things i know but don't yet understand #5

Better a broken heart than no heart at all. 

(From the 2011 Doctor Who Christmas Special)

(So you know how sometimes the simplest words formed into the simplest sentences to communicate the simplest thoughts somehow reach out and knock at your rib cage and you kind of have to catch your breath for a moment because it's spectacular how honestly truths can be told?

This is one such example. From Doctor Who. (Again.) And I don't care how unintellectual it may be to quote a sci-fi show, because somehow Doctor Who manages to bowl me over time after time with things like this, the quiet wonderful sentences that somehow squeeze their way into my consciousness and lodge themselves in the folds of my brain, only to be recovered months later, when they make me choke up with remembrance.)

silly things

This feeling dropped into me like a stone while I was wading knee-deep in snow, 

this longing for warmth and summer. 

(Also: oh my goodness Ben Howard.) 

Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time. 

Zadie Smith: White Teeth

(So you know how I'm in love with her sentences?) 

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.) 

The past is always tense and the future, perfect. 

Zadie Smith: White Teeth 

(A bit too clever and punny but oh goodness I love it anyway.)

sunday