thursday links (sculptures, whistling, falling in love)

A song for warm summer days.


A sweet Brazilian short film.


How to find out who you really are?


Children meeting sculptures.




(Days are warm and windy. I've been working and travelling by train and sleeping in. And playing the ukulele and listening to a lot of bossa nova. I've been reading The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides and Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje, and rereading Katherine Mansfield's short stories and a lot of Salinger. What have you been reading lately?)

monday links (virginia woolf, finishing books, dancing ballet, racing bikes)

Picture from the Orient Express by the wonderful Hotze Eisma.

Oh goodness, it's been a while. But here they are, a compilation of my online findings. Enjoy.



A brief, beautiful piece on the room in which Virginia Woolf used to write.

Confessions of a Cycle Messenger by Jon Day. 

(Stunning. If there is one link you should click out of all of these, it's this one.) 

Ballet in slow motion. 

If you, like me, are bad at reading books all the way through, try reading Why Finish Books? by Tim Parks for reassurance. (From now on, I might even be able to admit I quit reading a book three-quarters in.)

Laura Brady on her "not a real job" job.  

Also, the third issue of the online quarterly The Junket (also known as my one true online love) is due to appear any moment. (Yes, I have been refreshing the page for a while now.) Make sure you check it out. 

monday links (feminism, mainstream-ism, obama, presidential elections, etc.)

Carole Brémaud's paintings are my new favourite thing. 

Oh goodness am I caught up in these presidential elections. (The Finnish ones, not the farce that is the Republican election in the US.) I'm going to blatantly push an agenda here and tell you to have some of this.

My links this week are a bit of an odd bunch. In my defense, I've been dancing around since last night because of all this elections excitement.

Speaking of which, oh Obama. You make me happy when skies are grey. 

And on to an excellent blog post on how to reply to anti-feminist comments.

A brief history of sexual liberty. (Did you know the first so-called sexual revolution took place in the 18th century? Because I sure didn't.) 

Also, I adore Adele. A simply ridiculous amount. I don't care how mainstream that takes me. I'll go wherever she leads me. All my victory dances since yesterday have been backed by this. (Although, this article about the New Boring, also known as the Beige Age, does have a point.)


(My apologies for such an odd concoction of links. Politics do odd things to your higher brain functions.)

monday links (gingers, languages, new york, new york)

It's been a while since I last managed to shuffle together a deck of links. But here we are, with some truly spectacular essays and a bit of Carey Mulligan thrown in for good measure. Enjoy.

First and foremost, my great love, the ever charming online quarterly The Junket, has a new issue out. So far I've fallen arse over tea kettle for The Red Headed League by Ed Wethered 

(a somewhat tragicomic account of living with red hair) 

and On Not Being Jewish by the brilliant Thomas Marks 

(I suggest going through his back catalogue if you haven't already done so). 

The history of English in ten minutes. (Oh yes. I adore this with ridiculous zeal.)



Speaking in Tongues by Zadie Smith explores the significance of how we speak. (Spectacular. Honestly.)

The multitalented and consistently amazing Carey Mulligan singing New York, New York in the new film Shame. (Heartbreaking and haunting and so beautiful.)  

(Also, I've managed to lose the source of the photo. If anyone knows who took it, I beg you to tell me.) 

monday links (unspoken truths, last christmas, naming novels)

Only a few days to go till Christmas. Today I traipsed down to a Christmas market to get some aniseed and finger all the handmade decorations. It was crowded but calm and cheerful and oh goodness I love this time of year, despite the dark and the wet and the still-no-snow.

On with the links, not all of which are Christmas-y, I swear.

The late, great Christopher Hitchens on illness and voice. 

For those of you who need a pick-me-up for the final days of hurry and worry, and really don't feel like listening to Christmas songs anymore, something entirely different. For those of you who adore slightly corny Christmas songs, here's Florence Welch singing Last Christmas.

Why Finnish is cooler than English. Why, thank you. 

Olivia Cole on Frank O'Hara's glorious love poem To the Harbormaster. And writer Shalom Auslander on naming novels.

monday links (christmas gifts, poetry, darkrooms, nostalgia)

Another Monday, another set of links. And what a cavalcade!

Things You're Left With After a Break Up by Ryan O'Connell of Thought Catalog. 

(He is somewhat brilliant, incidentally.) 

Some glamour for your Monday: Vanity Fair on the Barbizon Hotel's absurd history, including anecdotes about Grace Kelly, Joan Crawford and Sylvia Plath.

There's also Avi Steinberg's piece on airline safety cards. (The Pan Am safety card told passengers, in emergency landings, to "loosen your tie... but keep all your clothes on." Oh, the 60's.)

The 45 most powerful photographs of 2011. 

The latest from the dangerously spectacular and eerily insightful Sarah Kay.

The Guardian's gift guide this Christmas is stellar, with gift ideas for fans of Downton Abbey or the royal wedding, or gifts for anyone who wants to be more like Ryan Gosling. 

And finally, Ryan McGinley's photographs are beautiful and awe-inspiring and extremely very not safe for work.

monday links (manifestos, lullabies, strangers, paris)

Another Monday, another set of things that make my pulse speed up.

Roberto Farruggio takes the most beautiful photos. 

Nude in Your Hot Tub, Facing the Abyss (A Literary Manifesto After the End of Literature and Manifestos) by Lars Iyer is something everyone inclined to write should take the time to read. ("To say that literature is dead is both empirically false and intuitively true," he writes, and opens your eyes.)

A truly incredible song for any dreary morning.

Is 2011 a year that will change the world?


"Grab hold of the nearest stranger. Don't take the stranger's hand, God knows where that's been, but grasp their arm, firmly. Don't let go until I tell you to." Miranda July on strangers.

monday links (street musicians, tears, line breaks, hogwarts)

I must say, my finds this week are spectacular. Honestly though. I'm so excited about all of these.

(Also: I'm on a huge book binge right now, after a self-imposed dry spell due to all that studying. Currently I'm halfway through Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and accompanying that with Vladimir Nabokov's lectures on the novel. Also on my bedside table are Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety and Chuck Palahniuk's Choke. I'm also rereading Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne because they are undoubtedly the greatest love letters ever written. )



And after this geeky display, on we go with the links.


Julie Lansom's photography is simply stunning.

The upcoming documentary about the  making of the final Harry Potter films seems set to make us all cry. 

An amazing article about a street musician, expanding into a meditation of what art really means these days and how it should be presented.

Weekend, a new film by Andrew Haigh.

(This. Just. You know?)

Sometimes a poem comes along that makes me physically ill, the words hitting my lungs like punches. 

So read this. At least for the truly excellent demonstration of a line break, 

so good it would make the most solid prosaist cry and dig out their hidden lyrical endeavours for a review. 

James Franco on Gus Van Sant, youth and death.

monday links (shakespeare, skeletons, nostalgia)

I'm feeling a bit blue and waiting desperately for snow this week. Thank goodness for all the glorious distractions, such as friends, tea and Jane Austen. And short films, essays, jazz. Here's for a week better than the one gone by.

Mourir auprès de toi is a beautiful animated short film by Spike Jonze, featuring a lovesick skeleton, a brave young lady and a certain bookshop in Paris. 

Recently I've been reading a lot of the Paris Review. Two of my favourite things this week: O. and I, a study in adulation, jealousy and growing up, and Francesca Mari on homesickness.

In case you're already in the mood for Christmas, there's this. 

How well do you know your friends?

And finally: the new film Anonymous explores the theory of Shakespeare not being the true author of his works. If you, like me, burst a vein every time somebody brings up these far-fetched and frankly quite boring theories,  here's an excellent article to fatten up your arguments: Wouldn't It Be Cool if Shakespeare Wasn't Shakespeare? by Stephen Marche.

monday links (adventures, reading in the loo, long distance love)

I'm kicking off my stress-free November with things that make me happy. Like putting up fairy lights and trawling the internet for essays and poetry, truths and stories. Here is a selection of my favourites.


Adventures in Depression by Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half.

Damien Rice covering I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Amazingly good.

For all book-lovers out there, a tongue-in-cheek article on whether reading on the loo is bad for you.

You know how well-written essays reduce me into a flailing mess of admiration and happiness? 

Well, here's one: Will Self wrote a stunning, heartbreaking essay on illness, addiction and mortality.  

Another thing I can't get enough of is spoken word poetry. Sarah Kay on long distance relationships.

And finally, when I was born, I was the 5,524,617,285th person alive. And the 80,727,002,777th person ever to have lived. What about you?

monday links (history, love stories, marilyn)

So I'm thinking of making this linky-post thing a Monday regular. Since the internet is a minefield of amazingly interesting/beautiful/astonishing things.

Case in point, for all you history nerds: Norma Clarke on the role of British women during WWII. Or you could have a peek at these beautiful and beautifully rebellious posters from the Paris protests in 1968.

A love story in literature. (Stunning. I'll say no more.)

In one of my absolute favourite TED Talks to date, Isabel Allende speaks of feminism, passion and writing. Amazingly funny, spunky, wise. The best TED Talks make you laugh and cry, they cling to the folds of your brain long enough to maybe eventually change you for good. This, for me, is one of those talks. 

My Week With Marilyn is a film I can't wait to see.

Last week I mentioned the new online quarterly, The Junket. It's so ridiculously good I can't help bringing it up again. For the latest edition, Carrie Plitt wrote an exquisitely crafted essay on running and success. It's called 'The Wall', or, What I Talk About When I Talk About the 400 Metres and you really should read it.

monday links (poems, essays, soundtracks, magic)

Spoken word poetry: Taylor Mali on What Teachers Make. (This made me cry, shoo, off you go, watch it.) 

I recently stumbled upon an online quarterly called The Junket, defined by one of its contributors as 'a forum in which we can nudge each other into writing'. More than just that, it's a collection of well-crafted and often exquisitely beautiful essays. I especially recommend Picking the Lock by Susanna Hislop, about passwords, locks and memory, among other things. Or maybe On Knowing the Words, where Thomas Marks speaks about learning poems by heart. 

I'm also completely smitten by Downton Abbey. Not only is it the perfect period drama (involving the First World War, romance, exquisite costumes and clashes between social classes - what's not to love?), the soundtrack is perfect too, especially for cold October days like this. The sound of sloping lawns and tea. 

And last but never least, Marco Tempest's TED talk on The magic of truth and lies (and iPods).
Pure magic - truly.