Urban observance
Spring is my time and, out with Lola, there’s a lot of tandem sniffing and watching going on.
My memories of childhood, of growing up, fade in and out; stretches are opaque, nothing comes to mind, then, as a mountain peak might jut through morning cloud, memories appear. Here’s one: after school one day, building dams in the creek in the bush* behind our house with some local boys (I was the only girl in the neighbourhood). The moment that one of three pre-teen brothers in the group said to me: “I’ll you show you mine, if you show me yours.” An interrupted exercise – my little brother ran and told Mum and, oh boy, did I hear about it quickly! Never before and never again has my name been called out at such volume. (No, I saw nothing!)
Here’s another strong memory: being a teenager in spring. Evenings after school I wafted around in a wistful, meditative, dreamy, self-consciously romantic sort of a fashion, admiring the cherry blossoms emerging in gardens around our cul de sac, feeling the warmth building.
Spring is my time (September is my birthday month, yes, a Virgo). And in Sydney, how I love it (even though it has arrived terrifyingly early this year). My magnolia tree has never before had so many blooms. The sun, higher in the sky now, is more generous with the light it casts on my courtyard. After a dismal winter for the herb bed (so limited is the sun that herbs are the only food crop I can grow), the rocket seeds have germinated and the seedlings are reaching towards the light, and other herbs – chives and parsley and oregano and thyme – are looking healthier, more hopeful.
Lola and I, walking the neighbourhood in the mornings in the past week or two, have become tandem sniffers. She identifies an interesting spot on a fence post or a tree trunk and takes her time examining it (when I grumbled to a friend once about the stop-start nature of walking Lola, my friend said, “she’s reading the social columns” – it’s what her father used to say). Meanwhile, I put my nose in the air and sniff as vigorously as Lola to try and work out where the spring scents are coming from, which garden, which backyard … common jasmine, I think it might be, tumbling perhaps over some unseen disused antique outhouse.
I’ve started a fine-grained urban observance – of the jacaranda trees which, in a couple of months will start to explode into purple bloom. I have studied low-hanging jacaranda branches and tried (unsuccessfully) to work out from which specific spots on the branches (still covered with dirty-green leaves) the actual buds for the blossoms will emerge. I have squinted up at the plane trees to see if they are yet starting to show their perfect small spring green leaves. Not yet (soon enough though we will be sneezing from their pollen.) In the dog park, I’ve sat on the ground and alternated ball throwing with an examination of the new spring grass … but it’s not all grass. There are so many different green things … clover and chickweed (did you know you can eat chickweed? … come the apocalypse, that might be helpful information) and pretty weeds that lie close to the ground and have a spray of leaves almost resembling rocket. In a neighbour’s front yard, I have spotted small pretty-pink telltales – cherry blossoms on a raggedy ornamental cherry tree. At home again, I study my magnolia blooms and can see precisely where the green leaves are emerging from the base of the flowers.
So the point is, beyond my meditative spring sniffing and wafting, beyond the fact that I long to escape to the country and feel increasingly I might belong there more than in the city, absolutely everything is interesting. Interviewed for the book Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It by Ian Leslie, English television producer John Lloyd, the man behind programs such as Blackadder noted:
“If you’re paying attention, everything in the world – from the nature of gravity, to a pigeon’s head, to a blade of grass – is extraordinary. The closer you look at anything, the more interesting it gets.”
In the early ’90s, despite Lloyd’s successful career, he started to feel something was missing. “Who am I?” he asked himself. He was troubled by the realisation that he “didn’t know anything”. As Ian Leslie recounts in Curious, Lloyd took time away from his work and, to the point of obsessive curiosity, started to read – about Socrates, ancient Athens, the Renaissance and the French Impressionists, the history of light and magnetism. The more he read, the more he realised how little he knew and how much he wanted to know and how everything is interesting. Lloyd started to think about a new program he could produce about interesting things and, in 2003, his QI (for “Quite Interesting”) launched on British television hosted by polymath quizmaster Stephen Fry (who has said that “incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is”).
And the point is, that beyond interestingness everywhere, if we’re focusing outside ourselves, if we’re curious about everything, our dull ruminations, our petty concerns and worries, or even bigger concerns and worries, can be set aside for a while and perhaps when we come back to them, they will consume us less or seem more manageable.
Last week, in the spot at the botom of the newsletter I call “Stolen words”, I shared a quote from the Irish and British novelist Dame Iris Murdoch. I love it so much I’m going to repeat it:
“I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious of my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important. And of course this is something which we may also do deliberately: give attention to nature in order to clear our minds of selfish care.”
I don’t have hovering kestrels outside my window, just occasional pied currawongs which survey the world from my clothesline. But from my desk now, I can see the magnolia blooms – they won’t be there for much longer – and I can see my two potted frangipanis, bare, skeletal. I’m curious now: from where exactly on those bare branches do the frangipani flowers emerge?
* Australians use the word “bush” broadly and colloquially to describe patches of often native vegetation on the fringes of towns and cities, or areas of forest, or undeveloped areas beyond the coast, or even the sparsely populated interior of the country.
Housekeeping notes
Apologies for the delayed delivery this week! I do try to get this out Friday evenings but sometimes I fail! … this week, I got quite consumed by the Democratic National Convention in the US (as you’ll see below) and it took me a while to cover that off!
Also, for those of you who are new here this week – thank you so much for signing up! I’m a professional journalist, editor and writer and, with my newsletter, Vamp, I’m trying to create something a bit different, something that bridges the old world of traditional media with the new world’s creator economy. I think of Vamp as a mini-magazine, a weekly curated combination of my own writing plus a carefully selected bunch of links to the most interesting and essential content from elsewhere I’ve seen during the week. Paid subscribers get access to every newsletter I write in full, my back catalogue and become part of the Vamp community – I offer paid subscribers access to my text chat group as well as twice-yearly Zoom group chats (I’m about to start planning my first one!). Plus, only paid subscribers can comment on Vamp posts. (I adore your comments!)
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Fake on Gogglebox
I’ve lamented in the past couple of months that I’ll never be able to watch Fake, the TV series based on my book, with fresh eyes, with the reactions and emotions of someone coming to the story, to the whole shebang, for the first time. This week’s Gogglebox has given me some sense of what that experience might be like. Laughing my head off! Stream the whole episode via 10Play or watch the Fake segment here on Facebook. (And, NB: my mother is not Heather Mitchell’s character Margeaux. She never said and would never say anything remotely like that to me!)
🎵Mood
Came upon this – Cat Power singing Dylan, re-creating his legendary “1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert”. Listen, tbh, I can’t quite figure out whether or not Dylan actually ever really sang at Royal Albert Hall – everything I’ve read about it has confused me a bit more … something to do with a mistakenly labelled bootleg recording … a historical misunderstanding (if you’re really interested this Variety article tries to explain) … but in any case, I love this concert, this album. Pay attention to Just Like a Woman and Visions of Johanna.
Wild thing
If only I’d had the time I would have spent the week glued to the joyous, hopeful Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Instead, I’ve jumped in and out of videos in between spurts of work. Adored Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s speech (“We know Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing palms of his Wall Street friends. And I, for one, am tired of hearing about how a two-bit union buster thinks of himself as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day to lift working people out from under the boots of greed trampling on our way of life.” … shivers-up-the-spine stuff!)
Plus, a few more bits and pieces if you’re a US political junkie (as it’s been hard not to be this past week at least!):
On Wired’s Politics Lab podcast, how convention organisers feted influencers. “I was out until 2am last night. The last thing on my schedule was from 10 to 2am and it was a party called Hotties for Harris,” noted Wired reporter Makena Kelly. “And everyone’s just mingling and drinking. I think they had two signature cocktails on there, and it was the Midwest Margarita and the I’m Speaking Spritz.”(Transcript of podcast here.)
“Feral 25-year-olds” are running Kamala Harris’s social media, according to Politico.
Oprah Winfrey brought childless cat ladies to the convention. “When a house is on fire, we don’t ask about the homeowner’s race or religion … We just try to do the best we can to save them … and if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out, too.”
And Michelle Obama’s speech delivered terrifying brilliance and humour. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow described it as “one of the best convention speeches I’ve ever seen …”
And, can’t resist sharing this anti-Trump ad … very excellent!
Finally, a bit of joyous dancing at the DNC.
Fashion, style, tan
The week in tan … From the desk of the clever Melbourne illustrator, Robin Cowcher … seen on a Prahran street …
Meanwhile spotted queueing for Taiwanese takeaway in Sydney’s Haymarket …
And, back in Melbourne …
And … who wore it better? …
Never before a better week to illustrate that fashion is political, capable even of being weaponised. “Futuristic flair” is how WWD described Michelle Obama’s Monse “tailored sleeveless jacket with a crisscross silhouette, which she paired with matching trousers”. Said The New York Times: “It was both understated and edgy, kind of armorial. This was going to be a fight, her tunic and her speech suggested. … the suit was by Monse, the small, independent label founded by Fernando Garcia, a Dominican-raised New York designer, and Laura Kim, an Asian American (and one of the founders of the Slaysians, a group of fashion insiders formed to combat anti-Asian hate).”
Plus: Hillary Clinton and a sea of women delegates and supporters wore white to honour women’s suffrage; Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota Peggy Flanagan wore a printed blazer and dress by indigenous designer Jamie Okuma (she will be the first Native American governor in the US if the Harris/Walz ticket wins in November); and Ella Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s step-daughter, wore a camouflage baseball cap with the words “Harris-Walz” (tried to buy one this morning online from the official Harris-Walz merch store but it’s sold out and, besides, there’s no international shipping 😢).
And tan … that tan suit Kamala Harris wore on Day 1 of the convention? Many commentators interpreted it as an arch nod to a tan suit that then-President Barack Obama wore in 2014 and which drew controversy for being, well, unpresidential. Said Vanessa Friedman, The New York Times chief fashion critic: The suggestion that the suit, which came from the French label Chloé, designed by Chemena Kamali … was a dig at her opponents may or may not be true, but it bolsters the narrative around Ms. Harris’s personality, her facility with memes and her general pop culture cred. It also serves to connect her historic candidacy – the first Black woman to become a major party nominee for president, the first woman of South Asian descent – to that of Mr. Obama, another historic figure.”
Finally, New York magazine’s The Cut interrogates the style of Gwen Walz, wife of Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and vice-presidential candidate: “I was struck by how unmanipulated she looked, like a high-school teacher who’d just dismissed her last rowdy class of the day: the untidy hair, frumpy cardigan, shapeless above-the-knee shift, and comfortable, open-toe shoes,” wrote Valerie Monroe. “Before you shut me down for criticizing her, let me say that I find a kind of ‘situational’ beauty to her style that I admire, because it suggests her focus is elsewhere – like on overseeing a policy portfolio that includes advocating for gun control, education, and the corrections system (all of which she does as Minnesota’s First Lady).” The feedback to the Cut’s article was, not surprisingly, loud. From Instagram Threads:
and …
Beautiful things
Brilliant … channelling my Lola. … “Oh thank god you’re back, I was thinking, ‘what if today’s the day you don’t come back’.”
Reading
In The Atlantic, the people who quit dating. A therapist interviewed for the piece contends that prolonged and unwanted singlehood is a form of “ambiguous loss”, a term coined by a social scientist during the Vietnam War when families didn’t know whether to grieve missing prisoners of war or not. “… the lack of control over their romantic life was exasperating. They could decide to make friends, or move, or switch jobs – but they couldn’t will a partner into being.”
Extraordinary piece in Aeon: An anesthesiologist tells the story of an organ-retrieval operation, about death, about the point of death, about a young woman’s last hours after a car accident. “I stared over the ether screen into the woman’s now-vacant chest cavity. It was shameful and terrible to gaze upon. Part of me felt as if I had abetted a murder …”
Exercise, especially strength training, can be a game-changer during menopause, writes The New York Times. “As muscle mass declines, your body has a harder time regulating blood sugar levels because muscle is one of the biggest consumers of glucose in the body. This can contribute to insulin resistance and an increase in body fat. To preserve muscle mass, you have to find a way to stimulate muscle development in the absence of estrogen — and that means lifting weights.”
Three tragic animal stories out of Australia: a tricky operation to free a whale entangled in ropes in Sydney Harbour; the whale could apparently be heard crying in distress. Plus – one half of the iconic gay penguin couple at Sydney’s Sea Life Aquarium died this week and his fellow gentoo penguins sang for him. From The Guardian: “The keeper said it was an incredibly emotional moment when Magic was taken to Sphen, alongside the gentoo colony and all of the staff members. Magic immediately started singing, with all the penguins around him joining in the chorus.” Plus, the devastating end of one of Australia’s most celebrated racehorses, Black Caviar: nine foals in 11 years. A milk infection that went straight to her feet. And the foal she was feeding died too. What a terrible thing the racing industry is.
A fascinating story for the language nerds among you (and/or for those of you trying to understand your teenagers). “Algospeak” describes how language is changing on platforms such as TikTok where algorithms censor certain content. “In this newly conventionalized glossary of euphemisms, sex becomes seggs, and nazis are yahtzees. Kill becomes unalive. Sexual assault is S.A. Porn is corn, or the corn emoji, and rape is grape.”
Never underestimate the power of chaining yourself to something … a tree, a bulldozer, a public bar … Merle Thornton, who chained herself to the bar at Brisbane’s Regatta Hotel in 1965 to protest laws against women drinking in public bars, has died aged 93. A statue will be erected near the Regatta Hotel to celebrate her contribution. The protest (with Thornton’s friend Rosalie Bogner) contributed to the repeal of the law. (Merle is the mother of Australian actor Sigrid Thornton.)
Food
I never said I’d be offering superior food photography here, think of these as indicative only (thanks M for your contributions)! Sunday lunch at mine for friends a couple of weeks back. Threw it together in a tearing hurry. 7am Lola walk, 8.15am fish markets, 9.15am supermarket, 10am bottleshop, 10.15am kitchen, 12.30pm guests.
Much contented-ness around the dining table. With thanks to Julius Roberts for his puff pastry tart recipe; Julia Busuttil Nishimura for her baked fish with saffron butter and green olive salsa recipe; Neil Perry for his cos salad recipe (and his most excellent dressing); and Nigella Lawson for the caramelised orange recipe. (Special mention to Sift Produce for the superb blood oranges.) I’d recommend all of the recipes: perhaps consider adding a little crème fraîche to the whipped ricotta mix which I felt was a bit dry; perhaps choose better quality fish than I did; perhaps don’t do what I did and take the caramel off the heat prematurely (my blood oranges were more syrupy than caramelised🤷♀️).
Plus: Thanks to reader Carmel, who read my newsletter last week (in which I said I wanted to apprentice to a Japanese chef) and contacted me to say I should read the Japanese bestseller Butter, by Asako Yuzuki. It is, says The Guardian, “a delicious offering … an incisive, at times thrilling novel about fatphobia, the pleasures of consumption and the often murky relationship between food and trauma”. Chasing it up now.
And:
Adore the work of the illustrator/writer Elisabeth Luard … “Reasons for homemade cake” is one of her latest posts on her Substack Cookstory. “Shop-bought is all very well for les desserts, but homemade cake is right and proper for tea-time, preferably taken in a rose-arbour in the garden, whether yours or borrowed or municipal, it’s the thought that counts.” If only I had more time to make cake.
Travel
TOYKO: Open until 4am, a Ginza sandwich shop. Top sellers apparently: egg salad, eel and wagyu. Eel for me anytime.
TURKEY: Guardian readers share some of their favourite destinations in Turkey including the “glowing mosques” of Şanlıurfa; Nemrut Dağ “built in 62BC as a sanctuary and tomb for its creator, Antiochus, a Greek Hellenistic king … [an] eerie site … marvel at huge statues of Antiochus, lions, eagles and Persian and Greek gods”; and the nine islands in the Sea of Marmara and their “stunning, cool pine forests, beautiful secluded beaches, old monasteries and historic wooden mansions”.
WHAT JUANITA DID NEXT: The most-excellent, much-loved Australian journalist Juanita Phillips chose to leave her role as nightly ABC news presenter a year ago after 21 years. She has been very quiet since but now she has shared a little of what her life has been like in the past year – and what the future holds. Hint: It involves travel.
Home and garden
Adore this, a Cairo apartment-mansion, originally built in 1640 by a general in the Ottoman army. Fascinating back story to its restoration and more photographs here. (Plus: you can stay here.)
I have one in my modest Sydney apartment, a “gallery hang” … lots of pieces of “art” arranged on a wall in an interesting-ish jumble. I didn’t have the capacity to plan, assemble or activate it … my friend, the wonderful Robin Cowcher (see “Fashion, Style, Tan” above), plotted out the arrangement of pieces on the floor, we photographed that horizontal arrangement, then I got a professional hanger to come in and do the rest. The stuff on my wall is a combo of things I’ve bought when travelling, things from my old family home, a piece by my clever artist aunt, and an old soil sifter … perhaps used for gold digging? … from a vintage shop in Kyneton in an old goldfields area of Victoria. My gallery hang is, I feel, more than the sum of its parts; little individually, yet meaningful and important and sentimental to me when hung together. (And yes, I like blue … and the mid-century-modern-ish blue lamp was one of the first things my parents bought for their new home after they were married!) If you feel inclined to do anything similar, The New York Times offers this guide. (“It creates so much interest … It creates a real focal point and warmth in a room, and it says so much about you, as an extension of your style.”) If you can’t access the NYT guide, Martha Stewart might be able to help.
Should you be longing for a forest in your living area … (a rather extraordinary selection of foresty wallpaper here via swissmiss)
Socials
(via Instagram Threads and the fabulous Neil McMahon)
Stolen words
“Do not worry about the past: it is, after all, past, and fades daily in our memory and in the memories of everyone else. Further, it can’t touch the future unless we let it. Every day comes to us like a newly cellophaned present, a chance for an entirely fresh start.”–English poet Philip Larkin in a letter to his mother, February 24, 1952 (via Letters of Note)
Kitty Flanagan — what a cack!
Ah, magnolias in August in Sydney. One of my sweetest memories is walking about our suburb with my dear mum, when I was nine-and-a-bit months pregnant with my daughter. We were hoping the walking might hurry things along. The magnolias were flowering, their sublime, blowsy blooms opening their petals to the sunshine. To this day, magnolias remind me of my darling, late mother.
But such confusion! Here they flower in April. It feels all wrong. (But not quite as wrong as my July birthday suddenly being in mid-summer. That's just weird.)
Beautiful post, Stephanie. You've convinced me to become a paid subscriber. x