The Town Is Foggy, So Am I
I have never needed a new year more. Between Christmas and around the 4th of January, I involuntarily switched off, and my body worked hard while my brain and spirit were somewhere else.
So, I've taken Twitter off my phone. I'm not looking at BBC News at 4am anymore. When I feel agitated or anxious, I brew some chamomile tea, or hold a comforting rock, or write in my diary, or put some bad TV on. I am not being drawn in so early this year. I'm not falling for it again.
I'm worried that we all feel we need to ingest every single moment of the news cycle as it happens, and that offering our thoughts on these fragmented, decontextualised moments is more than a compulsion fuelled by likes now -- it's expected of us. I'm trialling out the theory that we can be thoughtful, useful, even active protestors of the injustices of the world without being plugged into the nightmare machine every day. I know that currently, and for a long time now, I have been no use at all. My short term memory is shot. My concentration span is nil. My exhaustion levels top out so much earlier than before. Is this Long Covid? Or is it, more likely, chronic stress?
Either way, as my good friend tells me, you can't pour from an empty cup. Or in other more needlessly dramatic words, wet gauze can't soak up more blood.
Taking a break from writing was meant to help me relax, but it seems to have made my brain foggier. I watched a film last night and thought I didn't understand it. In the shower this morning I mentally wrote a review of it (a sad thing I often do) and it turns out, I did. I just didn't really rate it. But only when I started stringing words together in sentences did I realise that.
I make sense of this world through words, using them as a partition, a filter. Even now as I write this, some of the haze is lifting. Sometimes the things I wish were easy for me, like relaxing, just aren't. Maybe 2021 is the time to accept this, and find out what will actually ease my mind. It most definitely will be a year where I focus on putting myself where I feel good. And for now, that's back behind words.
Other Stuff
I wanted to start off with this piece by Jonny Hamilton, one of my editors at Pellicle and, more importantly, a friend. Honest and touching, it's a look at a life many of us recognise in some ways -- making almost impossible life-changing decisions, struggling with depression, finding a place in the world, dealing with change and grief along the way.
If you're thinking about trying writing out this year as one of your New Year Goals or whatever, please go for it. If you're thinking about trying out beer blogging (or cider blogging, or wine blogging, food blogging, spicy sauce blogging...) in particular, this piece by Boak & Bailey is a super-helpful resource and a kind word in your ear. You can do this.
Bettina Makalintal perfectly summed up this excellent piece by Tara O'Brady about her struggles with editors confusing her heritage with her specific food interests as "...food media's commodification of otherness and how that limits its understanding of cultures."
An interesting and important look at Netflix's (and my) obsession with the "Streetfood Story", and the damage done to the cultures they claim to represent, focused on Buenos Aires as its case study.
Rob Edwards' Social Distancing Sounds is a comforting blanket of tunes, all wrapped up in his thoughtful commentary. I could be wrong here, but I can definitely smell patchouli incense coming through the speakers when I listen. Maybe it's because of the occasional Grateful Dead.
A database of African vernacular architecture. Apparently it's being added to all the time, and it's a great place to get lost for an hour or so.
Hipster contrarianism or a wistful wish to return to a drinks world free of gimmicks? David Neimanis for GBH asks why we're all drinking like our Grandpas these days. (Or in my case, Granny. Pass me the stout and a little tot of sherry, ta.)
Eoghan Walsh has started a daily writing exercise in the form of a newsletter about his thoughts and experiences in Brussels. It's Eoghan, so I don't need to tell you how good it already is. Sign up here.
My Stuff
I was excited to be able to talk about two of my drinks world heroes in Pellicle's Trailblazers & Trendsetters end-of-year piece. Both winemaker Jas Swan and The Cat In The Glass' Nicky Kong are the sort of unstoppable energy we need in our industry right now.
We opened Corto as a temporary shop on December 19th and a local paper called it some "genuine positivity", which was nice!
Another from Pellicle: I was included in their end-of-year roundup of readers' favourite pieces, which was lovely to learn. My burger van story was something I was really surprised to have had such a positive and emotional response for, and my essay about harvesting Riesling in the Mosel was so important to me, so I'm glad it resonated with some readers. Thank you for reading my work! It's all I could ever ask for!
Sorry to share more praise but Rachel Hendry, who shows up in The Gulp a lot thanks to her excellent J'Adore Le Plonk newsletter, wrote some nice things about me and Corto for Burum Collective, which were totally unnecessary of course, but have helped me through some dark insomniatic early mornings nevertheless.
Moonlight in the Adirondacks by Rockwell Kent