Lucky sevens & the skin we're in
It's my birthday week. While this one doesn't technically qualify as a big milestone, it does make me happy numerically, and I've decided that each time I'm faced with a choice between hope and despair this year, I'm opting (or trying to) for small pleasures and cautious long-term optimism... the kind that only comes when you zoom out to the cosmos-level view and sit still with yourself about it. (The rest is still there in my core: I'm hearing the same alarm bells you are, witnessing the same things, and responding accordingly. And—not but, and—we can hold many things in our hands at the same time. As usual, I'm sharing seven with you today, and as usual, I've chosen some sweet ones.)
Before we roll on, some housekeeping: these posts are not—I repeat, NOT—offered in the same spirit as, say, a vapid pop star* taking an ecologically devastating carnival ride at the technical edge of space, singing a song about how wonderful the world is, doing tour promo to rake in some cash, all the while courting cosmetics companies for contracts (more cash!), thanking the cartoon villain who underwrote the thinly-veiled ad campaign for his masculinity crisis writ large ride, and calling it feminism as actual female astronauts' legacies are deleted from federal websites and the lot of us lose more autonomy by the day. No. These check-ins are offered more in the spirit of a cold compress for an aching head: it won't cure the cause, nor will it pretend to, but it might feel nice for five blessed minutes or more.
So.
This week's treasures:
- Sorry (not sorry) to convert this space into a straight-up Maggie Smith fanzine, but oh well. I just finished her new book, Dear Writer, and while I typically avoid prescriptive nonfiction/Advice-with-a-capital-A books in general, this one slaps. I want to share a passage** with you that feels kind of urgent today:
"To make things that don't exist yet—that don't need to exist, because that is the very definition of art—and to send them out into the world is wildly, impractically, gorgeously hopeful. This is my way of saying there is no creativity without hope. Creativity is inherently hopeful, and the reverse is also true: hope is inherently creative. Hope is imaginative. It allows you to envision what might be up ahead, even when you see nothing. To feel optimistic, you have to believe that the future has better, brighter things in store for you. That belief takes imagination. Or, to put it another way: if hope is imaginative, then pessimism is a failure of imagination. I know optimism can be a tough sell when there's so much suffering, so much difficulty in the world. But this brokenness is exactly why we need you. We need you hopeful and hungry. We need you wholehearted and devoted."
- On the topic of people making things: one of the boygeniuses (boygenii?), Lucy Dacus, has new music out, and whether you're familiar with/a fan of her songs or not, this deeply engaging 15-minute interview is the precise kind of wholesomeness I needed this week. Maybe you, too?
- Lucy was a guest on a recent-ish episode of maybe the only two-dudes podcast I could ever truly get behind***: GEMS, featuring Julian (age 25) and Miles (age 7) of Recess Therapy. This episode's topics include, among other things, Julian's first hamburger (eaten recently), Miles not liking going to the dentist, the size of the universe, and the existence of magic.
- Thank heavens for this stunning piece of writing by Megan Baxter in an old issue of Threepenny Review: a slow meditation on skin, ink, and im/permanence. And if you're into that, may I also recommend a book of essays: Thin Skin by Jenn Shapland, which defies pithy description, so check it out if you're curious and maybe it will change you like it did me.
- Here's Helena Bonham Carter reading a bunch of poetry as only she can.
- Here's a bunch of sweet babies (my definition of babies is quite broad) at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy doing their thing to Doechii's "Denial Is a River." Listen, if you need something small and specific to pin your hope(s) on today, let it be this: these darlings are coming up to this music in much the way some of us were raised on Rhythm Nation. Bless.
- If you'd prefer a multiple-choice option, here are five ways scientists are genuinely making things better around the world, not the least of which are the facts that renewable energy transformation and cancer vaccines are both picking up speed, and how.
Stay gold, stay true, stay whole, stay you. See y'all next week.
...here come the footnotes!
*a pox... an absolute POX, honestly, on that lady's bunker and brand. Peh. Ask me my thoughts on her anytime; pour us some drinks and get comfortable. And by the way, I love pop music (and pop musicians)—just not hers (or her).
**deep apologies to Maggie Smith if I screwed up her syntax/punctuation; I listened to this book on Libby and had to guess at how she laid it out on the page.
***so long as young Miles can quit showbiz and go live an unbothered, anonymous life whenever he chooses, that is. Under no other circumstances do we cosign!
"I wish you a kinder sea."
—Emily Dickinson is often listed as this quote's author, but no one can prove she wrote or said it. Either way, I love it, so here it is.
16 April 2025
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