Back To Shore

Lyrics: “Fuckin’ Perfect” – P!NK, 2010

Last week I went to see a P!NK tribute show at the local theatre and it was lots of fun. Going in I was aware that I don’t know all that many songs of her. I mean, I know the hits of course and a few more, but there were also a few which felt new to me. When I looked up how long ago she had her first big hit, I felt so old. But I guess, with nearing 50 (next year) that’s just the way it is. Anyway, it was fun to sing and dance along and I’ve downloaded some more of her music to listen to on the next long car drives. For some reason I didn’t get around to catching up with her music on on Sunday as I had planned originally.

When I started a draft of this post on Sunday I had actually planned to give you an insight into the various newsletters I’ve subscribed to in order to get a variety of perspectives on news and politics and global and social issues. But I then spent way too much time catching up with the various news articles that day and in the end couldn’t be bothered to compile a comprehensive list of my sources. Next weekend, maybe.

But I’d still like to share one – not news article – but “Dlf nova Hörsaal” science podcast episode I listened to on the weekend, which blew my mind. It’s in German, so maybe not available to all of you, but if you speak the language and are interested, I’ll share the link below.

A lecturer of evolutionary anthropology talked about spatial and social cognition in non-human great apes and children and how different cultures and thus languages have different words and a whole different way of spatial awareness. He started with the simple test how easy we can agree on what something looks like, because we all have the same understanding of colours (blue is blue to everyone). But how difficult it is for us to describe smells or tastes and how different we experience and describe smells. And how other languages have much more words for different tastes and smells and so much more.

What blew my mind then was his report on how people in other parts of the world have different spatial cognition. These days the majority of people think that “left and right” are the proper terms to talk about the space around us. But that’s not the case everywhere in the world and it hasn’t been the case all through history of mankind. From what I took away from his studies using absolute terms like “north and south” to navigate the world around us is the more natural way than to use directional terms like “left and right”. Great apes think in absolute ways, but also small children and like I said some cultures elsewhere still do. According to him more languages in the world in fact use absolute terms than directional ones. It’s just that those languages are going extinct and that the majority of people in the world by now grow up in cultures that use directional terms like left and right. According to him that also explains why children only learn to use those terms correctly after a certain age and that even adults sometimes have problems with that. It’s not natural!

I thought that was super fascinating. NerdAlert? Maybe!

Dlf Nova Hörsaal: Kognitionsforschung: Über den Zusammenhang von Sprache und Denken

I was brought out of my lie-in yesterday morning by the doorbell around 8:45. The postman had to deliver a package which wouldn’t fit into my mailbox. I knew it would be delivered on that day, but I had forgotten that it came by regular mail via the postman in the morning and not via the parcel service, which serves our route in the afternoon usually. Anyway reason enough to get up.

I’m on a bit of a crazy book buying binge these days. I would try to explain why, but I honestly couldn’t. My lack of impulse control when it comes to books clearly has something to do with it. Also the fact that I’ll get a bit of extra credit when I don’t cash-in the money I get for selling read/used books to the recommerce service I use for that. For instance instead of getting 10€ back into my bank account, I get a voucher for 12€ to buy more (used) books from them. I don’t sell my books to earn money, it’s mainly to make space on my shelves. Which I then fill with new and more books. Yes, this might constitute a problem in the long run, because I usually buy more books than I sell. I need to get rid off, e.g. throw away some of the stuff on my shelves. I do have books (non-fiction, travel guides etc.) which don’t have any commercial value anymore and as much as it pains me, I need to bin them. All the public bookcases in my area are already filled to the brim and I don’t want to add to the “throw away” books which I assume are quite a few of the ones in there.

The actual books I’m reading this week are the non-fiction “Unwell Women” by Elinor Cleghorn (still, as I haven’t made much progress there) and Maggie O’Farrell’s “This Must Be The Place” (on Kindle). I’m about 1/3 in and enjoy reading it, because I like the prose and I think the way the narrative is structured is interesting. This book actually was one I’ve owned and still haven’t read for the longest time. In a weird / wild (?) attempt to tackle the long list of unread books – which gets longer and longer with each book buying binge, I KNOW – I thought I should intersperse the newer and current books on to-read-next-list with the ones unread for the longest time. O’Farrell was the one that looked the most interesting and I honestly wonder why I never picked it before.

---

Back to how I also spend my weekend: besides reading fiction / non-fiction books, I also try to catch up with all the news articles I bookmarked during the week. I think, I mentioned that last week as well. I also try to listen to more news / politics / society podcasts. Mostly in the car, but maybe I should do that more at home as well instead of mindlessly watching vintage shows on Netflix. I don’t listen to most of them on a weekly basis, but pick an episode if the topic interests me. I listened to an informative German one on the International Humanitarian Law aspects of the war in Gaza. And I’m halfway through another German one on how the right-wing populist party AfD might change the education system if they manage to govern in a federal state in Germany. Another interesting new one in English is “A Muslim & a A Jew Go There”, hosted by politician Sayeeda Warsi and comedian David Baddiel.

Back to how I spend my spare time: I finally was motivated to finish building the LEGO duck. I run out of good shelf space to put all my LEGO though. It’s a first world problems, I know.

Book fiction was a bit of a disappointment for me in February. I sent some of the books I read already on to be re-sold, because I know I won’t want to read them again, so there is no proper photo this time. 

The “Dale Detective” audiobook series is the “lull me to sleep” one and I’m on the third or so round through all of them, so they will appear on my Storygraph stats page. 

I had started another book earlier in the month – Lucky Girl – but I just didn’t feel in the right mood, so it went back to the shelf after a few chapters to be read at another time. Maybe. 

Other than that I clearly have been on a Bryony Gordon spree this month. Her new one was out mid- / late February and of course I read that as well. But only finished it today, so it’s going to be in my March recap.  

The Roughest Draft (Emily Wibberley, Austin Siegemund-Broka, 2022)

DNF after about halfway of the story. To me it just dragged on and on. The two main characters were too boring and whiney for me to care about them in any way. I also had a hard time keeping track of the different points of view and past/present timeline, even though it always was clearly stated. I just didn’t care

Read this as part of the Storygraph Onboarding Challenge.

The Perfect Marriage (Jeneva Rose, 2020)
1.25 ★
I rushed through the last third or more of this book, because I thought it dragged on and on. What mostly turned me off and bored me was the style of writing to be honest. It’s written in alternating first person narrative. They didn’t seem so different, both just rather unemotional and flat. Short sentences and a lot of I did this and then I did that. Also they kept having the same thoughts over and over and going in circles and while I agree that that’s human nature, it doesn’t make good literature to me.

The plot was interesting enough at first, because there were enough of possible suspects, but that all started to muddle a bit after a while. A lot of the police and law procedures also felt highly unprofessional to me, which also turned me off.

I admit the ending came as a surprise, which adds another 0.25 to the rating. I just also found it too far-fetched and unrealistic.

All in all clearly not my kind of book.

Forever Hold Your Peace (Liz Fenton, Lisa Steinke, 2023)
1.5 ★
This book proved a disappointment for me. One of the characters was a bit of a creep in my eyes (and NO, even a long lost love doesn’t make that ok). Their child had no spine and in generell I thought all of them just whined a lot. The emotional side of it all felt too cheesy and the plot too much of a cliche. Sorry, that was just not my cup of tea.

The Book of Beginnings (Sally Page, 2023)
3.0 ★
This was a nice story about friendship in all it’s forms and about finding oneself and starting over. I sort of liked it, thought it was rather slow in parts. For some reason I sadly couldn’t really get overly interested in these characters.

No Such Thing As Normal: What My Mental Illness Has Taught Me About Mental Wellness (Bryony Gordon, 2021)
4.0 ★
Another great book from Bryony. I’ve been working on my own mental health issues for a while now, so I’ve known about many of the techniques / advice in this book. But it definitely helped as a reminder.

Mad Girl (Bryony Gordon, 2016)
4.25 ★
This was difficult to read at times, because Bryony was and still is so open about all her mental health issues: the OCD, the depression and what it all did to her. Although I think it might be even more painful to read in the follow-up book “Glorious Rock Bottom”- I’m glad and grateful that she shares her story though because it made me feel less like a freak with all the mental health issues and weird thoughts and ups and downs I had in my life so far. Every once in a while I had wished she’d dial down the colloquial, self-deprecating humour, but I guess that’s just her way of telling her story.

Glorious Rock Bottom (Bryony Gordon 2020)
4.75 ★
I’m in awe of Bryony Gordon and how openly she speaks about her addiction and mental health issues. Always have been, always will be, so this is not an objective review. She’s kind of a role model for me in so many ways. In this one she not only delves into how the addiction made her behave appallingly, but also how she used the alcohol and drugs to quiet all the other stuff going on in her mind. OCD, anxiety and all the other crap human minds can torment themselves with. And that’s something I could very much relate to. Ignoring / masking the real issues and emotions by other mindless/useless behaviour. Reading this book definitely made me want to work on my own issues / battle my own demons a bit more.