"You can’t have good friends if you aren’t a good friend"
A look at our post pandemic friendscapes and other cultural phenomenons
Hiya,
I’m tits deep in podcast edits these days, so I’ll send you straight to an extended recommendation section – I cleared out my backlog, so there should be something for everybody.
Kate Murphy tells us how to rearrange our “post-pandemic friendscape” and she’s got some pretty sound advice. Like the obvious, “Ask yourself: ‘Who did I miss?’ and ‘Who missed me?’”, as well as focusing on the people who make you feel better about the world and this golden nugget of tough love: “You can’t have good friends if you aren’t a good friend yourself.” Also: superficial and toxic friendships speed up our aging process. Yikes.
Leslie Kern is a geographer and knows what a feminist city should look like. A city, which potentially thwarts domestic violence and prioritizes care work over economic work.
Alex Abad-Santos has pronounced the “girlboss” dead, and I’m not sad about it. Or did anyone ever think that disguising capitalist hustle culture as female empowerment could actually change a rotten system?
Rainesford Stauffer (who keeps popping up in my feeds left and right atm) assures us that our 20s don’t have to be “the best years of our lives”, because frankly – they’re very often not. I for one like my 30s already much better than my 20s. I know what I want, what I’m capable of and most importantly, I’m not constantly broke anymore.
Skye Abraham asked her fully grown, adult husband to take on the mental load of feeding his(!) dog and sometimes (often) I wonder why women even bother putting up with #notall men.
Jazmín Aguilera spoke to John Paul Brammer for The Cut Podcast. Brammer writes the glorious ¡Hola Papi! agony aunt column and talks about how he tries to not necessarily dish out advice, but share experiences – because most of the time, all we need to hear is that we’re not alone.
One of my favorite ¡Hola Papi! columns is one about nostalgia and clinging to the past:
“I think of nostalgia as a sort of natural inebriant. It mixes the bitter taste of loss with the warmth of our fondest memories. It’s a pleasurable pang, one that tells us, yes, life can be difficult and we lose things, but it’s worth it to be alive. Being alive is how we get to the good stuff that we can look back on with happiness.“
Sophia Benoit is my other go-to agony aunt – and in her latest column she shares some heartfelt advice on how to handle having a crush on unavailable people. We’ve all been there and we’ll all be there again at one point, so bookmark it.
Two brilliant podcasts to binge: In “Spectacle”, host Mariah Smith takes us through the history of Reality TV, which is a truly fascinating cultural study. The same goes for “The Anthropocene Reviewed”, in which author John Green (yes, THE John Green) reviews random and not so random facets of the human-centered planet. Genious.
Jeremy Jordan has delivered another goose bump cover, and boy are the dog days over. Especially in the second half.
Speaking of dogs: In this Twitter thread, people share the most moving pet adoption stories, because #adoptdontshop, always.
And speaking of music: I made a soundtrack for swaying in the kitchen, you can follow it and dance with me.
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Ich habe “Nie Nie Nie” von Linn Strømsborg gelesen und sehr geliebt. Es ist ein Roman über eine Frau, Mitte 30, die keine Kinder will. Nie. Die sich aber ständig deswegen rechtfertigen muss. Und das schönste an diesem Buch ist, dass es keine feministische Streitschrift ist. Sondern ein sanftes Plädoyer für vielfältige Lebensentwürfe – vor allem für Frauen.
Die Menschen in Finnland sind, statistisch gesehen, die glücklichsten der Welt. Und weil mich mit Finnland auch viele tolle Erinnerungen verbinden (und mit dem Ehemann von Helsinkis Vize-Bürgermeisterin viele Vodka Shots), hat diese SZ-Reportage für sehr viel Glücklichkeit in meinem Herzen gesorgt.
Ziemlich genau das Gegenteil hat Michel Abdollahis Doku “Planet ohne Affen” bewirkt. Es geht um die Jagd auf und den Handel mit Menschenaffen, und selten habe ich so einen Hass auf die Menschheit als Kollektiv gespürt. Schwer auszuhalten, aber so wichtig.
That’s it for today. If you enjoyed any of these recs, you can support my work by liking, sharing or forwarding this newsletter, treating me to a cup of coffee or by simply staying put on my mailing list.
Until next time,