Hi friends,
Hope holiday mode is treating you all well! Personally I’ve spent the majority of this past week lying on various beaches reading books (tore through two novels—The Overstory by Richard Powers and A Hibiscus Coast by Nick Mulgrew, both excellent—in one week! Officially back on my bullshit!)
I was going to skip this week’s newsletter for the sake of being OOO, but then I thought it actually gives me a great excuse to post a round-up of a few of my favourite Cold Brews of this past year. So here are a handful of pieces that I (being ever so slightly biased) think deserve some time in the sun if you missed them the first time round:
From January, #14: On Design: assorted thoughts on social media, nationalism, consumption, and branding. “It’s a fallacy to think that there’s a visual rubric for radical design—the CIA logo is a prime example of the way that the radical or new can be co-opted by institutions. Design, in one sense, peddles a false sense of security in that we ascribe intent to its tenets—but that intent is in fact not intrinsic and can be appropriated, justifiably or not, by others.
From March, #1: On Connectivity: “The world has shifted too, these past several years. But it seems to me that the solution commonly put forth—at least pre-pandemic—as an antidote to the concerning rise of alt-right ethnonationalism is a sort of amorphous hodgepodge of technocratic, globalised cooperation. (Who needs to worry about the headache of borders when you’ve got an arsenal of buzzy concepts at your disposal i.e. cheap flights/startup seed funding/Schengen visas/Airbnb super-hosts/international art fairs/etc?) But the pursuit of this ideal is possibly what allowed the ethnonationalistic, isolationist nightmare to foment before our eyes.”
From April (the week of the Derek Chauvin trial), #25: On Witnessing: “Perhaps the most powerful belief of all is that of our interconnectedness: the webs of viewership and community that bind us as one. I’ve been thinking about my role—all of our roles—as witnesses to this injustice and this court case by virtue of consuming media and news updates on it. And I’ve been thinking a lot about the individuals on the witness stand in Minneapolis, and the complicated cocktail of duty, trauma, regret, and anger they must be feeling. Where is the line between misplaced guilt and responsible citizen-community member? Who draws the lines of the civil contract, when civil society proves a systemic failure?”
From September, #43: On Gathering: “We must find ways to harness the existing cultural lexicon for this moment, as Rooney writes, just as people have always done at various points in time in all manner of ways. Perhaps that means bending the limits of utilitarianism, leaning into the spiritual sustenance of love, movement, a beat on a dance floor, despojo, a marriage plot, a crowd belting Britpop in off-key impromptu unison.”
I’ve written four poetry-analysis newsletters so far as a sort of monthly tradition. Here are the first three (here, here, and here) but the fourth and most recent one—on Cuba by Paul Muldoon and post-COP26 climate anxiety—is my fav.
Small things:
Taylor Swift, “Unapologetic Messiness,” and the Dying Gasp of Girlboss Anachronisms: On the heels of Swift’s highly calculated “All Too Well” blitz, it’s officially time to retire the phrase (and concept) of cultivated candor. Very good read by Delia Cai for Vanity Fair from last month.
One for the Succession fans: a deep dive interview with director Mark Mylod about the making of Season 3’s explosive finale episode—ft. all kinds of nerdy details on the cinematography and other behind-the-scenes production factoids.
Daily Maverick with this spot-on, but also very LOL, assessment:
Trust me on this one: Worms, by poet Camille T. Dungy, in Guernica.
2021 has been quite the year of ups and downs, right? There’s been so much joy, relief, adventure, newness—way more than last year held—but also, we’re still very much in the thrall of some big and challenging feels as we head into year three (wtf) of this goddamn panini. This year felt like it had more defined form and passage of time than 2020… but it was still a freaking weird one. So here’s to 2022 being slightly more precedented, maybe, kind of?
Anyway, I started Cold Brew in the tail end of 2020, but this newsletter has found its stride over the course of 2021. So thank you for following along and reading my ramblings throughout this year in all its twists and turns.
Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year! Catch ya on the flip side,
Maddy