#172: On dreaming up the future
Poems on the Future + A collaboration with MUBI India + Sylvia Plath
Dear reader,
I’ve spent the past week cut off (mostly) from the world, and it has made me feel a deeper connection to myself. I’m writing and painting for the sake of pure joy. I’m swaying to my dear Django. And I’m busy dreaming up ways to make December wonderful, like poetry picnics at Cubbon Park on Sunday with friends and strangers, and delicious experiments with mulled wine and kombucha cocktails. I’m also making a mental list of all the people I want to speak to for the year-end interview series in the journal, and can’t wait to see what I learn from them.
When this year started, I was burdened with uncertainty, like most of you. But while I may not have ticked off many items on my To-do list for 2021, I’m grateful for where the year has taken me. I’m stronger, braver and more in love with life, a feeling I hadn’t felt with this intensity in such a long time. Most importantly, I have a spring in my step when I think of the future, and can’t wait to grow, 1% better every day! :)
"Some people think that as soon as you plant a tree, it must bear fruit. We must allow it to grow a bit."
-Tunku Abdul Rahman on patience (via James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter)
Poetry Corner
A few handpicked poems on the future, given my sudden excitement for what lies ahead:
Future Plans by Kate Barnes
When I am an old, old woman I may very well be
living all alone like many another before me
and I rather look forward to the day when I shall have
a tumbledown house on a hill top and behave
just as I wish to. No more need to be proud—
at the tag end of life one is at last allowed
to be answerable to no one. Then I shall wear
a shapeless felt hat clapped on over my white hair,
sneakers with holes for the toes, and a ragged dress.
My house shall be always in a deep-drifted mess,
my overgrown garden a jungle. I shall keep a crew
of cats and dogs, with perhaps a goat or two
for my agate-eyed familiars. And what delight
I shall take in the vagaries of day and night,
in the wind in the branches, in the rain on the roof!
I shall toss like an old leaf, weather-mad, without reproof.
I’ll wake when I please, and when I please I shall doze;
whatever I think, I shall say; and I suppose
that with such a habit of speech I’ll be let well aloneto mumble plain truth like an old dog with a bare bone.
Haiku by Helen Ogden
climate change
against all odds
I plant seedlingsNew Every Morning by Susan Coolidge
Every day is a fresh beginning,
Listen my soul to the glad refrain.
And, spite of old sorrows
And older sinning,
Troubles forecasted
And possible pain,
Take heart with the day and begin again.The Eyes Of The Future by Terry Tempest Williams
The eyes of the future are looking back at us,
and they are praying
that we might see beyond our own time.
They are kneeling with hands clasped
that we might act with restraint,
that we might leave room for the life
that is destined to come.
To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle.
Perhaps the wildness we fear
is the pause between our own heart beats,
the silent space that says we live only by grace
wildness, wilderness lives by this same grace,
wild mercy is in our hands.
Let this be our prayer, reimagined.On a Perfect Day by Jane Gentry
... I eat an artichoke in front
of the Charles Street Laundromat
and watch the clouds bloom
into white flowers out of
the building across the way.
The bright air moves on my face
like the touch of someone who loves me.
Far overhead a dart-shaped plane softens
through membranes of vacancy. A ship,
riding the bright glissade of the Hudson, slips
past the end of the street. Colette's vagabond
says the sun belongs to the lizard
that warms in its light. I own these moments
when my skin like a drumhead stretches on the frame
of my bones, then swells, a bellows filled
with sacred breath seared by this flame,
this happiness.
Recommended Listening
Ten Degrees of Strange - Johnny Flynn, Robert Macfarlane (A music video moulded in clay by animator Lynn Tomlinson. This might just be my favorite music video of 2021.)
Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver performing Please Mr. Kennedy (oh, my heart)
Links of the Week
Artist, Poet, and Philosopher Etel Adnan on How to Live and How to Die
Poet Mary Ruefle on life without a computer: “I write by hand because that is how I began, and I love it. Moving the wrist, the marks the pencil or pen leave on the paper—like the trail of a snail…”
The internet is magic sometimes (A bizarre collaboration between a cat drinking milk and musicians from here and there)
Download: WeTransfer Ideas Report 2021
MUBI India x The Alipore Post
Earlier this year, we curated a Cinema Edition newsletter in collaboration with MUBI India to celebrate the world of films and storytelling. We’re thrilled to do a second collaboration to recommend our favorite films this month on the curated film streaming platform and tell you about the new Notebook print magazine, which covers all sides of cinema.
What to watch this November:
Charulata: Based on Rabindranath Tagore’s novella Nastanirh (The Broken Nest), the 1964 film by Satyajit Ray tells the story of a young woman's artistic and romantic yearning in pre-independence Calcutta.
Degas Et Moi: We highly recommend watching Arnaud des Pallières’ poetic short Degas Et Moi, a compelling and complex portrait of the life of French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas.
Hey, You!: An animated masterpiece by Péter Szoboszlay, Hey You! portrays the state of paranoia faced by someone trapped within four walls. A powerful reflection of the psychological consequences of living under authoritarianism.
Annette: This musical by Leos Carax follows the life of a comedian (Adam Driver) and an opera singer (Marion Cotillard) who are raising a puppet child. An eccentric and unpredictable tragicomedy worth watching for fans of obscure cinema and Adam Driver fans.
Arab Blues: Manele Labidi’s debut feature tells the story of Selma, a psychoanalyst, who returns home to Tunisia from Paris to start her own practice. A charming depiction of a country and a woman at a crossroads.
Just in: Notebook
We’re also stoked to get our hands on the pilot issue of Notebook, MUBI’s brand new, print-only magazine. Titled For the Cinema to Come, Issue 0 creates a space to read about an eclectic array of cinematic subjects, as written by film artists, writers, curators, and archivists. From Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s visual essay on his film Memoria to a beautifully recreated visual tour through the Museum of Modern Art’s milestone 1960 movie posters exhibition, it’s the first of its kind journal devoted to the art and culture of cinema.
Annual subscription at ₹1,999 only!
Pssst. The Alipore Post readers can now get an annual membership of MUBI for an exclusively discounted price at mubi.io/thealiporepost. ₹1,999 only for a whole year of the best of cinema.
Cloud Doodles for the Share A Book India Association Fundraiser
I’m making cloud doodles for Share A Book India Association’s ongoing fundraiser to #helpindiareadagain. ☁️ You can donate Rs 500 to the fundraiser and email the payment screenshot + photo of the cloud to thealiporepost@gmail.com
A quote I’ve been pondering:
“I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me. My love’s not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either. I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person. But I am not omniscient. I have to live my life, and it is the only one I’ll ever have. And you cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time.”
-Sylvia Plath
Wishing you a really good Monday!
Rohini
Thank you so much for being a part of this online community. If you like this newsletter, please consider leaving a comment, forwarding it to a friend, becoming a paid subscriber, or buying me a coffee. :)
Loved the poems in this newsletter. Thanks for the beautiful curation, month after month Ro. I look forward to the newsletter so much! All the love and power to you.
Mabel