Issue №49 | 22 June 2020 | ‘I’m Not Getting Excited’
Issue №49 | 22 June 2020 | ‘I’m Not Getting Excited’
Hello one, hello all. As you’ll notice from this week’s header image, we still haven’t seen one another, so this was the closest we came to getting a photo together: a snapshot from our trip to Bradford-on-Avon late last year, taken on a camera that just got developed.
Freya’s taken to moving house during lockdown, purely to have a selection of new walls to stare at, day in, day out. It’s also reassuring to know that as of next week, we can get massages and have our nails done by strangers, but still can’t see one another. Struggling to find the logic in that? Us too.
We’re now just one month shy of our record of six months not seeing one another. At least that time was moderately fun for Freya, living it up Down Under. This time, all she has to show for our time apart is her two-inch-long leg hair. Mmmm, sexy. Alex and Freya
What Freya has been up to this week: Visited a bookshop (the iconic Toppings & Co in Bath) for the first time in three months. The sales assistant made me a cup of tea and left it on a tray at an appropriate social distance. I wept.
What Alex has been up to this week: Welcomed the return of football by subscribing to The Athletic, an excellent publication that brings together the best football journalists.
Hear
An EP…
Formed in London by two Guildhall School of Music students, Jockstrap is the latest band who have caught our ears with their fizzy, avant-garde brand of pop.
Underpinning their gorgeous melodies and wild violin playing is an exciting backdrop of glitchy synthesisers and moreish beats, resulting in a really futuristic sound.
Head over to our ‘Do’ section for how you can maximise your listening experience with an accompanying virtual exhibition… Alex
A podcast…
Culture Call: Photographer Tyler Mitchell on black freedom
In 2018, Tyler Mitchell shot the iconic Beyoncé cover for the September issue of US Vogue, becoming the very first black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover, aged just 23.
Since then, his career has blossomed and he opened his first solo show: I Can Make You Feel Good (see image above), which featured scenes of black people in utopian leisure activities.
In the latest episode of the Financial Times’s superb podcast Culture Call, he discusses what freedom means for black Americans, and how it is so often denied. Freya
Read
An article…
‘Motherhood, at least in its first days, can resemble quarantine’, writes Anna Altman. ‘As the mother’s body recovers from childbirth, and the infant learns the rhythms of the world outside the womb — how to eat, how to sleep — the nuclear family spins a cocoon, fortifying new bonds’.
The Australian photographer Lisa Sorgini’s photo series ‘Behind Glass’ shows women and their children in their homes in New South Wales during lockdown. There’s nothing tidy or curated about the home lives of the women shown: all are rather refreshingly feral. Freya
Do
A virtual exhibition…
“Wicked City” An Audiovisual Exhibition by Jockstrap
Get your bag. We’re going to an exhibition.
Combining songs from their latest EP with art created by band members, Jockstrap have cooked up a delightful little experience for you to enjoy.
Meander through the rooms of their virtual gallery, with each space accompanied by a binaural mix of one of their tracks that change in volume, presence and sound as you explore.
For those missing a gallery experience, this fills a neat little hole during these times. Alex
Dates for your diary
A round-up of upcoming virtual events to do from home…
Catch up:
If you’ve been following the Caroline Calloway saga at all, or even if you’re just super into internet culture and the weirdness that surrounds it, you need to catch up with this interview with the woman herself. It’s like a postmodern piece of performance art.
Tuesday:
6.30pm: Author and journalist Caroline O’Donoghue hosts ‘How I Met My Agent’ with her agent Bryony Woods. If you’ve been harbouring secret hopes of trying to publish that lockdown book you’ve been writing by candlelight, this might be worth checking out. Free, tickets here.
Thursday:
7pm: Black: The Literary Salon is a quarterly celebration of great black writing from across the globe. Their salon this week focuses on maleness, masculinity and selfhood in black writing. It feels like a particularly timely moment to be joining an event like this. £6, tickets here.
Sunday:
7.30pm: Our good pal Imy Halsey is hosting an Instagram Live gig with three other singers. We’ll be tuning in. See you there.
Cribs of the Week
Ironically, Freya went for a walk around Bath last week and quite literally poked her head over the top of the fence of this exact house. She subsequently looked it up online, only to find out that it’s for sale. If that’s not fate, I don’t know what is.
If ever there was a house that made you want to whip your shoes off and run around spreading sand everywhere, this is it. Much colourful. Such Cornwall.
We always seem to include some kind of industrial building in our line-up, and this week, it’s this converted 1940s grain mill. Its spacious, open-plan living is everything we need — and more — during lockdown.
#Capitalism
Alex forked out a lot of money for a new vinyl, a repress of Reel Big Fish’s 1998 album ‘Why Do They Rock So Hard’, which possibly has the worst album art ever.
Freya’s spent most of the last week walking around like a drowned rat. Perhaps it’s time to invest in a jazzy and huge raincoat like this.
Odds and Ends
Screaming at this photo of Rishi Sunak as a woman.
From hereon in, we will never eat bread that’s not shaped like a cat.
Freya changed her phone and laptop wallpapers this week to these. Life has been massively improved as a result.
