Mush from the Wimp
Birthday Hits
Hello! It was my birthday last weekend I wanted to share a few birthday rituals and activities and ritualistic activites i’ve been doing to celebrate.
Alison Bechdel’s Birthday Video
I heard Alison Bechdel (author of Fun Home ) on the radio once talking about how she makes a video of herself every year on her birthday. I took up the practise in 2020, and now very much look forward to it every year. Really holds up an unforgiving mirror to the passage of time.
Crayola Markers of Time
It has been a great solace to read all the pieces about David Hockney since his passing last Thursday. He is and always will be my favourite artist. I highly recommend reading ‘Spring Cannot be Cancelled’ which I wrote about here. When I am feeling wayward I remember this quote on his reasons for making art.
“Joy, he said instinctively, and then added that he hoped it would encourage them to look more closely at the world around them. In recent years, these things had come to summarize Hockney’s philosophy and his art: a positive celebration of life and the world around him through a close observation of, and delight in, even its most mundane details.”
Wendy MacNaughton’s tribute to Hockney included this magnificent video of one of his many sketchbooks.
I used to be a big sketchbook head. By way of proof, here is a video of me from 1,000 years ago talking about my sketchbook practise, made by the absolutely brilliant Tomas Leach.
I have been trained out of drawing in public the last few years, as whenever I get a pen and paper out in front of my one year old he will inevitably say “mine mine mine” knick my pen, briefly eat it, and then draw with it instead.
This weekend I decided to just start embracing the collaboration, and now we share a sketchbook. In the Front Row special on Hockney (thanks Mom!) they mention how Hockney was always trying to capture time, and how the time in the top corner of the painting is very different from the time in the bottom, because of the time that it has taken to get there. Drawing with my one year old certainly felt like capturing time. I want to make some clever joke about ‘markers of time’ here as we were drawing with markers but… I haven’t.
LA Breakfast Club
A century old tradition that takes place every Wednesday 7am-9am in the Friendship Auditorium in Los Feliz. They have sausages and coffee and morning stretches and secret handshakes and talks by different speakers each week. I have been wanting to go to this for YEARS and finally got my butt out of bed early enough.
Sylvan Esso
Raviv and I went to see Sylvan Esso at Sid the Cat in Pasadena on Monday night and we both can’t stop talking about it. They played so many new songs which were all absolute bangers, which is not something I would usually say because I fear change and novelty of any kind.
Online Talks
I continue to sign up for every online talk about ghosts or bogs I can find. This weeks was a talk from Gresham College about Morrigan, the Irish Nightmare Queen. Within it I learned about the concept of Macha’s, figures in Irish Mythology - but was particularly captivated by “Macha the Wimp” who dies of distress after having a bad dream. Which was me last week.
On googling this iconic woman, I instead found this wikipedia entry, which is actually a great title for this substack post… one moment…
Scream when you get the bottom
In my family we have a tradition that when cutting into your birthday cake, you must scream when you get to the bottom. This releases your wish into the universe. You may scream quietly or loudly, the universe will always hear you.
You are at the bottom of this post, please feel free to scream.
Have you read Jenny Slate’s “Little Weirds”? She has a whole chapter about all the ghosts in her childhood home and how deeply they shaped her as a person. Hope it will add to your comprehensive list of ghost books/material :) And she was in Daniel Kwan’s movie, so in my head you are all having a really lovely ghost inspired dinner party ☺️👻
Hbd Julia, motherhood is a trip, I enjoy very much reading yours, also I feel that moving out from England was a good choice, I laughed a lot when you mentioned the reasons, all valids af for me. Sending love! Niki (Rompotodo) :)