I cut my hair this short so I can hear the music better
A list of good things from June
“WELCOME TO The Summer You Created” the large, faded city sign reads, as I drive by it on the sticky hot black highway in my mind, in the very tiny cream convertible that I drive in all my Summer dreams. I’m driving 80mph at least, and the sign rips by me before I can even read the town slogan, which is probably something cheery like “We’re Whatever You Make Of Us, Year After Year!”. The sun’s beating down on me in it’s thick syrupy way, and my clothes and skin feel bright as light under it. Everything is too fast and stretchy in June, and every year I try to drive a little slower through it, even though my made-up cream-coloured convertible doesn’t have brakes.
I’ve been working hard this month, tucked away on county sideroads, which is exactly why I’m driving headfirst into the Summer I Created. This is my June, according to Didion: Do not whine. Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone. There are some moments of delicious discipline amid bobbing heatwaves, most of which I have included in this month’s journey. Please enjoy.
You can read about May here, and April here.
Call to adventure
The skill I’ve learned this month is simply this: I do not need a studio and I do not need ideas. I’m running hour after hour on the side of the highway, where there is not one patch of shade—too hot for headphones, even—just the steady beat of my feet on asphalt and the whine of cicadas. I do not need a studio and I do not need ideas. I’m writing less but my mind feels heavy like a full sponge. I do not need a studio and I do not need ideas. I’m too busy listening.
P.S. I think contemporary art that’s really “lazy” is still interesting for how well it strength-tests the commercial side of the art world. Do you guys fucking hate this painting? I think it would make sense if you did. A lot of Culver’s other work feels either wholly derivative or wholly contrived. This singular work stood out to me as vaguely loser-poetic with just the right amount of irony, but maybe it pushes too far in the direction of ‘manufactured art’ for you.
Threshold
What can we call this—River rat treasure? Nouveau camp folk art? Lakeside kitsch? In the Summer I’m attracted to colour like a striped bass to a flaming orange lure. These, to me, are the trinkets of the outdoorsman. I find them terribly fun, pink as bright lipstick, polka-dot-spotted, tinfoil silver, speckled spicy red underbellies. It hadn’t occurred to me that you could whittle a lure out of wood—I’ve been whittling more now that the wood outside is drier—and so I will try it. I wonder if you could apply green chrome powder (swiped from my manicure supplies box, which sort of resembles a fishing tackle box of charms and things, if you think about it) to the eye sockets. Do the fishing bros know that nail gems might make perfect minnow scales?
Guide
I’ve been a fan of Anni Albers since I fell in love with Sheila Hicks, who studied under Josef Albers, who was in turn inspired by his beloved wife, Anni. There is something so fundamental and real about her work, it almost quietly declares itself as being important. You know an Albers work is an Albers work because it’s so matter-of-fact, like her. I attended this lecture given by MIT in collaboration with The Albers Foundation (full recording here and here), which included a good summary of Anni’s life and work. Up until now I had simply admired the textiles at face value, hovering an inch away from the clear glass cases at the MoMA and DIA, so I’m really excited to re-experience the work with deeper context of pre-war Germany, fleeing to America, studying at the Bauhaus school, etc.. Some of my other favourite pieces by Anni: this, and this.
Temptations
This pattern for knit microshorts from Loupy Studios. I wanted to make a pair but ultimately feel like I prefer the idea of microshorts to actually wearing microshorts. I still love the look, so here’s some inspiration I’ve saved for yarn + add ons + styling. Images from Pinterest and Are.na.
Revelation
I got a pixie cut—a true revelation. It’s almost inexplicable how much impact on personal identity a haircut can have. It curls around my ears like short ribbons. I feel spurred on by the following passage from Dizz Tate’s Brutes (which I just finished and immediately gave 5 stars on Goodreads):
No girl we knew had short hair. No one even had a bob. In summer, we all had the same hair, as long as we could coax it, half dead and raggedy by August from a combination of Sun-In, pulling, and chlorine. We thought of our hair like our magic trick. At night, when we met up on the playground after dinner, we let our hair down like a show, sprung it out of our ponytails, let our braids fall over our eyes like a beaded curtain we could coyly peek through. We hid our faces because we were certain that someday, someone else would reveal them back to us, tuck our hair behind our ears and tell us how beautiful we were, had been all along, in secret. None of us could believe Sammy had hacked off her curtain, revealed herself by choice.
This monthly email will by no means attempt to capture the entirety of feminist discourse around the politics of hair. The fact of the matter is, I feel lighter and faster and freer, and I like the way the warm June breeze feels on the back of my naked neck. I like the subtle irreverence toward caring about the girlishness of my appearance. I like the way it sticks out the sides of my Knicks cap in little wisps. I like that after I go swimming it sun-dries faster than I can get my shorts back on.
Transformation
I’m learning how to listen to music. I’ve been doing it for roughly 25 years, but I’ve never been too good at it. This is to say, I enjoy music but I don’t understand it the way I do art, or books. I played violin for a few years but it never stuck—sheet music read like a secret, uncrackable code and playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with vibrato felt like the most difficult thing you could possibly ask a ten year old girl to do. I came across this Yale course when I was looking for an alternative to podcasts (I tend to hate them, but I don’t want to hate them! What are you interesting people listening to?). The course is called How To Listen To Music. For lecture 1 the professor explains that by understanding the mechanics of music, you’re able to maximize your enjoyment and better discover and discern types of music you like. The only disclaimer is that it’s from 10 years ago, so while the material stands up to time (all studies are rooted in classical music, there is little mention of pop music), the prof does mention he bought Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 for 99 cents on iTunes.
Atonement
I watched this PBS ballet documentary titled Silver Feet. It’s from 1995 and looks deliciously so, and the content is unfathomably cruel. The story follows several ballerinas through auditions to become part of a professional company. Unsurprisingly, it demonstrates the world of ballet as rigorous and unflinching, with these lovely soft young girls, soft in a way only young girls can be, fighting tooth and nail in rooms made of mirrors. I so deeply admire the rigour and grace of ballet—indulging less in the pink and silky visual language we’ve seen become very popular in the last few seasons, burrowing deeper into the all-hours obsession with practicing, exacting positions at the barre, sinewy muscle in black leotard, necks that resemble swans, long and lean.
Return
Ok, there is one episode of A Cook’s Tour where Anthony Bourdain dines at The French Laundry in 2002. The head chef is his good friend Thomas Keller. Mid-meal, when Bourdain would normally opt for a cigarette break, Keller serves him a one-of-one Marlboro cream custard. “He knows I’m a degenerate smoker,” Bourdain laughs, “this embarrassed the hell out of me but it was utterly delightful”.
I needed to try it, so I made cigarette ice cream. I started by infusing heavy cream with copious amounts of tobacco and vanilla beans, and churned it with a classic custardy egg-yolk base.
I ate it affogato-style. My review is that the tobacco flavour didn’t come through as much as I’d like, so it essentially functions as a milkshake-flavoured Zyn. I’m thinking I might char some of the tobacco next time for a bit of smokiness, though that might render the milky sweetness an awful aftertaste. Really no way to know unless you try.
Thank you for reading about my June. I look forward to writing these abstract little time capsules at the top of every month, and I deeply appreciate all your support and engagement with them.
Until next time,
“really no way to know unless you try” is integral to you
milkshake flavoured zyn is drivel i tasted fruity notes