Hi y'all.
Here's to you some inspirations 'On History and Writing'. Enjoy.
If you have any questions or comments, please email me.
Until next time - Majken xx
The magic of the mundane
The French artist Alain Biet has - most patiently - drawn hundreds of ordinary things. Pens, crayons, markers, paint brushes, craft knives, stamps, bathroom scales, rulers, glue, boxes of paint, typewriters, batteries, phones, kitchen equipment, fly swatters, mousetraps, hangers, music instruments and a whole lot more. All the drawings he’s put into a movie, showing each object, one after the other, at high speed, which in some strange way ends up giving the things a new life. I found that it forced me to look at the items in a different way - and that they became something other, something more than ‘just’ these devices I use to make my life more easy and comfortable. Watch Grand canons, a ‘visual symphony of everyday objects’.
Living With Feeling
I’ve been listening to the Living With Feeling podcast produced by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, University of London. Back in 2020, they brought us the Sound of Anger episodes (which I’ve mentioned in an earlier post) in which historians, psychologists, anthropologists and other professionals looked upon anger and how angry emotions have been viewed and expressed throughout history. Extremely interesting!
This time, though, they’ve moved forward in time to examine feelings and emotions in the 21st century. The emotional experts walk us through all, from emotional AI (Artificial Intelligence) and robot nurses to the teaching of emotions at schools and - in the last episode - opinions from the panel on what emotions might look like in the future (and what future people might think about how we deal with emotions in the 21st century - are we over-focused on emotions these days? - some of them ask). Listening to the Living with Feeling podcast is, I find, both informative and entertaining. Each of the six episodes lasts about 40-45 minutes, and you can find them - for free - wherever you find your podcast.
(Probably) the first female cook on television
On HBO there is, I’ve discovered, a series about the American chef Julia Child who was one of the first women - if not the first woman - to present cooking on television (her programme debuted in 1963). After writing and publishing a cookbook on French cuisine, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, she had the idea for a tv show on cooking. But before it became real - which it did and with great success - she had to convince several TV producers - mostly men - who thought that food on TV wasn’t interesting (or intellectual) enough to present to the viewers. A programme about making food on TV! Nooooo. Okay, it’s easy to laugh at this today, where food programmes are to be found on most tv channels. Anyway, starting up something new is often tricky, and Child struggled, the series shows, both personally and professionally. Julia, as the series is named, is partly about food, but it’s even more about the extraordinary life Child herself lived as a female pioneer in the male-dominated field of television production with all that it entailed. Definitely worth seeing.
Stay on the path
I find this quote very uplifting and motivational. Keep going! Always.
(I sadly lost the source somewhere between saving and re-saving it).
It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or an expert as long as you’re on the path. If a beginner is on the path, all they need is time. If an expert is off the path, they won’t be an expert for long.
Photo: Peatland in Donegal IN Ireland, Land of Spirit by Kirsten Klein - a Danish photographer I've admired for a long time. This beautiful, powerful photo has been on my wall for years and years, and it has, for me, always been an invitation to keep exploring life with all its mysterious paths and roads. To keep being curious. To keep going.
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‘On History and Writing’ is a blog post from me to you in which I share historically rooted real-life stories from around the world - told in exciting and creative ways - along with thoughts that circle the creative process of writing non-fiction texts. I post an email once every fortnight. If you're not already a subscriber, you are welcome to join the list. Thanks for reading! Majken xx
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