The Missive #72
Death, music, technology, living well.
I usually notice a theme as I put together each month’s Missive; seeing my collection of links webbing together to form a view of my mind keeps coming back to. This month, it’s death. Sorry. I sometimes forget that not everyone thinks about it as much as I do; that others find the topic unsettling or too horrifying to contemplate. I’ve always been obsessed with the topic of death, but it’s been on my mind lately because August marks four years since my cousin — a brilliant woman who loved politics, beautiful things, weddings and being a mum — died from cancer in the Covid lockdowns. Death is the great motivator and equalizer, I suppose.
Anyway, here are a bunch of death-related links.
The Melbourne Cemetery trust is re-wilding the cemetery in inner-city Carlton , restoring it to the native grassland it once was. Very cool.
Maggie MacKellar writes beautifully (as always) about her beloved black labrador dying after a long happy life, and how her surviving golden retriever reflected the emotions of the household afterwards. “She’s out there now in the cooling soil, with the sturgeon supermoon pulling her toward the next world. I hope I’ve done right by her. I know I’ve done right by her. But her absence is everywhere, she’s not there when I drop my hand, her head is not heavy on my foot. Behind this all the other absences stack up.”
Jennifer Down on the last days of her mother’s life. “The house where Mum died is different from before, but it is also unchanged. The house is not ruined because the haunting is not localised.”
Death doulas explain what their jobs. “I’ve noticed a change in the way Australians view death and dying. I believe COVID has played a big part in this; it’s made us realise that life is short and can be taken from us at any moment. My hope? That regular dialogue about the process takes the fear and anxiety out of it.”
Palate cleansers after all the death stuff
I cackled at this Reddit post from a guy who got high and then went to see the Queensland Symphony Orchestra play. He’d never been to an orchestral performance before and it blew his mind. “Fuck me dead what an experience. Is it always like this?”
“In a world obsessed with being young I would like to give you a great and basic tip for aging well and that is to just be curious. Actively engaging with new music is a way to be part of the world, it’s a way to understand the time you live in, it’s adventurous and it’s not even very difficult! My dad, who is 85, calls me every two weeks and tells me which songs on the playlist he likes and why. When he does this he shows me a few things: that he loves me and reads my substack, but more importantly for our purposes, that he still knows that the world is an interesting place, that he can love all his songs, have all his memories to them and still want new ones. This is the way to live in my opinion; fresh eared and eyed, knowing there are hundreds of new songs to move you through your days, times to be had, people to be loved; that the world is as big as you want to make it and sometimes if you’re feeling stuck a brand new song isn’t a bad place to start.”
Emma Withers’ Substack
This video of a bespectacled young boy performing Taylor Swift on his porch, complete with costume changes, Eras tour choreography and a smoke machine is everything. I love his mum helping with the tearaway. Back in my day little boys who loved pop divas had to do their performances behind locked bedroom doors. Things are getting kinder in some ways.
I learned what a prunt is.
Oldster is a Substack that interviews older people about their experiences with aging. This interview with 99 year old Dorothy was a cracker. What a lady.
“There has been an emphasis over the past few years on friendship as a site of self-improvement: radical honesty, callouts, the naming of slights and hurt feelings in the service of some kind of purified, scrubbed-clean higher self. All of this is fine, but I’m less interested in this rigorous version of friendship than I am in a softer, more accepting friendship that has more in common with caregiving. I am all too aware of my flaws; I don’t really need my friends to remind me of them. Rather than demand I be better, I would rather my friends accept me as I am. Isn’t that the kind of mother we all wish we had, too? And no, you don’t need to be a mother to treat your friends to the mothering they all need. Mothering transcends the biological — every chosen family knows this.”
- Mother’s Day is about the posse. Also, sorry to every friend I’ve ever tried to improve.
I’ve got really into watching the hiking adventures of a guy called The Silly Swagman. He’s ex-Defence, really knows how to get a good nature shot and his narrations are equal parts funny and profound.
Thoughts on technology
“We need to allow ourselves to be restless and bored, to be less preoccupied with the opinions of others, and to look honestly within ourselves. We need to get off of our phones and hear the gravel crunching under our feet. Our phones promise us something eternal and infinite, but we should be extremely skeptical of anything that claims it can go on forever.”
“To say students are cheating because they use AI - free, instant, competent - is pointless moralising. It’s not the students who need to change in the first instance, but the way they are taught and assessed. It’s a big ask.”
Music
Irish band Fontaines D.C.’s older stuff never really grabbed me, but their new album Romance is my album of 2024 (so far). I’d describe them as The Cure and The Smiths marinated with the feeling that you get when kick-ons turn sinister.
The studio version of Miss Kannina’s Blak Britney is very 90s Lil Kim, but I prefer the more passionate live version.
Wish my 77 year old Dad would listen to my playlists and report back. He would love some of my finds. And imagining him listening to Charli XCX puts a little smile on my face
'The Sinister Kick-Ons' is a good band name.