The Swipe Volume 1 Chapter 24
I’m writing this on a rainy Friday afternoon in July. It’s damp and cool, and the garden is so lush with the heavy dose of sun and water it’s received that it’s almost sagging with the weight of life. I could spin this into gloom—‘I too feel the weight of life on my shoulders’—but no-one needs that jive on the weekend. We’re off to see loved ones and celebrate being here and alive and able to dance and sing, even if it is in the rain. I hope you all get a dose of that feeling this week.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
I raved last week about John Allison’s Giant Days. A supporting character from the series, girl detective Shauna Wickle, has been given her chance to shine in a spin-off four-parter, The Great British Bump-Off. High drama and poisoning in a very familiar tent-based location. I highly recommend this.
Rob is watching…
Celestine Garcia making 3000 bagels in a normal day shift across three shops. The skill and sheer effort involved is remarkable, but as the top comment notes, Cele is very well compensated. And so he should be.
Rob is listening…
Rock Bottom by Kevin Morby. Last week’s doodoodoo lalala from Fontaines D.C. has been replaced by his neat, to-the-point BOP-BOP. Sometimes you just need a little pop of musical punctuation to break up the day.
Rob is eating…
After the link above, an everything bagel with lox and scallion cream cheese, please.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
The Thai Burger King 20-slices-of-cheese sandwich. Clickbait fodder, yes. Inedible foolishness, also yes. But the urge to find out what the darn thing tastes like is nearly unbearable. One bite. That’s all I ask for.
As we hit the final weekend of Wimbledon, I thought I’d share this brilliant bit in The Washington Post on the long rivalry-turned-friendship which evolved between two legends of the sport–Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. Twists and drama aplenty, with a properly heartwarming conclusion.
There’s a bit too much truth in this short piece from Warren Ellis on time, memory and the weight of years. Again, it would be easy to slip into melancholy but hey, no, not today. Perspective is important, as is experience, and you don’t get those in the callowness of youth. Enjoy the memories—they’re souvenirs of time well spent.
Can’t say the whole Yellowstone Televised Universe has pinged my radar much. I do admire the tenacity and drive of show-creator Taylor Sheridan, who has created a huge cultural edifice from little more than sheer force of will. The shows may not be for me, but the dude gets props for what he does and how he does it.
This, in essence, is why you get The Swipe every weekend. You might think I’m just an attention-seeking narcissist with an internet addiction, (and to an extent yes, fine, rumbled), but ultimately I do this out of love. For every single one of you. Also, a very neat explanation as to why I’ve stuck with a blog. This is my gaff, with my rules, and I share love in the way I choose.
What We Blog About When We Blog About Love
A website is an act of demanding space for yourself and the people you love and constantly tending that space. It’s a way of naming: to take on a URL and courageously ask to be witnessed, visited. I understand certain sites that I frequent as continuous labors of love, whether they’re directed to a specific person or something broader. I see making websites and making in general as nothing more than a way of asking to be loved.
Chia Amisola
If this post from Scientific American doesn’t put a glimmer of starlight into your eyes then you, my friend, need to get out and look at some more art. Give yourself a reason to shine.
In which your resident negroni-head considers ways in which to up his amaro game. I always fancied trying Malōrt, even if it’s a one-and-done shot. I have tasted the fiendish liquorice concoction Salmiakki Koskenkorva, also known, for very Finnish reasons, as Grandma’s Slippers. It is as advertised. Approach with caution.
I still look back fondly on my old Motorola RAZR phone – a stylish, Star Trek adjacent flipper phone. It suited my style, and the software was lean and friendly enough to be wrangled to my liking. I really like the idea of a device you can call your own, from design to interface to personality. A machine made for you, rather than one to which you have to adapt.
Have some eye-candy. Here’s a great thread of infrastructure which looks as if it should belong in an SF movie. Or feel free to use as pics to slap in your evil genius lair moodboard.
As mentioned previously, I’m a big fan of Dave Hutchinson’s Europe books, which are set in a continent fractured by balkanisation, and the semi-legal Coureurs who carry packages through the tangled thorn-patch of borders and regimes. It turns out his vision is rising increasingly into the real world. Be careful what you imagine.
This week’s Swipe was, for various reasons, swerving towards a kind of self-indulgent dolor. Whether I’m really feeling that way or the links and songs the universe has offered up have slid the chapter into that direction is a matter for further contemplation. It’s been a bumpy few weeks, that’s for certain. But I think it’s important to recognize a signal from the aether. In this case, though, the right decision is not to take it too seriously. It’s all too easy to get gloomy. It’s more sensible to acknowledge the feeling and the reasons for it and take the lesson you need from it. This week’s Outro makes the point more clearly than I’m apparently able to. Take a load off.
See you in seven, true believers.
