Whoever relies upon the Tao for governing men doesn’t try to force issues or defeat enemies by force of arms. For every force, there is a counter force. Violence, even well intentioned, Always rebounds upon oneself.
The master does his job
and then stops.
He understands that the universe
is forever out of control
and that trying to dominate events
goes against the currents of the Tao
Because he believes in himself,
he does not try to convince others,
Because he is content with himself,
he does not need others approval.
Because he accepts himself,
the whole universe accepts him.
His Bloody Project by author Graeme Macrae Burnet recounts the story of the triple murder and subsequent trial of accused 17 year old crofter Roderick McRae, who brutally slays three people in his remote village in 1896.
Roderick lives with his family in a tiny croft on a property and land owned by the laird. His Bloody Project involves a recollections of the murders using historical documents, including Roderick’s own memoirs, along with court transcripts, medical reports, police statements and newspaper articles. Each document slowly and compellingly reveals Roderick’s guilt and his confounding intelligence and that there is far more to the triple murder than meets the eye.
The apparently innocent and guileless 17 year old Roderick is at times portrayed as an innocent party to complex power politics in the village, including the appointment of a ruthless and cruel local constable who makes the McRae family’s lives a living hell. Roderick by going on a killing spree is merely acting out the frustrations of his father, who had been subjected to ongoing humiliating treatment at the hands of the constable.
The sanity or otherwise, intelligence or otherwise of Roderick is debated extensively throughout the novel. The pace, language and compelling power politics of the novel are engrossing. I found myself treasuring every last drop of this novel and reading all of it in one sitting.
This may or may not be a result of my personal penchant for Scottish literature and Scottish history in general – having lived there for numerous years and falling in love with the Highlands.
However there’s a lot of layers to this onion of a novel, with class and moral politics being main themes that sit uncomfortably alongside the brutal and viscerally described murders. His Bloody Project was an outlier for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and in my book it deserved to win the big prize.
This is an ideal novel to curl up with alongside a bottle of red wine on one of these stormy southern hemisphere Winter evenings we’re having right now. You will be stunned by the depth of character plumbed in this novel using disparate historical document devices and also overwhelmingly glad that you live in a modern, prosperous, non-fuedal society that isn’t based on lairdship.
1. Subterranean murmurs and echoes from beneath the ice
Two hours of haunting, swirling and otherworldly sounds as ice crackles in a frozen river in Sweden. This is a nice lullaby for going to sleep. Although you may have strange vivid dreams!
When looking at the world as a whole, the idea of everything working together in harmony after over a century or more of extremism can sound impossible. It is not. Humanity has lived at peace with nature and its order for much longer than we have not.
Our history is filled with disruptions, destruction, pain, and countless horrors, but the balance to that are the stories that are glossed over in modern history books: tales of those who worked to mend our ills, neighbors who helped others in their community during trying times, parents tending children, charities working to provide food and clothing and shelter to the needy, people who fought to end vicious practices or nursed the sick through great plagues and disasters. On the whole, the current era is the most prosperous and peaceful time in recorded history, but we face many rising challenges: deforestation, pollution in the air, ground, and bodies of water, obesity in one country while others starve elsewhere. War. Human rights violations. These imbalances continue. They are problems that will not wait to be solved forever.
Global issues are connected to national, regional, and local issues. They start with each and every person and end with all of us. No single human should have to bear the brunt of it. Guilt and placing blame solve nothing.
7. Malcolm Gladwell talks to the How to Fail Podcast
The How to Fail podcast interviews prominent writers, philosophers and thinkers about times where they have failed and what they learned from these experiences. This time Malcolm Gladwell talks about how he misread various situations, including an epic copy-editing cock-up and what these situations meant. This is a profound, moving, humbling and insightful podcast. Have a listen here
8. Beatnik Beauty Transformation: A Sixties Makeover (1963) | British Pathé
I actually think she looks better as a Beatnik Proto-goth than she does dolled up like Jackie Onassis. Be a rebel instead! Her Beatnik winged eyeliner looks amazing and the ‘before’ look is definitely more cool.
9. A lovely Scotsman and his lovely cat go on joyous cycling adventures through Eastern Europe
A satirical map made in 1933 which lampoons various states of inebriation. The map was used to protest against alcohol prohibition in America. Inside of the skull are various states of drunkenness and playful cheeky double-entendres and wordplays. See more
We write to taste life twice…in the moment and in retrospection.
Those few moments of communion with the world are worth the pain. Writing is worth it for others. It’s an inheritance for others. A gift to others in the end.
One has to create a world in which to live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me. The world of my parents. The world of war. The world of politics. I had to create a world of my own. A climate. A country. An atmosphere in which I could breathe.
We write to heighten our own awareness of life. To lure, enchant and console others. To serenade lovers.
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
Apricity was a term originally coined by English lexicographer Henry Cockeram to denote the “the warmeness of the Sunne in Winter”. This photo I took during a particularly chilling end of autumn day in Japan in Ginkaku-ji Temple, Kyoto. Note how the sun falls in cascades of enveloping warmth onto the golden tinged leaves. Apricity comes from the Latin aprīcāri, meaning ‘to bask in the sun’).
“These humicubrations, the nocturnal irorations, and the dankishness of the atmosphere, generated by a want of apricity, were extremely febrifacient.” Lorenzo Altisonant (aka Samuel Klinefelter Hoshour), Letters to Squire Pedant, 1856
Recently translated into English from German, The Pine Islands tells the story of Gilbert Silvester, a stuffy middle-aged lecturer in Germany. His area of academic specialisation is beard fashions in film.
One day he finds out his wife is cheating on him (or so he believes, we never discover the truth). So he flees inexplicably to Japan with just the clothes on his back.
In the vast anonymity of the Tokyo metropolis, he discovers the poetry of great Japanese poet Basho. Gilbert is suddenly infused with purpose to go on a similar spiritual journey to Basho. He embarks on a spiritual pilgrimage to the mystical pine islands of Matsushima.
Along the way, Gilbert meets a suicidal young Japanese man named Yosa, who is looking for the time and place to end his life in an elegant, meaningful and perfect way. The two of them embark on a darkly funny, quirky and moving journey, traversing both inner and outer worlds. I can’t give away much more of the story without giving away the plot, except to say that this is an intense, funny and moving story that explores mortality and life purpose.
Although it is written by a German, Marion Poschmann, this is a very Japanese novel, as it captures the inner worlds and outer landscapes of Japan in a succinct and perfect way.
Poschmann captures the spiritual reverence and connection that Japanese people feel in certain places in Japan. This is a really unique, surreal, strange and funny novel that deftly tackles deep topics in a funny way: mortality, ageing, love and connection.
Book Review: The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann
This is a short book that feels like a sweeping epic novel. It is made more realistic by its portrayal of two people who are frustrated, aimless and who seem to be just biding their time on Earth, waiting for something better to come along. Some readers may find this aspect of the book frustrating, but for me this made the characters and their random journey all the more realistic. 4*/5
1. Olan Ventura’s surreal splashes of colour in Still Life With Golden Goblet
Here is a quirky kaleidoscope of things that inspired me this week, I hope you enjoy them. Let me know if you have any things of your own to share…Much love
Olan Ventura, Still Life With Golden Goblet, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 121.9 x 137.2 cmOlan Ventura, Abundant Bouquet with Pomegranate, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 162.5 x 121.9 cm
2. Sam Barsky knits epic sweaters to celebrate key moments and memories in his life
Sam Barsky’s sweaters have become a bit of a cult thing on the internet. He has now knitted over 200 of them. If you like them, he is able to hand-knit you a custom sweater of your own favourite memory or place for around 10K
3. Spacey, South Island Vibes by Haast – Hāwea (2019)
This is an incredibly playful, buoyant and enjoyable ambient album that features field recordings of birds and atmospheric wind elements in various parts of the Central Otago Lake District of New Zealand. Haast -Hāwea is a electronic music producer from Otago who creates psychadelic new age soundscapes.
4. Blogger Sam Cardy talks about resistance, strength, social change and Thoreau
Injustice is most obvious to those who are treated unfairly. If Rosa Parks had simply campaigned, spoke to people, asked them ‘why should I sacrifice my seat on the bus to a white man?‘, she would have gotten nowhere.
Thoreau advocates the use of criminal acts, the practice of disobeying the law, if by not doing anything and abiding by the law, you are complicit in perpetuating an injustice.
If the injustice is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.
What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
10. The Art of Living Authentically by Daughter of Old/ Annabell
A tranquil and quiet YouTube Channel featuring a beautiful woman who moves slowly and calmly through life and relishes the small and sacred moments of each day. Annabell’s an artist, herbalist, witch and videographer. I think you will enjoy her channel, it’s really inspiring.
Wherever you are, whatever stresses you are feeling, just remember the free and beautiful moments and memories from your world, relish and collect them and hold them close to you.
They will sustain your heart when it feels fragile and sustain your soul when you are riven with fear. You have oceans of love inside of you. Hold the ancient shell of your own consciousness to your ear and listen.
Kate Atkinson achieved great fame for her book Life After Life. This is one of her earlier and lesser known collections of short stories. I have to admit I never got into Life After Life, so I was a bit dubious about whether or not I would like this one. However, I was absolutely transfixed by this mesmerising, delightful, dark and bizarre selection of stories. The stories duck and weave in and out of time-shifts in Ancient Greece and modern day Scotland. This is sharp, witty and urbane writing with an ancient Greek twist, it’s really enjoyable.
The stories all vary but seem to have some common threads, the centrepiece characters are living in tumultuous family situations. They all seem to be reaching critical moments of reckoning and realisation about the other people in their lives or other destructive forces in their lives. These short stories are all about the seismic shifts that happen invisibly in people’s inner lives. Also there is a nice poetic metaphor in how Atkinson uses the Greek myths and ancient gods to illustrate crises, drama and chaos in a variety of ways and how this manifests itself in people’s lives.
I am now really keen to get into her series of thrillers set in Edinburgh, one of my favourite cities. I guess you could say that Not the End of the World was a gateway drug into her past work. I am happy to go along for the ride! Have you read Kate Atkinson’s work? If so what did you think.
“That was the one thing June had been terrified of having – a standard life, an ordinary life, a life like her parents’ – living in a pink sandstone semi-detached villa in the suburbs with a neat garden and an en-suite master bedroom with fitted wardrobes”
Content Catnip 
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