39: Kieran Hebden's Birds
The coincidence that I'm sat in what essentially amounts to quarantine listening to a song called "Harpsichord" while a plague ravages the world outside is slightly amusing. I'll admit it.
It's from Four Tet's new LP "Sixteen Oceans", which is packed with birdsong. It flits from track to track, above in the snares, chattering around sliced samples. I especially love it in Baby, a track you've no doubt heard enough to get sick of (not me, I must be on my 3000th repeat) where parakeets throw down morsels of tropical fruit from their sunkissed branches in a moment of pause that's there, I assume, so we can spend a moment looking at a breathtaking coral sunset.
Here's Lush, one of my all-time favourites. It's delicate two-step makes me feel warm and light, the hang stumbles and then gets into its bop and it's like finally learning how to hula hoop, you never want to stop, you just keep going and going and going. The whole track moves on a breeze; it's summer, the air is sparkling, in the distance calm seas ripple and you're so gently and perfectly happy.
Other Stuff:
This week I finished reading The Offing by Benjamin Myers. Set (mostly) over the course of a long, glorious, life-changing summer, it's about so many things, but mostly I thought it was about choosing to live your life. Or at least, understanding that choosing to live your life doesn't mean going through with things simply because of duty or stubbornness. (And the nature writing in this is detailed and beautiful, if that your thing.)
Two architects chose to live in Tokyo's Nagakin Capsule Tower for a year to learn about what it achieved, and what were its main failings. (via the excellent Lecker podcast's instagram account)
I really liked this piece by Lily Waite for Pellicle on Our Mutual Friend brewery in Colorado. It's really upbeat and positive and they sound like really cool folks. "We just want to be kind to everyone, treat every single person with respect, and if you don’t like us, fuck off."
I also enjoyed David Nilson's piece on Two Hearted Ale for Pellicle. It made me really thirsty, and to go paddling in an icy cold river.
Now's not the time to ask what happiness really is, but it's the perfect time to wonder about all the different ways a person could be happy. The Glossary of Happiness concerns itself with collecting and understanding cultural concepts of joy from all over the world that have no direct English translation.
I do love a Marissa Ross interlude, and this one involves Cab Franc and a party sub.
I visited Conwy last weekend (which feels like a million years ago already) and I particularly loved the castle and its stained glass. The stained glass is actually a new commission installed in 2012, and includes short couplets written by Welsh writer Damian Walford Davies.
Short stories are the best, and I'm really happy to see more and more of them on bookshelves in people's houses. Yes, I look at your bookshelves when I come over. Here are 50 of the best short stories, chosen by writers like Hilary Mantel, Joyce Carol Oates (yes, obv she chose an Edgar Allen Poe), Kevin Barry and Yiyun Li.
Chef Sabrina Ghayour has taken it upon herself to create daily easy recipes on her Instagram channel and to write about storecupboard meals that use fewer ingredients on her blog. Of all the ways people are trying to help each other at this difficult time, I really like this practical way. I've been doing a lot of baking and cooking this week and it's definitely helped.
My Stuff:
Hoping you're all getting by and keeping safe.
I'm not using Twitter for the foreseeable future because it's a non-stop carousel of self-perpetuating anxiety and I need a break from it all. If you need to get in touch with me, or just feel like saying hi, my email address is katiematherwrites@gmail.com -- please don't be afraid to use it.
I'm using my bookstagram account a lot at the moment because it's so calm and nice over on that side of the internet. Find me at @shinybookscuit.
