Esoteric & Based Memo #24
The Twenty Fourth
1. A Book
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, 1993
The bookclub I’m in - bookclub is a strong word, it’s much more akin to a monthly girls’ night fuelled with wine and gossip aka perfect - chose The Virgin Suicides by Jefferey Eugenides as last month’s read. I’ve been a huuge fan of Sophia Coppola’s dreamy film adaptation ever since I laid my teenage eyes on it back in 2011, I never bothered to read the book, but now that I have, I’m soo glad that I did. Haunting, beautiful and written with impeccable prose, those of us who did read it in bookclub were truly astounded that a man was capable of such an eloquent exploration of what it can mean to be a teenage girl. Told from the perspective of the voyeuristic and horny neighbourhood boys, the novel follows five doomed sisters in 70s suburban Michigan.
Moreover, this is one of the (very) rare cases where the film adaptation is as good as the book (trailer below). Rumour has it that when Coppola first approached Eugenides to adapt his book, he denied her. However, in true nepo-baby style, she went ahead and made the film anyway. Upon watching, Eugenides agreed it was perfect, and so it was, amen.
“We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that the girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn’t fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.”
“Their desire was silent yet magnificent, like a thousand daisies attuning their faces toward the path of the sun.”
“Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy.”
“We Greeks are a moody people. Suicide makes sense to us. Putting up Christmas lights after your own daughter does it—that makes no sense. What my yia yia could never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time.”
“We listened to them, but it was clear they'd received too much therapy to know the truth.”
“The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind.”
2. An Artwork
There’s not a lot out there about the Mozambican artist Isabel Martins, but when I saw this painting of hers (The Water Spirits, 1988) earlier this year at the Zeitz MOCA in Cape Town, I had to find out more. There really is a paucity of information about her; however, I did discover to my delight that Martins was an active participant in the Mozambican liberation struggle for independence from Portuguese colonial rule. She trained in Algeria as a FRELIMO freedom fighter (!) and worked as secretary to the President Samora Machel, a leftist with Marxist-Leninist ideologies.
Despite her deep political affiliations, her paintings mostly depict mystical, magical and dreamy subject matter (God, I just love a woman with range). This distinguishes her from most post-independent African artists of the 70s and 80s, who largely focused on social commentary in their work. As Martins said in response to this observation: ‘I paint my own way’. Today, she continues to paint in Maputo (the capital of Mozambique, because I know a lot of you bitches didn’t know that).
3. A Quote/Poem
“if love is a hole wide enough
to be God’s mouth, let me plunge
into that holy dark & forget
the color of light.”
- from Bare by Davez Smith, 2017
4. An Audio
Albums: Romeo and I Created The Universe So That Life Could Create a Language So Complex, Just To Say How Much I Love You by Sega Bodega
I love the music that this Irish-Chilean man makes so much. Romeo is divine, dreamy pop; self-described as a “reinvention of dance music driven by a kind of dream-logic which addles the mind but makes sense to the body.”
And I Created The Universe So That Life Could Create a Language So Complex, Just To Say How Much I Love You is simply pure, beautiful, ambient perfection.
5. A Place
Beaverlac, Western Cape, South Africa
A glorious mountainous camping spot near my hometown. Minimal cell-phone signal and an abundance of pristine secret mountain rock pools and waterfalls waiting to be explored. Earlier this year, I went for a couple of nights with my best friend and a group of fabulous gays. We cooked our food over open flames, dropped acid, swam in the crystal-clear mountain water, and lay naked on the rocks, and it was - what can only be described as - heaven on earth.
6. A Film
A documentary/short: Ram Dass, Going Home by Derek Peck, 2017
I assume everyone and their mum knows who Ram Dass is and is familiar with his essential teachings, but I’ve probably just been in the yoga world and ‘wellness’ industry for too long. If you aren’t familiar, it is my great honour and privilege to familiarise you with this amazing man. Ram Dass, or Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, yogi, and author - his book Be Here Now (1971) is truly beautiful. You’ve probably seen the book on a coffee table somewhere in a gentrified neighbourhood where Lululemon and healing crystals reign supreme - but I promise you it is worth actually reading, not just flipping through whilst waiting for your iced ashwaganda almond milk collagen creatine ceremonial grade matcha latte.
Anyway, this short documentary is Ram Dass’ reflections on love and life as he prepares for his own death, and it’s unsurprisingly poignant and one that can (and should) be watched and rewatched again and again.