Putting my Nemesis to Good Use
Hello there :)
Welcome to issue sixty six of Manufacturing Serendipity, a loosely connected, somewhat rambling collection of the unexpected things I’ve recently encountered.
If it feels like a while since I wrote to you, that’s because it has been. I’m sorry friends! Long Covid continues to kick my ass, my boiler broke down and I had to get it replaced (sob!), and so I skipped an issue.
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Speaking of coffee, grab yourself a suitable beverage my loves, let’s do this thing...
*My friend Molly suggested I amend this to “buy me a boiler” because as I have recently learned, getting a new boiler is spendy as all hell. Ugh. Adulting sucks, huh?
Part I: Things I’ve Encountered Online…
Around mid-June, Austin Kleon wrote this article —Do you have a nemesis? (On envy, enemies, rivalries, and phantom beefs), and this section in particular caught my eye:
In Dana Jeri Maier’s Skip To The Fun Parts, her book of cartoons and complaints about the creative process, she writes about “the usefulness of a nemesis.” She describes her own nemesis, Pendergast (not his real name). Pendergast is a “hate-follow” of hers who has not wronged her in any way, who is “objectively good at what he does,” and whose art has much in common with her own. This, in fact, is the problem, as she writes, “The artists who really get under my skin are the ones who are sorta like me but veer off in a direction that offends my sensibilities.”
She continues:
“The purpose of an artistic nemesis is to harness the narcissism of comparison, helping us identify the critical differences between our work and theirs, to emerge with a clarified sense of who we want to be instead. The point is not to be consumed with debilitating bitterness or rage but to summon just enough precious envy to put to constructive use.”
Friends, I’d love to be able to tell you that, I don’t have a professional nemesis, but of course I do — I have quite a few* :)
I think the reason I found Maier’s quote interesting, is because for quite some time now, I’ve elected to actively dodge my nemeses. At some point in the past, (I can’t remember exactly when), I decided that hate-reading, or hate-watching the things my nemeses produce, and comparing their work to mine was a horrible waste of mental energy — nothing useful or good every came out of it, it just made me feel shitty.
Moreover, in a more general sense, I try not to indulge in comparison either — i.e. I actively avoid comparing my work to that of others, whether I regard them as professional nemeses or not.
Broadly speaking, I feel that both dodging my nemeses, and dodging comparison, has for the most part, served me pretty well. I don’t actually find either of those things that difficult to do, and I feel like I’m happier as a result.
But that quote from Maier got me thinking — am I missing out on something here?
Identifying the critical differences between the work of my nemeses and mine, and gaining a clearer sense of who I want to be (and what I want my work to be) sounds pretty great, huh?
So this week I decided to give it a bash — I spent a little time consuming some of the content which my professional nemeses have produced in order to try to identify those critical differences; and figure some of this stuff out.
I’m not gonna lie, it didn’t go that well initially.
There’s a reason that I avoid consuming the things that my nemeses produce — I find it very hard to move beyond the debilitating rage** phase Maier refers to. But, once I did finally manage to let that go, I actually kind of enjoyed the exercise. Identifying what I don’t like about my nemeses work, lead me to make quite a useful list of things that I DON’T WANT my work to be; and, from there it was easy to turn that into a list of what I DO WANT my work to be.
For clarity, this isn’t an exercise I feel like I’d want to do too often; and I still think that for me, when it comes to my nemeses, avoidance is likely the healthiest course of action. But it did clarify my thinking on a bunch of stuff, and showed me that actually those nemeses of mine might have their uses.
Overall I feel like it was a useful exercise, and I figured I’d share it with you. If you do decide to give it a go, drop me an email and let me know how you got on :)
PS I feel it’s worth pointing out the professional nemeses I used for this exercise have not wronged me in any way. I feel like it would be extremely hard to do this exercise with a person or persons who had — if you do feel like giving this thing a bash, stick to professional, rather than personal (or actual?) nemeses.
Before I go, here’s one additional thought on nemeses from Kleon:
A nemesis embodies the things inside us we don’t like about ourselves…
Talia Lavin was quoted as saying in a piece about Nemesis Twitter and phantom beefs: “[Having a nemesis] would be a nice relief from being my own nemesis.”
Amen to that.
*A full list of my professional and personal nemeses is available on request. Just kidding :)
**Debilitating rage is over-egging it. What I actually feel is debilitating petulance.
Moar serendipitous finds:
The Abortion Stories We Don’t Talk About
A year after Roe was overturned, those who were unable to get abortions are giving birth to babies they weren't prepared to have…
The Secret History and Strange Future of Charisma
A brilliant long read on how our culture, politics, and technology became infused with that mysterious social phenomenon which everyone can feel, but nobody can fully explain.
Mandy Brown reflects on 15 years of blogging:
“There’s so much out there about habits and “streaks” and how life is just some number of days that are counting down more rapidly than you’d care to admit so you’d better spend it well—as if you could know the full measure of your life and so budget accordingly. But if there’s anything I know about practicing it’s that it isn’t about rules or consistency or scarcity or god forbid optimizing: it’s about coming back. A practice is built on the movement of return.”
Meet Melibe Viridis, the Carnivorous Sea Slug with a Vacuum Cleaner for a Head
“The Melibe viridis, is a type of carnivorous sea slug, that looks like a science-fiction monster designed by a kid with a Midjourney account. Watch this video to get a glimpse of its unique, vacuum cleaner-like head with a mouth that expands like crazy to ensnare its prey.
It has a translucent body with visible internal organs and a mouth lined with protuberances which it uses to sense tasty little crustaceans. It uses its sticky Hungry Hippo-like hood to trap its food.”
I disappeared down a bit of a rabbit hole searching for more photos of these creatures and found this amazing sea slug forum with a bunch of photos including the one below:
Sculptor Thomas J Price Challenges Convention and Makes Us Question Who Gets To Be Seen:
Price said, in a video for his gallery Hauser & Wirth, that Rotterdam’s image is a fictional character intended to connect.
“There’s this sense of containing oneself and psychological tension,” he added. “The scale is to challenge our current understandings of monuments, to critique this idea of status and value within society: who gets to be seen, to be represented.
“It’s trying to make viewers more aware of what we’ve been told about power, materials and value.”
Part II: Books I’m Reading Right Now
Lone Women by Victor LaValle - LaValle deftly weaves history, horror, folklore, and suspense into this tale of Adelaide Henry, a Black homesteader — it’s the Wild West, but not as you know it.
Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho - a collection of connected, but non-linear short stories about two Taiwanese American women navigating friendship, sexuality, identity, family, love, and loss over two decades.
Part III: Things I’ve Been Watching
Here are some things I watched recently, and would recommend:
Crip Camp, Netflix - this documentary which traces the beginnings of the US disability rights movement from Camp Jened (a summer camp in the Catskills for teens with disabilities in the early 1970s), to the present-day. It is absolutely brilliant, and I feel like it’s a story which should have been told long before now.
Mae Martin: Sap, Netflix - I love Mae Martin, and this hour-long stand up special of theirs is charming, heartfelt, and an absolute delight.
Kaleidoscope, Netflix - this “watch it in any order” story of a heist (Netflix will serve you the episodes in a random order, but there’s nothing to stop you from watching it chronologically) received plenty of “not great” reviews, but I kinda liked it — sure it’s trash, but it’s good trash; and I liked the non-linear storytelling.
Part IV: What I’ve been up to…
Annoying boiler nonsense was annoying, but I’m very happy to report that I now have hot running water in my flat - YAY!
I’ve been really enjoying my poetry course with Tania Hershman, and despite Long Covid doing its damedest to spoil my fun I have managed to spend some lovely time with friends, and to do a little work on some conference talks I’m giving later on this year.
What’s next?
I’m excited to:
Continue my poetry course
Do some more work on my conference talks
Meet up with my friend Surena
Go visit my Dad
That’s all from me for now :)
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider sharing it, and if you would like to support me you can buy me a coffee (or a new boiler).
Big love,
Hannah x
PS Wanna find out more about me and my work? Head over to Worderist.com