Notes about notes, about notes...
Hello there :)
Welcome to issue sixty five of Manufacturing Serendipity, a loosely connected, somewhat rambling collection of the unexpected things I’ve recently encountered.
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Speaking of coffee, grab yourself a suitable beverage my loves, let’s do this thing...
Part I: Things I’ve Encountered…
Friends, I have discovered a new newsletter and I am obsessed.
Jillian Hess, author and English professor at CUNY, writes Noted. Each week she focuses on a particular note-taker, and shares what she’s learned from their notes. I’m late to the party (as usual), so have been reading through the archives — here are a few of my favourites:
Beatrix Potter's Naturalist Notes
Here, Hess takes a look at Potter’s scientific research and sketches, her letters and more, but it was this section about her journals which I found most fascinating. Hess writes:
“This was Potter's journal, which she kept from 1881-1897. To keep her diary secret, Potter invented a coded language. It proved rather difficult to solve. The scholar, Leslie Linder took over a decade to crack it.”
And here is the code Linder discovered:
“In her old-age, even Potter struggled to read her journal. She admitted:
I used to write long-winded descriptions, hymns (!) and records of conversations in a kind of cipher shorthand which I am now unable to read even with a magnifying glass…”
Contemporary Notes: Scott Nedrelow
Hess asks artist and designer Scott Nedrelow to take her through his digital notes. There’s a bunch of great ideas in this article, but it was this “Book of Books” idea that really stuck out for me:
“Here's a great tip from the mind of a designer: store your favorite books as photographs. Around 2012, Scott started taking photographs of books to reference later. He made an actual book from these photos called A Book of Books…”
“Scott describes it as “a literal artist’s book” and explains that it was meant to be a reference volume in my studio.
These days, Scott picks up books at his local library and takes photographs that he stores in his iCloud camera roll. Scott shares a few tips that make this system usable:
Back-date the photos by 20 years —that way you don’t have to scroll through a ton of books to get to recent photos and all of your books will be stored together.
Include several pictures of a blue sheet of paper and the title before the book’s images. That way, you can see where a new book begins.”
“Scott shares books with friends through the shared album feature. But, the best part, in my opinion, is that the text in these photographs is now searchable.”
In this article, Hess covers Plath’s diaries, her sketches, her photographic autobiography, and more, but it was this collage that caught my eye:
Referring to a passage in Heather Clark’s biography: Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, Hess writes:
“Clark describes Sylvia’s Eisenhower collage of 1960 (pictured above) as a representation of Plath’s leftist politics and the themes she would explore in The Bell Jar. Clark writes:
“Had this collage been on the novel’s first cover, The Bell Jar, considered “an unhealthy celebration of death” by some, might have been read in a different way—its author more Beat than beaten down. It has survived to give us a deeper sense of the anti-military, anti-patriarchal, and anti-American feelings Plath possessed as she embarked on her novel in 1961.”
Guillermo del Toro's Mystical Notes
Guillermo del Toro is pretty well-known for his notebooks, but what I found really interesting was the order in which he compiles them — the sketches come first.
Hess writes:
“Guillermo begins with drawings and then adds in words:
“…if I do a drawing I try to organize notes around it.”
“Guillermo draws faster than he writes. Often, the images and text on a single page relate to different projects. He explains:
“I might be five pages ahead of the writing with the drawing. So I write around the drawings, which means the images and text connect only tangentially.”
As Guillermo prepares to make a movie, he reads through all of his notebooks. But they are not well-ordered thoughts. They are like “a mail order catalog of ideas…”
When he’s running low on inspiration, he flips through his notebooks.”
I could go on all day — every single newsletter Hess writes is an absolute gem. If this sounds like your jam, I’d encourage you to sign up to receive her newsletter.
Moar serendipitous finds:
Their high school canceled an LGBTQ play. These teens put it on anyway.
“…on a chilly evening in late May — after raising almost $84,000, booking Foellinger Theatre and whirling through 2½ weeks of late-night rehearsals squeezed between Advanced Placement exams and finals — it was opening night for a show adults had warned them not to do.”
1,001 Novels: A Library of America
Author Susan Straight has spent the past five years reading classic novels of American life, and stories deeply embedded in the many regional places of the United States, with the intent of placing them—literally—on a map.
A day in the life of a woke third-grade teacher, as imagined by a far-right politician
10/10, no notes.
Ever wondered what gives every synesthete their own unique associations? Meera Khare explains how synesthesia is not just a different way of perceiving the world, it might also be a different way of remembering and recording the world.
…And how it's being weaponized against people with uteruses.
Brooke DiDonato’s Glitches in Normality
“The New York-based photographer is recognised for crafting everyday scenes distorted by “visual anomalies” – glitches in the norm. From vast deserts to suburbia, DiDonato creates a universe which is slightly off kilter.
Bodies intertwine, trees bend backwards and iron fences become malleable. In every shot, the meanings of familiar objects are twisted; the laws of physics unhinged. Cosy homes and gardens are imbued with danger, humour and intrigue, encouraging us to look again.”
See more of DiDonato’s work on her website.
Part II: Books I’m Reading Right Now
This fortnight I read The Patriarchs (how men came to rule), by Angela Saini. Here, Saini, (a science journalist and broadcaster), goes in search of the true roots of gendered oppression, uncovering the complex history of how it first became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present. Through this analysis, she argues that patriarchy is neither constant, inevitable, nor unshakeable — she writes:
“By thinking about gendered inequality as rooted in something unalterable within us, we fail to see it for what it is, something more fragile that has had to be constantly remade and reasserted.
[…]
[Patriarchy is] about people looking to assert dominance over others through their own appeals to nature, history, tradition, and the divine. Their claims are invented, adjusted, embellished, and reinvented all the time…”
It’s brilliant, buy a copy for yourself, and for everyone you love.
Part III: Things I’ve Been Watching
Here are some things I watched this fortnight, and would recommend:
Judy Blume Forever (Amazon Prime) - Blume is an absolute legend, and this documentary about her life, her writing, and the ways in which she changed the lives of her huge number of young readers, is just wonderful.
Only Murders in the Building, Seasons One & Two (Disney+) - I’m very late to the party with this delightful murder mystery series, but it’s ace. Also, season three is coming out this summer, and I can’t wait.
Rye Lane (Disney+) - A sunny South London romcom for people who don’t like romcoms — this is genuinely lovely.
Part IV: What I’ve been up to…
I wrapped up my first ideation course which was tonnes of fun. Reminder: if you missed out this time (tickets sold fast!), but would like to hear when future cohorts open, drop me an email: hannah@worderist.com and I’ll add you to my course mailing list.
I’ve also had a couple of lovely dinner/drinks things, spent a brilliant day planning future stuff with Areej, and finally got around to redeeming the massage voucher Mum bought me for my birthday.
What’s next?
I’m excited to:
Do a thing with my Dad this Saturday
Meet up with some pals for dinner
See my friend Jude
Work on some new talks
Make new plans
That’s all from me for now :)
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Big love,
Hannah x
PS Wanna find out more about me and my work? Head over to Worderist.com