curation against consumption .18

rediscovering the incredible rush of connecting with art amidst deep crisis

the only way i am recently dealing with how fucked up the world is right now and how many countries are needlessly, fruitlessly killing each other, is by trying to build connections.

whether that’s links between people, connections between different ideas, or linking works of art and artists, it’s all i have left right now that’s building me up intellectually and artistically.

so here we go, let’s see how many bridges we can build together.

.01 - The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present by Byung-Chul Han

I was recommended Byung Chul Han by the coolest girl at my business school who has only deigned to talk to me like twice and refuses to answer my instagram messages. She originally recommended The Crisis of Narration, which I initially brushed off because itseemed a little too similar to Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal for it to be worth my time (oh the hours I have spent with that book). But I am now deeply, profoundly invested in Han’s work and specifically The Disappearance of Rituals.

Han is a living German Korean Catholic philosopher, and his main thesis in the Disappearance of Rituals is that while our era may be marked by unprecedented communication abilities, the disappearance of cultural and societal rituals due to unfettered neoliberal obsession with the production of work and of the self has nevertheless led to a breakdown in community.

That’s a lot I know, but I promise it’s pretty approachable and (may I say?? may I permit myself?) it’s simply so refreshing to read contemporary philosophy. Why did no one tell me this before? Well, the answer is that they tried to but it tended to either come from the Emily in Paris types or the philosophy bros so I did in fact ignore their recommendations. But I have to hand it to these people. Byung Chul Han does, in fact, slap.

And it’s not even that I agree with him most of the time. Sometimes he’s out here saying crazy shit like “a society embedded in ritual has no depression” and “tattoos have lost all their symbolic meaning”. Sometimes he says that capitalism hates religion because capitalism hates silence, which is my favorite flying leap of logic in the book. Sometimes he says wars before colonialism were good actually because they were largely symbolic ritual play (??? but also go off king??). And sometimes he does fall heavily into the category of old man yelling at cloud about how back in his day religion gave everyone a common narrative and so it was better, which seems simplistic at best.

i made this purely out of love, please do not take this the wrong way i love his work

And yet I am highlighting, underlining, annotating the absolute crap out of this book. Han’s ideas on connecting the disappearance of religion, ritual, mystery and the disembodiment of digital spaces really hits hard. His ideas about rituals as closure remind me of Tyson Yunkaporta’s work on indigenous views of the cycles of life and renewal. His insistence on current day overcommunication devoid of meaning as a product of neoliberal production obsession really hit me where we all live, here on substack. It’s GOOD and it’s intellectually stimulating. Read it.

Connections: you should read this book to use it as a tool to identify what seems true to you and to criticize the rest, and crucially, to learn to distinguish between the two. Learn to have a position and an opinion while remaining open to new ideas and connecting them to what you’ve read recently. I connected many of his ideas to Yunkaporta and to Lorde.

Critiquing, scrutinizing arguments and asking where I stand on every sentence instead of letting them wash over me has been the most pleasurable aspect of this reading experience. I wish it on you as well.

.02 - The best women-led live performances on youtube

I love women! I love live music! I have lately been obsessing over live music made by women on youtube! Here’s the definitive, bangers-only list from as many genres as you can possibly ask for, old and new:

1. Wet Leg — Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

2. Little Simz — Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

3. Wolf Alice — Full Performance at Laneway

4. Cynthia Erivo — "Gethsemane" at Hollywood Bowl

5. Etta James — "I'd Rather Go Blind"

6. Florence + the Machine — "Everybody Scream"

7. Paramore — "All I Wanted"

8. RAYE — "It's a Man's Man's Man's World"

9. Whitney Houston — "I Loves You, Porgy / And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going / I Have Nothing"

10. Chappell Roan — “Subway”

These are just the ones I listen to over and over again. What are yours??

Connections: there’s something about the artistry of live performance. Not to get too current affairs about it but it’s so nice, in a world defined by AI slop content pushed on me by an algorithm, so nice to choose which human women I want to deliberately give my attention to.

And it’s so joyful to celebrate the talents of these women and to have favorites to come back to and analyze and enjoy the intense, bold, artistic choices made in each performance. Pure joy.

.03 - Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

I decided earl this year that I had 3 main “areas of study” for 2026 (not personal curriculums because I’m already in school thank you).

I focused on 3 areas where I would read at least 5 books, let’s say. Those categories are:

1. Classic feminist texts I somehow haven’t fully read cover to cover yet

2. Books written by indigenous authors

3. Books about writing as art and craft

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde was originally part of category 1, but in reading it I have come to realize it’s actually both category 1 and 3. Lorde expresses her love for and dependence on writing (specifically poetry) as essential liberatory self-expression so potently, that I can credit this book as single-handedly motivating me to start reading poetry again. You’ll definitely be seeing poetry recommendations in the next version of this newsletter.

Sister Outsider is also deeply affecting as a series of essays. My favorites are "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action," "Poetry is Not a Luxury," and "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism."

yes they are, and audre lorde makes me believe it

There’s a reason Lorde’s writing is a classic Black feminist text, and I recommend you pick it up immediately. It is deeply rooted in the Black Lesbian experience, but has so much inspiration ready to hand for women of all races and sexualities. It encouraged me particularly to embrace speaking instead of being silent, embrace my anger, and reclaim my creativity as a feminine force for change.

Connections: I read Lorde in tandem with In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet which is like a Feminism 101 for French women, and the two complemented each other nicely in terms of covering a broad range of feminist topics, and Lorde always completed the intersectionality angle where Chollet falls short.

Please please recommend your favorite books that fit into my 3 categories above!! I need help focusing on this journey of learning…

.04 - Nina Montagne’s youtube channel

This is the girl who wingwomanned the coolest girl in business school to finally get me to read Byung Chul Han.

I love Nina’s videos. They are perfect examples of the type of essay I enjoy best, the collage essay. Nina brings her own thoughts to her talking head philosophy discussions, and simultaneously shows, artfully and unobtrusively, the beautiful garden pathway of her influences.

She tackles subjects like having a writing practice as means of resistance, developing your creativity, cyberfeminism and gathering, and the disappearance of ritual and exhaustion of constantly becoming (all praise be to Han).

Connections: I highly recommend taking 20 minutes to sit down and really watch her video with full presence, and then to go explore the resources she links in the description. She brings together so many wonderful and insightful pieces of art, making the connections that you can also be inspired by.

.05 - The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde put on by National Theatre

This is not available for free on youtube anymore but for one glorious week it was and I managed to see it and…it’s a rare occasion when you watch a piece of art that you can literally feel making you smarter as you watch.

Usually, Oscar Wilde’s dialogue is just this side of too old fashioned for me to follow easily, but these actors really know what the hell they’re doing and their physical embodiment of these absolutely whiplashing banter dialogue scenes somehow made the words’ meanings crystal clear. And my god it’s funny. And queer, and joyful.

Sharon D. Clarke as Lady Bracknell is a revelation as well. Her delivery of the line “A handbag???” is etched into my brain.

As mentioned, no longer free on Youtube but I recommend subscribing to National Theatre and giving it a watch anyway.

Connections: the play experiments a lot with the idea of surfaces and deceptions as forms of play, a concept Han discusses at length in his work. You really feel the characters playing with their productions of self not as a form of authentic striving, but as a form of cultural ritual that everyone knows is all glamour. It’s fabulous.

.06 - Data mapping in Obsidian

We’ve come to it my friends. My true and real obsession over the past weeks. If you’ve talked to me in the last two weeks and we’ve been anywhere near my laptop, you’ve seen it. My pride and joy. My beauty, my child. My Obsidian database.

LOOK how GORGEOUS she is

Basically, I decided as a wrap up project to my Master’s program that I would create an interconnected record of all the courses, resources, certifications, slides, lecture notes, really everything that we have been exposed to re: sustainability. Each course connects to multiple core concepts, which are also expanding further into interactions with personal readings I have done on sustainability, including podcasts, videos, philosophy, feminism, etc. This is all done privately, with no data shared over the cloud to the algorithm overlords, using Obsidian.

I cannot recommend this activity highly enough if you want to get your brain in order. It has been life-giving. I am writing these notes myself or linking to Wikipedia definitions where needed, transcribing quotes from books including my own annotations, and above all I myself am making all the connections. I am reviewing and cataloguing my knowledge around this subject, and finding the links where they didn’t exist before. It’s breathtaking.

I didn’t really follow any tutorials, use any plugins, anything. I have found Nick Milo’s videos helpful to a point, but really the best way to learn is by doing, and it feels incredible to be doing again. Hit me up if you want tips or to discuss making your own knowledge map or database, AI-free and so fun.

Connections: I know I sound like I’m overstating the case, but I truly felt lately like my brainfog had taken over my life. Seeing these connections made (by me!) between work I put in to a gorgeous web of knowledge really does something to combat that existential fear.

Revisiting and connecting the resources listed in this very substack in my Obsidian network has made me feel like I’m truly integrating the content I ingest. The only way to have self-esteem is by actually doing the work, and it’s been an incredible boost.

Catch up Corner

Rebecca’s quick bests not yet overtly mentioned, no context.

Best reads:

• In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet

• Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang

• Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Best watches:

• Why the New York Times Loves Stupid Questions by Lily Alexandre

• Britain still has conversion therapists by Philosophy Tube

• Sabrina Carpenter’s Glamorous World of Hetero-Pessimism by Shanspeare

• Method to Success by Adam Lowry

Best listens:

• Taylor Tomlinson Isn’t Settling: So True with Caleb Hearon

• The playlist I built solely off of the song mangetout by wet leg

• Nothing’s About to Happen to Me by Mitski

writing this newsletter made me realize why using AI is so horrible for my creativity: it is impossible for me to experience flow state when using AI.

meanwhile writing and editing this newsletter, just like creating and linking my database, provides that euphoric flow state that every creative chases. the words just spill out once i get past that initial hurdle of avoidance! it’s such a gift.

after all, what is creativity but forging novel connections between ideas?

hope you don’t forget to be creative this week, babes. i love and support you and hope you and your families are safe and fulfilled.

peace to you and yours, see you in the next one…