To all those looking for something to read, good morning (and good for you, word is TV might be over anyway – books still fine; cinema also fine but stop chewing so loudly). Make some breakfast, and enjoy some of the treasures I’ve come across on my rolling journey around the Guardian this week.
Tasting notes for today’s reads: Ponder the real way to make porridge – no milk, no rolled oats and always add salt. Or skip that, make like Marilyn and just have eggs and milk.
1. Cherry-red romance
Hear me out (or dive right in, if you already know you’re into this sort of thing): the story of the Dukes cricket ball is, an unnamed colleague insists, “the loveliest bit of sports writing all year”. Huge call? Yes. Especially as it’s only June. But consider the ingredients: a small factory about an hour from Lord’s; “subtly different” stitching techniques passed down from parent to child; the glossy, cherry-red balls, no two made alike …
And most interestingly, a closely guarded formula for lacquer – created by the mysterious Walter, a Jewish man who “apparently survived Auschwitz” and escaped the Nazis to make his life in Derbyshire.
***
“I’m going to tell you a secret I’ve never told anyone … I’ve got something no one else has, and they’d likely do all sorts to get their hands on it” – Dilip Jajodia (who completes all the Dukes orders by hand).
A pleasing detail: Did you know the bit where the ball is held to a naked flame and covered in grease is called “lamping”? You do now.
How long will it take to read: six or so minutes.
2. Ocean Vuong’s interview
The American poet and novelist’s chat (via email) with Kadish Morris about grief, craft and the general experience of being alive is unaffected, intellectual and intimate.
“My work is not just my experience, but rather a questing forward from experience,” he says. And then offers something useful for anyone wanting to write: “I have a deep suspicion or, more accurately, an ambivalence to the myth of ‘style’. I believe the common anxiety for a writer to ‘find’ or ‘establish’ a style is actually incredibly limiting – and the longer I teach the more I find this to be true.”
How long will it take to read: two-and-a-half minutes.
Further reading: This interview with Brandon Taylor, another American author I like, on his new novel (a “Zola-esque symphony of lives”) and the way his books “are getting slightly more optimistic about human relations as they go along”.
3. Venerable advice
Shortly before Dr Gladys McGarey turned 70, Bill – her friend, colleague and husband of 46 years – walked out. The pain of the separation was the hardest thing she’s ever experienced, she tells Paula Cocozza, worse even than two lots of cancer (in her 30s and 90s) – “it wasn’t until I was 93 that I really accepted it”.
“It’s not a matter of getting over stuff, it’s a matter of living through it,” she reflects. “If you can live through the issues that you have been faced with, they become one of your teachers.”
Why should I listen to her? She’s 102. If that’s not enough clout for you, consider that no fewer than 1.3 million people have read this article, as of Friday. (Death, taxes … and trials of the heart.)
How long will it take to read: a minute-and-a-half.
4. Escape from North Korea
Somewhere on the border between North Korea and China lies an “intricate web of mountain passes” that Timothy Cho once used to make his escape, after a failed first attempt. But recent satellite images of Kim Jong-un’s huge new security blockade along this northern frontier reveal that route is now sealed off – and with it, another access point for foreign medicines, pharmaceuticals … and phones. A vast, dramatic marker in Kim’s quest to establish an entirely closed “digital state”.
Something’s afoot: Control of smartphone technology is increasing in North Korea. But Kim’s black market crackdown is read by some as a sign of fragility – one that Cho suggests could backfire among the donju (the “money-lords” Kim allowed to flourish at the start of his premiership).
“Expect worsening malnutrition, intensifying mind games with the west and the increased brandishing of nuclear weapons,” Cho writes. “Things may get complicated.”
How long will it take to read: two-and-a-half minutes.
5. Nick Cave: conservative or not?
Is Nick Cave a conservative? Or just conservative? Is there any meaningful difference? Dorian Lynskey’s piece weighs up recent debate on the contradictions in the musician’s various positions – and the contradictions of anyone (but perhaps particularly artists) being held to a position at all.
How long will it take to read: three-and-a-quarter minutes.
Further reading: Fergal Kinney’s piece for the New Statesman ($) first took up this topic last month, after King Charles’s coronation. He made the (good) point that Cave’s conservatism, if that’s what we’re calling it, is interesting in not being a symptom of “creative decline or a tightening of the spirit” (*nods meaningfully at Morrissey, Van Morrison*), but something more slippery, more renegade – a refusal of coherence for its own sake.
Kinney and Lynskey both fly their colours pretty plainly for team Cave. For a different view, follow Lynskey’s pointer to the Australian critic Anwen Crawford’s (still-scalding) take from 2009.
PS: I’m leaving you to the tender mercies of Kris Swales for the next few weeks – happy reading. Don’t forget to write to us, we frame these emails and hang them.
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