HELLO HELLO
Welcome to this 1st edition of HUNTER! A little explanation of this new rendez-vous with me and what to expect from it:
HUNTER is a mood board of everything that inspired me: current reads, podcasts, pictures… and pieces I wrote.
There is no publication schedule, you’ll receive it randomly when the hunt is good.
There will be hunting puns.
Contrary to many European countries going through an unbearable heatwave, the UK is going through some typical British weather. So far July has been nothing but terrible wind, torrential rain and sporadic heat, brilliant. On the other hand, this means I have been reading A LOT.
I am currently reading Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados, it is so far a refreshing read punctuated by night outs and I can relate. Her description of “civil dusk” (I call this voyeur hour as you can see into people’s homes) is the most poetic and just for that you should read it.
We shared a taxi downtown. It was my favourite time of evening, when the sun starts to set and the lights come on in the streets and it’s all blue and yellow. It’s the time when people come home and turn on lamp, and no on thinks to draw their curtains just yet. Civil dusk, it’s called. It’s the only hour in any city where everything suddenly turns familiar.
Happy hour,
, p. 47
On the list of books I finished reading this month are Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic One Hundred of Solitude and Beyrouth sentimental by Daniel Rondeau. Two absolutely brilliant reads. They transported me from fictional Macondo to Beyrouth, between generations of the imaginary Buendia family and the generational hardship of Beyruth. Babylone by Béatrice André-Salvini is about Babylone (the ancient city) and it is quenching my thirst for knowledge about the Bronze Age. I have been slightly obsessed with that era and figuring out how such advanced civilisations disappeared, leading to the Dark Ages and how we can draw parallels to current events.
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I love starting my day by learning new things (I am somewhat of an intellectual), so here’s a round-up of articles I’ve been enjoying with my morning coffee.
An ode to short stories and slim books, we need more of these;
Esther Perel’s opinion on “TikTok” psychology and its effect on our well-being;
The annoying need of people to label women as “mothers”, from plant mums to pets, or babies, why do we need to be someone or something mum?
A collection of essays explores “time activism”;
With the heat waves hitting countries around the globe, Middle Eastern countries get the worse of it. A deep dive into the droughts we will be likely facing in the near future.
This very tasteless pun is a sign to move on to the next item.
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I had such a serendipitous moment on Sunday morning. I was doing some research on Sappho, a Greek poet who lived around 630 BC, and there it was. A painting I remembered seeing years ago during a trip to Manchester, I remembered being absolutely hypnotized by the colours, wondering about the story behind it and the look on her face. I must have spent at least 30 minutes contemplating the exquisite darkness of it. I tried to find it and read more about it, but having forgotten the name of the painters and the paintings, I never did.
An icon immortalised centuries later by Charles Mengin.
Sappho, Charles Mengin, Oil on canvas, 1877
Finally, two podcast episodes and one song to listen to:
I recently discovered the Paris-based library, Shakespeare and Company, podcast and it’s been my go-to podcast for my evening walks. Through conversations with writers, we learn more about the writing process and discover books we may not have picked up otherwise (we always need more books). I particularly enjoyed this episode with Dolly Alderton, and I highly recommend her memoir “Everything I know about love”.
On a very different topic, the latest episode of Alexis Fernandez’s Do You F***ing Mind was so insightful. From the brain fact explaining how changing location can boost your creativity and productivity, to the main topic on drive and self-control, I will have to give it a second listen.
That’s it for this first edition of HUNTER. Please let me know what you think about this format, I would love to hear from you and your recommendations, to maybe be featured in the next edition.
I’m off to make some hopefully delicious fajitas and watch the Hungarian grand prix with a glass of rosé.
Journal of a procrastinator will be back on Tuesday as usual, you’ll learn about my lies.
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