Weeknote 07+08/2024
“Two truths (no lies):
Once you are moderately happy, it’s very hard to get any happier.
Everybody secretly believes they can be the exception to this rule.”
Verbs
Visiting: Cute, Somerset House and Fantasy: Realms of the Imagination, British Library
Two exhibitions we caught whilst in London recently particularly stood out. Cute at Somerset House was a look at the rise and ongoing dominance of cuteness in global culture. With some sponsorship from purveyors of industrial quantities of cuteness, Sanrio, I thought the exhibition might just be a conveyor belt of doe-eyed creatures and capering, personified corporate mascots but it had a much sharper edge to it which made it something well worth seeing. There were plenty of cutesy, big-headed kittens/bunnies/puppies, but there was a strong historical perspective, along with a fascinating exploration of just how and why cuteness has come to be such a hot commodity. The whole exhibition was threaded with a reflective and critical discussion of how late-stage capitalism, modern political discourse, and major cultural concerns all factor into the power of cute.
Fantasy at the British Library was a thematic unfolding of the notion of fantasy throughout film, television, video games and, of course, literature. There were some incredible original books, texts, and manuscripts along with all kinds of remarkable artefacts. Two heroes of mine were well represented, with a first draft of The Colour of Magic by Terry Patchett, sitting alongside many other Discworld artefacts, and an amazing handwritten manuscript of A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin which I found incredibly moving to see. There were plenty of other treasures, too, and the conceptual framing of the exhibition took you through worldbuilding, languages, magic, the fairy realm, and many other core characteristics of the fantasy genre. With the number of people who were in attendance, even with our early-bird tickets, it’s clear that fantasy is as powerful and popular as ever.
Touring: Durham Cathedral and Castle, Durham
Whilst I spent a lot of time in Durham when I was a student there, and even took the time to explore the cathedral now and then, I’d never done a proper tour of either so whilst we were visiting we decided to book both, and take a proper look at some big, old, architecture on a hill.
The cathedral is as stunning as ever and, I think, the finest cathedral the UK has. Seeing the tomb of St Cuthbert took on extra significance for me now that I have read Cuddy(possibly my book of the year for last year) and I was taken back to all of the college services I attended in Bede’s tomb on our ‘college day’ each year. The cathedral had a good number of visitors but is such an enormous space that you always feel a huge sense of peace and calm once inside. We especially enjoyed the renovated museum space the cathedral now has and there were some outstanding guides on hand to explain all of the artefacts and displays to us. I loved seeing the wooden coffin of St Cuthbert, which was used to transport his body all over the north-east for close to 100 years until the site for the cathedral was found by his followers.
Durham castle sits opposite the cathedral across Palace Green and, having not been a student of that particular college, I only really knew the bar and the great hall having drunk in one and performed in the other - though sometimes not the right one… Leaving aside the stories that I told Anja about my times in that particular bar, it was really fun to see some of the rest of the castle and we were lucky enough to have a wonderful guide who took us through the history of the site. It was particularly exciting to see the original Norman chapel of the castle, built deep into the ground, and still holding the atmosphere of a place of worship and reflection.
Watching: The Boy and the Heron
I’ve blogged about Miyazaki before, so it’s not a surprise to learn that I’m a big fan of his work with Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki has been in and out of retirement a few times over the last decade but we’re told this is likely his last ever feature film, and it’s quintessentially Miyazaki. There are strange alternate realities, talking animals, gnomic magical figures, cutesy little creatures, and the slow, gentle pace that is particularly present in his later work. I think this film may be a little decisive and I know some people (including Anja) who found it ponderously slow and overly long, but I enjoyed that different sort of pace. I like that Miyazaki makes films, and tells stories, in the way that he wants to. He hasn’t given in to the pressure to up the pace, pack in action, and deliver the same sorts of films that many studios are producing. There’s a very different philosophy or ideology at work here that produces a very different aesthetic, and it’s one that I am always interested in.
Listening: Errol Garner, YouTube
I’ve said before that I rely on algorithms to suggest music to me as I’ve got very little knowledge, and not a huge interest (gasp!), in music if I’m honest. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy it though and I was pleased when YouTube sent this one in my direction. I found it great music to have on whilst working or cooking as it’s just energetic enough to buoy you along whilst still being very open, gentle, and flowing.
Using: Readwise and Reader
A while ago I wrote about trying out Matter as a read-later app and I’ve been enjoying the experience since then. I wasn’t looking for an alternative as it was working well and the UX and UI are great, clean and pleasant for reading and highlighting information. One thing I had been thinking about was how to make better use of all of the article highlights that Matter was producing and I wanted a way, ideally, to bring together highlights from articles, Kindle books, iBooks, and maybe even other sources. In that search, I came across Readwise, a tool I used a while ago but moved on from as it wasn’t offering quite enough value at the time.
What appealed to me now, though, was that Readwise also has a read later app called Reader. Pairing these means that anything I highlight in a saved article, on the web, in a Kindle book, or iBooks as well as any books I add on Goodreads will all be collated into one searchable repository. It’s working fantastically well so far and I am loving just how many data sources I can very easily route through this app - so far I’ve managed to feed it web articles, RSS feeds, email newsletters, PDFs, and EPUBs, and even YouTube videos and transcripts. As a bonus, Reader will provide an AI summary of articles, provide text-linked note-taking tools, and can even auto-highlight text with AI.
Words
No you forget your sunglass.
It’s a double-feature this week as last week we were right in the middle of our trip to the UK - in 8 days we spent time in Durham, York, and London. We had a fantastic time catching up with friends and family as well as visiting exhibitions, touring medieval monuments, and eating all kinds of excellent things. It was great to start our trip in Durham as it’s been well over a decade since I was last there and Anja had never been before. I spent 4 or 5 years in Durham as a student studying for my BA and MA and being there again was both deeply nostalgia-inducing and very much a reminder of the passage of time. Many things had hardly changed at all (the castle and cathedral, of course, but lots of others too) whilst some things were entirely new.
That’s not surprising, I know, but there is a particular sort of concertina-ing of time when you revisit, after a long period away, somewhere you once knew very well. There is a sense in which it is still very much the place it once was, with all those memories you hold of it, but it’s also no longer your place and time, and people, have very much moved on in your absence. It makes me think of the aliens in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five who exist in extra dimensions and can see a sort of extruded version of people wiggling backwards and forwards through time. It was a very happy sort of nostalgia though. I enjoyed showing Anja around the city and subjecting her to endless stories of my younger and more energetic self from many years ago and all the stupid things I get up to.
Whilst I knew Durham well, neither of us had been to York before and we were lucky to escape all of the forecast rain and have a couple of very relaxed days enjoying the city. It was well worth taking some time to visit the Minster - although it’s not quite as spectacular as Durham Cathedral of course… We also walked the surviving city walls, had a deeply indulgent and very much enjoyed afternoon tea at Betty’s, and took the opportunity to get some pretty substantial shopping done. I made sure to load up with all the spices, pastes, and sauces we find harder to get back home, whilst Anja stuffed our suitcases with lots of new clothes and presents for family.
Taking the train down to London, we also dodged a lot of the rain that we were meant to suffer from, and were able to walk the city easily, with only the crushing numbers of people in town to slow us down. Maybe it’s some sort of cognitive bias but really, surely, London didn’t use to be this busy?? We managed to meet up with friends and family whilst visiting - which is always the thing we build our trips around - and we also got to some great exhibitions and events as well. Food is always at the top of my agenda and this time we got dinner at my favourite restaurant, Quo Vadis in Soho, which is always a must when we visit. We also had some fantastic fish and chips at Poppies as well as the absolutely essential xiao long bao at Leong’s Legend in China Town.
It was a busy trip - as it usually is - as we’re so keen to make the most of every hour we have that we often stuff (and over-stuff) our itinerary but we’d rather have 8 days of wall-to-wall enjoyment and take the time to rest once we’re back, than not wring everything we can out of our trips. I’m hoping to be back in the UK at the start of summer when there’s an alumni event at my old college and some possible work events in London that happen to be in the same week or so. In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying the large amounts of Cadbury chocolate we hauled home with us.