Jessica Furseth

Reading List, On the Move edition.

"I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive." [Joseph Campbell]

Image: Pansies by Henri Matisse (c 1903) via @paintings_i_love

A silent hike along the John Muir Trail [Harmen Hoek on YouTube]

"At one point in time, say the late 2000s, the chief evidence of being a hipster was denying your status as such, it was that vital of a label. Your pro- or anti-hipster opinion constituted an entire worldview. Various trends – craft cocktails, indie rock, American Apparel, vinyl, skinny jeans — were identified with the hipster. There were three options: You were a hipster, you disliked them, or you disliked that you were one." Why did we stop saying “hipster”? [Kyle Chayka, One Thing]

The great women's art bulletin - a series that doesn't miss. [Katy Hessel, The Guardian]

"My online life is a sprawling, overwhelming mess with a price tag that increases every few years. If these archives were in my home and not in the cloud, I have to imagine that visitors would pull me aside for an intervention or refuse to come over altogether." Charlie Warzel is in cloud storage hell [The Atlantic]

"Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond." Procrastination isn't a time management problem, it's an emotion regulation problem [Charlotte Lieberman, The New York Times]

Memory is more about your future than your past [Kevin Dickinson, Big Thing]

"Overlay the years a woman is supposed to establish herself in her career and her fertility window and it’s a perfect, miserable circle. By midlife women report feeling invisible, undervalued; it is a telling cliché, that after all this, some husbands leave for a younger girl. So when is her time, exactly? For leisure, ease, liberty? There is no brand of feminism which achieved female rest. If women’s problem in the ’50s was a paralyzing malaise, now it is that they are too active, too capable, never permitted a vacation they didn’t plan." This story had my messages lit up for a whole day - there's a LOT going on here.. [Grazie Sophia Christie, The Cut]

The case against "decanting" groceries [Jaya Saxena, Eater]

What happened to the teen babysitter? [Faith Hill, The Atlantic]

“I wanted my life to resemble fan fiction.” When Lily moved in with Grace and Danny and they all had a baby. [Choire Sicha, The Cut]

"I like to think we’re starting to embrace a softer kind of strength. Maybe taking care of ourselves, whatever that looks like, can now be as celebrated as dodging death for a summit." [Beth Rodden, The New York Times]

The Mad Perfumer of Parma [Molly Young, The New York Times]

What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain? I am so ready for this election, just the thought leaves me shaking [Sam Knight, The New Yorker]

How to be alone with your thoughts - a matter of practice! [Allie Volpe, Vox]

Big Sicilian Energy [Jo Piazza, Cosmopolitan]

Anatomy of a snack trolley - a delight from Amelia Tait [CityAM]

"We live in an age of therapy speak, in an age of seemingly every song and TikTok and book using the language of introspection and healing and self-care, because we live in an age of increased isolation, of detachment from the messiness and joy and danger of the real, physical world. A culture of excessive introspection is not a sign of collective or personal growth, but a sign of disconnection from the outside world and each other." [PE Moskowitz]

Reading the Rocks [Jenny Odell, Emergence Magazine]

Welcome to Bang Bang’s changeable tattoo revolution - Teen Vogue

I spoke to tattooer to the stars Bang Bang - a tattoo geek if I ever met one. His latest adventure is called Magic Ink, a nanotech innovation that means you can render your tattoos invisible whenever you want. This is not here to replace traditional tattooing though, but to move tattooing along as an artform that can increasingly be for everyone.

Reading List, Anaemia edition.

"I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out." - Natalie Diazem

[Image: Washington driftlog by Phillip Lachman, via AnonymousWorksInc]

"The therapist couldn’t help me ask him to do more if I didn’t feel like I deserved it, if I couldn’t bring myself to ask him myself. I had to learn how to ask." The Lure of Divorce [Emily Gould, The Cut]

"I was afraid of rejection, and I was afraid of getting addicted to crumbs of affirmation. I was a sober alcoholic who hadn’t had a drink in a decade, but from the way I chased “likes” on a tweet, it was clear that the old self was still there, thirstier than ever. I was afraid that giving her an app would be like giving her a glass of wine: She’d just want more, and more, and more. The apps felt like an explicit confession of intentionality and desire: I want this, I’m seeking this. And that intentionality made me uncomfortable. I preferred the version of things in which the universe just ambushed me with a meet-cute in a coffee shop and I didn’t have to claim responsibility for all my wanting." On Dating — And Dating Apps — After Divorce [Leslie Jamison, The Cut]

"There’s so much quiet misery, and we’re always looking to each other to say, “When is it bad enough? When do I get to choose myself?” And I think that concept of a woman choosing herself is really destabilizing." Lyz Lenz is possibly the most happily divorced woman in America [Hillary Frey, Slate]

"There are very few stories about how romantic it can be to sink down into the muck of your real life and meet your partner there, in that compromised place where you’re both a little worse for the wear, a little disappointed, a little impatient, wondering if things will ever feel exciting again." [Ask Polly]

In praise of solo holidays for older women [Joanna Moorhead, The Guardian]

In praise of notebooks and journals and all the other blank paper books that writers keep around [Anna Codrea-Rado]

My Autism Assessment, Age 40 [Esme Wang]

His Latex Goddess [Anna Holmes, The New Yorker]

24 hours in Paris with no phone service [Glynnis MacNichol]

Losing San Francisco [Rebecca Solnit, The London Review of Books]

“Look at your country! It’s amazing.” Armistead Maupin on moving to London [David Shariatmadari, The Guardian]

"Just because I don’t care about someone else’s pain, so to speak, doesn’t mean I want to cause more of it. I enjoy living in this society. I understand that there are rules. I choose to follow those rules because I understand the benefits of this world, this house where I get to live, this relationship I get to have. That is different from people who follow the rules because they have to, they should, they want to be a good person. None of those apply to me. I want to live in a world where things function properly. If I create messes, my life will become messy." What It’s Like to Be a Sociopath [David Marchese, The New York Times - free link]

I read this twice - it's a hell of a ride: How I Fell for a Scam Call and Handed Over $50,000 [Charlotte Cowles, The Cut]

What Seasonal Affective Disorder can tell us about ourselves - Vox

I have a new feature at Vox on what causes Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and winter blues, and how you can actually try and fix it! Because there are things that can genuinely help you - including some things you may not have thought of. I loved working on this article - it made me feel curious and hopeful.

Reading List, Disoriented edition.

"Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire." [Jorge Luis Borges]

[Image by Rita Kostrikova, via 64mag]

One Thing - A catalogue of authenticity

"I couldn’t stop thinking that this trial was also about something else: the value of a woman, long past middle age, who dared to claim she indeed still had value. Just how radical was it for Ms. Carroll, 80, to demand that she was worth something?" E. Jean Carroll and the Value of a Woman ‘Past Her Prime’ [Jessica Bennett, The New York Times]

"We need fewer things to work on. Starting now." It’s Time to Embrace Slow Productivity [Cal Newport, The New Yorker]

"Recently I find the task of wasting time online increasingly onerous. The websites I used to depend on have gotten worse, and it seems as if there’s nowhere else to look. Something is changing about the internet." The Year the Millennials Handed the Internet Over to Zoomers [Max Read, The New York Times]

"The [online] sprawl has become disorienting. Some of my peers in the media have written about how the internet has started to feel “placeless”  and more ephemeral, even like it is “evaporating.” Perhaps this is because, as my colleague Ian Bogost has argued, “the age of social media is ending,” and there is no clear replacement. Or maybe artificial intelligence is flooding the internet with synthetic information and killing the old web. Behind these theories is the same general perception: Understanding what is actually happening online has become harder than ever." Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore [Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic]

Why Are My Secret Spotify Songs Following Me Around? [Nate Jones, Vulture]

“But just remember that Shakespeare himself never read a single book about Shakespeare.” How to stop yourself [Sophie Heawood]

"I've never really experienced jealousy, because I’ve always thought of myself as the greatest person who ever lived. I’m joking; except I’m not." Jealousy! [Amelia Tait, The New Statesman]

"The corporate gig was a revelation. “I could just show up to work and do work,” Lee Tilghman said. After she was done, she could leave. She didn’t have to be a brand. There’s no comments section at an office job." Is There Is Life After Influencing? [Mattie Kahn, The New York Times]

Wine was my poison. Now it’s my sober passion [Nick Johnstone, Financial Times]

America Doesn’t Know Tofu [George Stiffman, Asterisk]

On going to the mat. Baselines [Wudan Yan]

@the_brain_doctor on Instagram

“Life has taught me that things tend to shake out, if you can be cool for two minutes and try to not freak out. Aging has taught me how to respond, not to react — and sober, intelligent responses can take weeks or even years to formulate. That’s ok. Weirdly, I feel like I have far more time now than I did when I was in my twenties, when everything was insanely urgent.” Elizabeth Gilbert Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire

The case for "looping" : In school, I had the same teacher every year, and I was better off for it - Insider

It's called "looping" - when a teacher follows the students up through the years, instead of getting a new teacher every year. The Scandinavian education model is big on looping, and I had no idea it was unusual until I read the research advocating for more countries doing it, because of how it benefits students. I wrote about my looping experience for Insider, with special thanks to my first teacher Reidun and her ability silence the room by quite literally dropping a pin.

Reading List, Bottom of the Year edition.

"Never rush the sweet, delicate time between what’s now and what’s next.” [Jillian Anthony]

Image: Arctic explorer Peter Freuchen and his wife Dagmar Cohn, by Irving Penn (1947)

My frozen year [Anna Codrea- Rado]

An Exhausting Year in (and Out of) the Office [Cal Newport, The New Yorker]

The Ketamine Diaries from Isabel Kaplan, in the proud tradition of "incredible yarns that light up the internet that can only exist as a newsletter series".

"Knowing what I wanted, even for a moment, felt like a form of knowing who I was again, and deciding that, maybe, that person was someone worth trusting." Learning to Want Again [Rainesford Stauffer, TIME]

"There are different ways of being a woman, and it’s really important for people to see that." Jodie Foster, interviewed in the Guardian [Emma Brockes]

Your Friends Don’t All Have to Be the Same Age [Annie Midori Atherton, The Atlantic]

Is 11.30am on a Sunday a good time for a first date? This is the best thing I've ever read about just how exhausting dating can be. TL;DR there's no such thing as a low stakes date [Tiffany Philippou]

Age-Gap Relationships! The Cut did a deep dive with interviews and photos, and presented it without prejudice, but the internet had no such qualms! A delicious piece of journalism.  [Lila Shapiro]

‘I left the cinema, walked home and announced I was moving’ Films that made people emigrate [Kitty Drake, The Guardian]

Does an unhappy partner make you less happy? Heck yes. [Shayla Love, The Guardian]

The Rise of the Accidentally Permissive Parent - They're out there, and they're creating monsters [Elizabeth Passarella, The Cut]

The Whole of the 'Whole Earth Catalog' Is Now Online [Boone Ashworth, Wired]

Should Patients Be Allowed To Die From Anorexia? [Katie Engelhart, The New York Times]

In the 1990s, a group of radical artists smuggled political messages into Melrose Place [Isaac Butler, Slate]

Just How Rich Were the McCallisters in ‘Home Alone’? A serious investigation [Amanda Holpuch, The New York Times]

Roaming Wild Rosie, a YouTube channel.

Boxing Week, that blissful period when nothing happens, is the real gift of Christmas - The Guardian

In ancient Rome the year had only 10 months, starting in March and ending in December. The period that remained was not considered part of the official series of months, creating a limbo in the darkest season. I'm in The Guardian honouring that tradition by celebrating Boxing Week - this is when we can forget what day it is and rest and recharge in a glorious time when nothing much happens.

I’m picking out my own Christmas gifts – for me, it’s freeing - The i Paper

I'm back in The i Paper with why my partner and I take a collaborative approach to gift giving, an approach I thoroughly enjoy. Regarding this headline, I would of course never say that "everyone should" do anything at all, except maybe reconsider a social convention if it makes you unhappy? Because I'm pretty sure there's no correlation between panic-shopping in a picked-clean M&S on Christmas Eve and basically any other relationship skill – choose happiness!

How Brexit created a new European diaspora - Al Jazeera

When Brexit happened, there was no plan for the 3.5 million Europeans living in the UK and they were left twisting in the wind for years. When the Settlement scheme was announced, for many it was not enough - all trust was gone. So they did the only thing they could do to feel secure: they became British citizens. For AlJazeera, I reported on the very mixed feelings among the Brits that Brexit made, and found that this unique experience has created something amazing: a new European diaspora in Britain.

Reading List, Joy in all Quarters edition.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” - Anais Nin

[Images: Andrea Constantini]

Happily Ever Divorced [Molly Rosen, The Cut]

On alcohol and pleasure [Emily Oster, The Atlantic]

Meet the next generation of South Korean seawomen [Louise Kruger, Huck]

Stop firing your friends! [Olga Khazan, The Atlantic]

The lessons from the great experiment of the pandemic lockdown [Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean, The Cut]

The research into Seasonal Affective Disorder is a mixed bag, but maybe that doesn't matter?  The questionable science of SAD [Grace Browne, Wired]

"Millennials are the last of the analog world, both of yesterday and tomorrow, the bridge between what was and what will be. Maybe this is where my hesitation takes root, and why it feels like there are no good apps left for socializing the way we used to." What's next for first generation social media users? [Jason Parham, Wired]

New thinking about burnout by the millennial burnout queen, Anne Helen Petersen [Culture Study]

A genealogy of resistance [Eitan Nechin, Los Angeles Review of Books]

How we downsized our house without throwing anything away - can it be done? [David Pogue, The Cut]

"In the 1960s, two macrobiotic enthusiasts started a health-food sect beloved by hippies. Now it’s the most culty grocer in LA." Welcome to Erewhon, Los Angeles [Kerry Howley, The Cut]

At the Confident Man Ranch [Rosecrans Baldwin, GQ]

"The manosphere promises to fix young men’s lives, but it’s making them miserable." Boy problems [Eamon Whalen, Mother Jones]

"I wasn’t ready for the “Doña Body".” [Xochitl Gonzalez, The Atlantic]

It’s Time To Start Embracing Our Flop Eras [Daisy Jones, Vogue]

Kleo - eine Netflix serie (dubbed into English!)

Historic England on Instagram

Drummond Street, London's original South Asian food haven, is fighting for survival - Time Out London

Just behind Euston Station in Central London is a tiny street with big flavours – this is where you get some absolutely stellar South Asian food, specifically Bangladeshi vegetarian food, as well as some excellent meaty Pakistani food. But as construction for HS2, the high speed train line, has threatened to choke the life out of Drummond Street, the community is fighting back. Until now an open secret, Drummond Street is stepping up to take its well-deserved place as a London foodie destination. Read all about it in my article for Time Out London.

Infinite horizons and subatomic truths – At bedtime, nothing soothes like a YouTube show about science – Well + Good

My partner Luke likes to watch "black hole videos" before bed - turns out, a lot of people do. For Well + Good I explored what it is about staring into the inevitable heat death of the universe that can be so calming, and why a dose of dreamy science can be just the ticket to turn off your brain and go to sleep.

To Save Europe’s Rivers, It’s Back to Basics - Green European Journal

As a river swimmer I have strong feelings about urban rivers – I want to get in, and experience the city from that unique vantage point. But a swimmable river isn't just about wellbeing and belonging. A river you can swim in is a proxy for a river that's healthy, and as climate change bites, rivers are increasingly flooding, drying, and causing problems. For Green European Journal (the political ecology magazine from the Green European Foundation, backed by the European Parliament), I wrote about what we need to do to keep Europe's rivers healthy, so we can enable them to keep us healthy in turn – it really is a matter of collaboration. This story was co-published by Eurozine, a network of European culture journals.

Reading List, In a Flash edition.

The Laughing Heart [Charles Bukowski, 1993] Your life is your life Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness. Be on the watch. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. Take them. You can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The gods wait to delight In you.

[Image: Lucas Allen]

"Some of the ways friendship changes in this life stage is just “being in your 30s.” Friends are already disappearing from dinner parties and birthdays and day trips and concerts and “God, I’ve had a shit week. Can we just sit on your couch and eat takeout?’’ evenings. There are so many big events besides having children that make you less available to friends: serious relationships, career changes, getting sober, moving cities, caring for aging parents, finances. We talk through those moments because we’re aware enough of how important friendships are and how hard they are to keep. You literally live longer the more adult friends you have, and if you believe the surgeon general, we’re all one invitation away from being part of the “loneliness epidemic.” Parenthood (specifically motherhood) is a known contributor to feeling isolated, but though we tell friends, “You work too hard,” or even, “Your new girlfriend is a drag,” we never point our fingers at the baby and say, “That thing is tearing us all apart." Can Parents and Childless People Be Friends? [Allison P Davies, The Cut]

"We have brothers, sons, lovers – but they can’t live here!" The 26 older women living in a cohousing community in Chipping Barnet [Anita Chaudhuri, The Guardian]

The Case for Love-Life Balance [Faith Hill, The Atlantic]

‘Oddly satisfying’: what’s behind our drive to collect useless items? [Amelia Tait, The Guardian]

Celebrities are now “honest” about diet, exercise and beauty. I wish they weren’t [Amelia Tait, The New Statesman]

"The internet as we know it is a glorious, awful, intricate, sprawling series of networks that needs our information in order to function. We cannot go back to a time before this was true—before turn-by-turn directions and eerily well-targeted ads, before we carried little data-collection machines in our pockets all day—and nor would all of us want to. But we can demand much more from the reckless stewards of our information." What Digital Privacy Is Worth [Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic]

"There are so many fun things to do on the internet. You can watch that History of Japan video for the zillionth time. You can have a glass of wine and reply enthusiastically to the Instagram Stories of everyone you know. Anything, truly anything, is a better use of your time than getting upset that a stranger somewhere disagrees with you." Social media is making you angry. You simply have to ignore it. [Rebecca Jennings, Vox]

You don't have to post about your moral outrage [Elizabeth Spiers, The New Yorker]

Citizenship Restored - a fascinating story about gaining German citizenship as a descendant of Jewish refugees [Daniel Trilling, the London Review of Books]

"This pandemic skip — the strange sensation that our bodies might be a step out of sync with our minds — happened to people of all ages. We’ve heard of those freshmen in high school, who, never having attended middle school, went back to their classrooms punching each other like 12-year-olds. A friend skipped from 57 to 60 and, when she started dressing up to leave the house again, realized she felt distinctly out of sorts in her clothes — her dresses felt suddenly too short or too colorful. (At 57, she said, patterns felt ironic. At 60, they didn’t.) My skip, I realized, had carried me swiftly through what would have been my last couple years of socially permissible carelessness. And what I’d dropped into didn’t especially appeal, particularly after having been trapped in the house cats-in-a-bag style for three years: real adulthood with all its attendant concerns." The Pandemic Skip [Katy Schneider. New York Magazine]

“I was on my own so much, just with my thoughts. The way I describe it is like weeding your garden. You don’t realise it, but your head is full of these weeds and when you’re walking, you’re on your knees pulling weeds. After about a year and a half, when I was down in south Peru, I felt like I’d thought all the thoughts, and the garden was clean. There was no more angst, no regrets, nothing I could pick through. I was in the Atacama desert, lying under a million stars, and it felt I was at the bottom of myself. All the doubts went. It was a hollowed-out feeling. A simple sense of existing – you’re just a small little creature in the universe. It was just peace.” Tom Turcich on his seven-year walk around the world [Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian]

A Guide to Lana Del Rey’s Literary References [Sophie Lou Wilson. AnOther Magazine]

"A completely correct theory, in which one of our greatest movie stars reveals humanity’s changing relationship to modernity." Sandra Bullock and the Rise of Tech [Jim Windolf, The New  York Times]

"When people say they’re able to strictly abide a certain diet under any circumstances, I feel both a bit jealous and also incredulous: what are you missing? Not just food-wise, but conversation-wise. I find it important that I’m always coming into friction in the world about being a bivalve-eating vegetarian: how else would I know how unfriendly the world is to a plant-based diet? How else would I be told stories of the vegans who eat cheese only in Spain or the vegetarians who make accommodations for certain seafood? I want to know these stories, and I want to know everyone’s food story." On the ‘Grandma Rule’ [Alicia Kennedy]

Historic England is creating  an online map of ghost signs [Steven Morris, The Guardian]

I’m opting out of the end to British Summer Time – I’m keeping the light - The i Paper

I’m a talking head! It’s been a while since I was in actual print, and I’m pleased I got to share with the nation my personal deranged little plan for how I stay in the light all winter - by refusing to change my clocks. Rage against the dying of the light! 🌅 Read the online version (which is longer than Saturday’s print version) here.

The last days of East London's urban cathedrals - Time Out London

The two gasholders sitting on the canal just above Broadway Market in East London are a beloved local landmark - no matter what's going on in your life they're always there, towering gloriously and defiantly against the skyline. But the housing juggernaut has reached the Bethnal Green gasholders. For Time Out London, I reported on the end of an era.