may 2023
In May I worked a lot, ate a lot, folded into continued research in the beautiful place that is my dissertation fieldwork site. According to my Instagram feed my time could not possibly be being spent in academic rigour, but alas life stretches beyond the grid. My new job becomes less new but no less fascinating; the work symbiotically seeps into my free time and newsfeeds and studies.
From Devon looking out into Cornwall.
I spent about half the month in Devon, starting with friends on the opposite side of the peninsula than I’ve grown accustomed to voyaging towards. A long weekend of sleeping in bunk beds, hurling ourselves into swells on rocky beaches and being ambushed by sea mist creeping up from the water like a grey veil. Noon on the cliffs was hot enough for shorts and after dark was cold enough for the fireplace. The wifi went down for 36 hours before we realised our resident scientist had unplugged it to charge his phone.
A grey train journey took me from the end of the line in Barnstaple to its counterpart on the English Riviera on a sopping Bank Holiday Monday, damp green landscape deserted save for the blank eyes of railside houses and muddy sheep. The window view felt like a more ancient, forested Devon reaching forwards through the centuries.
Brixham approaching golden hour.
I have written a lot about my experience spending time in Brixham over the course of my research, spread across too many notes and Google docs and voice memos to succinctly sieve into a summary every month. In May, amongst conversations and observation, I went to the fish market at 5am, ate scallops and scampi, saw a seal, swam in the sea with new friends. I hope to make more sense of it all after I’ve written up my dissertation (oh happy day).
And although I love seeing my portraits in inside covers, I’d recommend Natasha’s story of a society decimated by antibiotic super-resistance for reasons beyond the dust jacket.
may favourites
book Enter Ghost by Isabellla Hammad, a beautifully-written story of a British-Palestinian actor taking a part in a production of Hamlet in the West Bank
art an exhibition of paintings of private gardens in my first visit to the Garden Museum, although the cafe was the real winner
performance a really fantastic double bill in NOW Festival at The Yard, reminding me how rarely these days I see really excellent performance
podcast Ireland’s Edge, stories from Ireland that I found through a great episode with Shon Faye
TV The Ultimatum: Queer Love, I will not expand
newsletter Alice Vincent’s savour newsletter, compelling prose about plants and gardens but also quite a lot more
“And in the end, onstage, most pain reads the same. You sort of only need one bad thing to happen to you and you’re set for life.”
A sentiment that stretches beyond the stage from Isabella Hammad’s incredibly written Enter Ghost, a book so good I was ordering her first novel after chapter one. I wrote down a lot of lines from this novel.