry, This poem is not good enough… and last but not least the cheerful I had the best day.

Quiet, sensitive and profound. Rage is a poem about the current state of the world I am worried we are entering an age of rage, where only anger will be considered an asset and that the gentle will be mocked and then eaten Reflects on how it is difficult to live in a world that values toughness and machismo. But it also feels like a commentary on how the world has become so divided. This Poem isn’t Good Enough is a biting critique of the standards women are held against. My favourite verse is the second; this poem is not good enough because…other women have also written poems…and as everyone knows…there can only be one woman…above all the others… who had to claw and kill to get there…but maybe she doesn’t have children…so… she’s not good enough either… Points out how women are pitted against each other and forced into a scarcity mentality in a world that tells us who we should be. Clearly Florence is who she should be- vulnerably and effortlessly herself.

The Weir by Connor McPherson

I am home in Ireland for the Christmas holidays and I am looking forward to seeing The Weir by Connor McPherson at the Abbey Theatre this Friday. I haven’t been to see a show at the Abbey Theatre since I was in college. There is also a very cute looking Italian Restaurant across from the Abbey that looks promising. It’s painted kelly green with checkered curtains- what could be more inviting?

The Weir is set on a windy night in Rural Ireland. An outsider to the community called Valerie calls by the local eponymous pub. Where Valerie is regaled with tales by the local shanakees- but it is Valerie’s own story that will ultimately take the locals by surprise. The reviews for this Olivier award winning play are exciting and I am very much looking forward to being steeped in a world of folktales and magic. This play won the Olivier award for best new play in 1997-98. McPherson is a Olivier and Tony award winning writer. In the program, McPherson expresses how the play was inspired by the stories told to him by his Grandfather that were;

Fact, fiction, history, ghosts, religion and heresay all woven up together and I soaked it all up’

My favourite of which was the story of a man called McFadden. He had asked the fairies to cure his ailments. When Mc Fadden was cured but greedily asked for more from the fairies, the fair folk sent him back to the world doubled over and worse then ever before. I love a good story about the cautionary nature of wishing! Looking forward to seeing this play. A good tip for any theatre goer- if a show is sold out, you can always go to the box office 30 minutes before the show starts and ask about returned tickets. It’s often a great way to get cut price tickets to a sold out show.

Apt Words!

Today is my second last day on ‘My Lady Jane’ for Garden Studios. It’s been a wonderful experience getting to know the team here. I have forged new friendships and here’s a card that shows how well my friend Chiara knows me!!!

Attached, The Five Love Languages and Dear, Dear Dolly.

Dearest reader, | have been prolific this week and I have three books to recommend;  Attached by Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller M.A., The Five Love Languages: singles edition by Gary Chapman, and Dolly Alderton’s new Agony Aunt classic Dear Dolly.

Let’s start with Dolly Alderton’s new book. Which is based on her advice column at The Sunday Times. Dolly was offered her column at the Times in 2020, coinciding with the ultimate annus horribilis- the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. In this book, Dolly breaks down how most agonies fall into seven categories; Dating, Friendship, Relationships, Family, etc. Dolly longs for a broader range of problems, but I especially enjoyed Dolly’s observation that such various agonies are a chronicle of female anxiety. This anxiety comes from the fear of feeling that you are not being the right kind of girl from cradle to grave. I particularly enjoyed how Dolly reflects on her hecklers. One Heckler, in particular, rubbishes the column every week and Dolly actually manages to wish him well, by noting how he manages to turn the comments section into his own mini-column by delivering harsh judgments. Dolly notes how often people wish for clear-cut and puritanical judgments. Overall what I loved most about Dolly’s brand of advice is its witty, empathetic compassionate nature that does not judge its readership and is in no way puritanical. It makes for easy and entertaining reading.

The Five Love Languages: singles edition by Gary Chapman is a rewrite of Chapman’s book original book of the same name published and targeted towards married couples. This is no simple rehash. This edition does encourage a broader perspective on how the key premise of the original book can be applied to parenthood, the workplace, and the community. For those who have not read the original text, The heart of the book is that everyone has a particular style of expressing their affection for the people in their life, which can be broadly categorized as follows; 1. Affirmation, 2.Acts of Service, 3. Gifting, 4. Quality Time, and 5. Physical Touch. Through a variety of real-life anecdotes and analysis Chapman brings the reader to greater awareness of their own needs and how better to identify the needs of the people around them. I cannot recommend the book highly enough because through understanding the primary love language of family and friends, you can show up in the world for others better. By meeting them where they are emotionally and intellectually and therefore making them feel seen by mirroring their love language.

Last but not least- we have Attached by Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller M.A.. In Summary, the book examines the attachment theory that there are broadly four attachment styles; secure, anxious, avoidant, and then anxious/avoidant. A very encouraging statement to keep in mind while reading this book is that 50% of the population is said to be secure, 25% anxious and 25% avoidant. This is encouraging simply becasue it means humanity is less messed up then you may have percived it to be…you have a 1 in 2 chance of having an interaction with someone secure. I think this book does an excellent job of outlining what each of these attachment styles looks like, aiding the reader to self- relect on what their attachment style may be. It is important to understand that a person’s attachment style is malluable. Your attachment style can be shaped by stress and trauma but then be remade through secure interactions to become more postive.

All three books deal with the most common causes of conflict and miscommunication in various interpersonal relationships. Collectively these titles offer advice that covers the academic, spiritual and heartfelt. I came away with a better insight into myself and thus feel more qualified as an agony aunt to others. Conveniently, thought-provoking as I found all three titles, they also humorously remind me of f the song therapy from tick..tick boom! Or as Andrew Garfield introduces;

And now ladies and gentlemen….scenes from a modern romance…. as told in song …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=BAcG_tVWKM4&feature=youtu.be

Which also has an amusing french cover version;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86smRzdkxKI

Enjoy watching Tick…Tick…Boom! Next time we will be reviewing Eat, Pray Love.  All going well, please return next Wednesday to get my view on this Elizabeth Gilbert Classic. Which is akin to Tick…Tick…Boom! Both Deal with how the end of our twenties can often cause us to interrogate our progress in life and what lies at the true basis of our lives.

We Were Made for These Times

What’s on the bedside table this week?

Reader, I recommend Kaira Jewel Lingo’s we were made for these times. I came across this book as part of my Rebel Book Club membership. RBC is an international members-only non-fiction book club. I highly recommend the club to anyone looking for a sense of community and good recommendations. Kaira’s book was runner-up for the book of the month for the theme of coping with climate change. Kaira was a Buddhist Nun for 15 years from the age of 25.

At 23 Kaira was seeking deeper spiritual guidance. She traveled to join a Buddhist Monastery in rural France. She seeks to find the path to true happiness via the teachings of zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. When Kaira was in her early forties she felt a growing yet distressing truth. She wished to move on from monastic life. The book maps her journey through times of transition and offers 10 lessons on dealing with change and loss.

Each chapter is accompanied by a guided meditation and a series of journaling questions that help the reader reflect on how to grow and accept challenging times.

The chapters that resonated most with me? Chapter 2: Resting Back and Trusting The Unknown. Which was all about learning to let go of fear and resistance to the unfixed state of the future. Also Chapter 5: Caring for Strong Emotions and Chapter 9: Nurturing the Good were equally striking and gave me a great sense of peace.

Everything I know about Love by Dolly Alderton

“When I’m a single woman in London I will be extremely elegant and slim and wear black dresses and drink martinis and will only meet men at book launches and at art exhibition openings.”- Dolly Alterton, Chapter 1: Everything I Knew About Love as a Teenager.

I found Dolly Alderton’s ‘Everything I know about Love’ to be profoundly moving. It made me cry. Don’t be fooled by the title. This is no soppy chick lit novel. Much like Nancy Mitford titled her novel ‘The pursuit of Love’. This fabulous non-fiction read is an autobiographical account of the author’s early teens with the advent of MSN to her university years and beyond. This book has now been dramatised into a more fictionalised account as a series for the BBC. Dolly also has a wonderful podcast where she interviews celebrities about love.

This book navigates the the highs and lows of learning to love yourself as you grow in your late teens and twenties. It’s non-linear and mixes up incidents from different ages. It’s also punctuated by recipes and amusing lists such as ‘The most annoying things that people say’. One that I couldn’t agree with more is the line -‘I’m not going to have a starter, are you?’-

One of my favourite aspects of the book were the chapters that picked out what Dolly thought of Love at different ages. These chapters focussed on what Dolly thought about love at 17, 22, 25, 28 and 30. These chapters were short made up of short wise epigrams that all had something keenly witty to say. Reading these chapters in context with the repartee of Dolly’s experience’s in her twenties- It’s beautiful to observe Dolly’s understanding of Love develop from something that is purely romantic to a broader and fuller spectrum of Platonic and Agape. I would argue that Dolly probably values her Platonic relationships more strongly then anyone else I have ever read. Evidenced in her account of her lifelong love, her best friend Farly. I really admire her for this. I also admire her frankness in discussing her mental health issues and romantic struggles. I admire Dolly describing her journey to developing a stronger sense of self through stepping back from dating app culture and learning to love herself better. By focusing on feeling enough by herself living as a single, independent woman.

I have also watched the TV adaptation and there is a speech that is not in the book but spoken to the Dolly character by her mother in the car at the end of season 1, episode 7. For me, it sums up what I think the author was trying to understand in writing this book about what she imagines love means to her. I think it’s simply a beautiful reflection on the meaning of Love;

I think that you are looking for an extraordinary kind of love-but I think that for what it’s worth… that you don’t want to be loved in an extraordinary way. I think that what you want, is to be loved plainly and quietly- without spectacle… or anxiety… I know that for now it seems fun to set off all kinds of bombs in your own life…but one day- it’s hard to believe- but you won’t need to- because things will be dramatic enough. There will be sickness and breakdowns and bankruptcy and Cancer…. There will be so much fucking cancer, everywhere, everyday like a weather report… the world will feel like a war zone and you want the person you love to feel like PEACE. Someone who will listen to you and make you laugh. Do the crossword with you at breakfast.

Ok, I’m finished now. Go check out the song Goodbye England by Laura Marling at the end of the episode which was used to great effect. https://youtu.be/KernnVdPAI0

To conclude, I throughly enjoyed this book that I picked up at Shakespeare & Co., Paris on my own solo trip to Paris. My favourite quote from outside the shop is ‘The proprietor could be seen reading peacefully, indifferent to worldly success. Beside him lies a dog, or prehaps a cat.’ As someone who often needs to focus on worldly success for survival, I found the notion of how books can draw you away from this preoccupation very calming. I think that Dolly Alderton’s book will help you too, reader, to relax and reflect on what Love in all its forms means to you too.