do you have to let it linger?

postcard 32: on the lost art of lingering, tv show cancellations, and art as a transaction

I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river, to me you're everything that exists, the reality of everything.

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prelude

Notting Hill (1999)

Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.

—Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

My lack of patience started early in my life. There is a framed photograph in my parents’ house in which I, at six years old, am rolling my eyes at a teacher saying “wait for it…!” for the tenth time right before announcing something at a school assembly. My favorite thing to say before I could speak in full sentences was “baby do it!” as I wanted to do everything myself, from pressing elevator buttons to answering the phone. My parents had to wean me off the habit of putting my hands on my hips and staring at people whenever I was upset, and I was usually upset because I was impatient (picture below).

me at 4 years old, being upset at my parents for taking too long to walk because they were admiring the scenery

I know what I love and hate, so decisions usually don’t take a long time to make. I take pride in productivity—getting everything done as quickly and efficiently as possible, trying to fit 48 hours into 24. I unconsciously finish my iced Americanos in a few gulps (and awkwardly shake the ice left in my plastic cup while my friends or coworkers take leisurely sips for the next hour). I often get into arguments with my little sister because she takes triple the amount of time it takes me to make a decision, because she thinks of every single hypothetical curveball before reaching one (which is probably why she has much fewer regrets in her life than I do).

My parents attempted to remedy this while I was growing up. While they always say that my quick decision making is beneficial because I have a strong sense of my preferences, they were worried that I was being too rash in many things. I have always been a fast reader, flying through books in a much shorter amount of time than is probably acceptable. This is why they encouraged me to journal my feelings or write little book reviews since I was six or seven; sit with it for a bit, was something they’d always repeat to me. Most of the big decisions in my life were made with my gut feeling, for better or for worse: deciding on the college I wanted to attend between three took me ten minutes, deciding to go to law school took me even less, and so on. And every time I told them I had made up my mind and everything was set in stone now, they would tell me, “sweetie, just sit with it for a bit.”

Sit with it for a bit has the same sentiment to let it linger. My compulsive habit of writing everything down probably stemmed from this. By the time I was ten, opening a notebook and writing down my thoughts about a book or movie became a reflex, no matter the complexity of it. It is probably why I have about thirty pages in my journal from 2010 dedicated to the entire Twilight saga, and why I have thirty pages in my journal from 2023 dedicated to Middlemarch (which I actually slowly read a chapter a day together with my friend Emma, calling and discussing every five chapters—best decision ever).

An antidote to my impatience is my love for literature and art and movies—mediums that demand for one to sit with it, to let it linger. Every decision about a page, brushstroke, second, was made for a reason, and I believe that the bare minimum we can do as consumers is reflect on those for a second.

Leah and my conversation about this

Good art demands to be loved in its entirety. This is how I feel about most of the books I read—I consider writing my thoughts about the book as important as reading it, and it is in these moments that I sometimes truly understand the meaning of something. The same goes for movies or visits to an art museum. However, much of this habit has clashed with the lightning speed pace of culture these days. Books and movies no longer feel like art that we should consume and let linger for a while, but commodities we are supposed to consume the same way we would re: clothes (a whole different topic and can of worms).

Recently, it has felt like everything is primed and prepped for the attention span that a short ten second Tiktok clip asks for. I sometimes see authors putting out two books a year in which the quality feels like releasing one book a year (which is already a lot), would have been better. Streaming platforms are cancelling shows after three weeks of its release, and movies are moving to streaming platforms only a few weeks after its release. It feels like art has been reduced to a trend cycle as well, and as soon as there is a little dip in engagement or public reception, it vanishes without a trace.

link to the tweet

I understand art has always been deeply intertwined with materialism. In order to consume and enjoy it, we are purchasing the art, whether that is going to a bookstore or the movie theater. And it should be this way because that is how the artist is able to create new art. However, its transactional nature has slowly started to feel exceedingly myopic, like everyone has suddenly forgotten that sometimes, things need a bit of time to gain publicity and recognition. Expecting every book, every show, every movie to do well from day one is foolish thinking. And it feels like we have slowly begun to lose the concept of letting it linger as a society.

More often than not, a show needs more than one season to determine its success, and a movie more than a few weeks to know if it “tanked at the box office”. It does speak to our shrinking attention spans as a whole—personally, I can physically feel it every time I scroll on Tiktok or Twitter for hours—and the unwillingness to course correct. This is a large part in why I add ten article recommendations in my weekly postcards, to encourage reading and critical thinking, even when running on short time.

Tangentially, I do genuinely believe that generative AI has had a devastating impact on art created by humans and will continue to do so. The fact that a computer can create something that takes someone months and years to do, albeit in my opinion, very badly, will ineluctably cheapen and devalue everything people create as well. Artists are increasingly being seen as an expendable resource. Some people seem to be under the impression that AI or robots are the future because it costs less in the long run. They seem to forget that the beauty of most things in life lies in the humanness of it.

link to the tweet

I am a deeply impatient person, but I don’t think it is even about impatience anymore; it feels more sinister than that. Impatience is a human emotion, and big businesses cannot feel such things. The art of letting things linger has become something archaic, lost in the steeps of corporate greed and between the axis of a cost benefit model. Everything is moving in super speed that feels different than a few years ago, like we are recklessly surpassing the speeding limit as a society and we are waiting for the inevitable crash.

Can nobody see it?

interlude i: what i read this week

I read two books this week: Everything Under by Daisy Johnson and Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Everything Under was a perfect fall read, vibe wise. It was atmospheric and eerie, and hauntingly beautiful. Unfortunately, all the plots felt like they led to dead ends, and the plot twist was insane in a bad way. This was a retelling of a Greek myth, but I feel like so many of them fall short these days? Like people are just aligning a plot to a myth and subsequently end up with an overabundance of plot holes.

I had actually read almost half of Cannery Row during the spring, so I finished it this week. I love Steinbeck and East of Eden changed my life, so I’m always excited to read a book of his (everything but Of Mice and Men, because I do not like that book). East of Eden is still my favorite of his, but I really loved Cannery Row. There’s something magical about Steinbeck’s writing—he writes like he is able to fully see life for what it is. He writes ordinary people and his prose is unadorned and simple, but everything feels real and intentional in a way, and you’re reading this in the right place and right time as a reader.

If you have yet to read a Steinbeck, I recommend starting with East of Eden! It is a bit lengthy but I don’t think I’ve met anyone who disliked that book. It is pretty readable and so worth it.

Here is my Goodreads.

Here are ten articles I read this week:

1. Solace and Saudade

   In the face of an inscrutable, indifferent universe, Pessoa suggests we cultivate a certain longing for the elusive horizon.

2. Decorating Houses With Edith Wharton: On Interior Design as Art and Literary Practice

   Emily J. Orlando Considers Another Creative Side of the Chronicler of the Gilded Age

3. The Long History of Art Inspired by Solar Eclipses

   For centuries, curious artists have been trying to make sense of the celestial event.

4. The Domestic Disappointments of Natalia Ginzburg

   “If my siblings and I were to find ourselves in a dark cave or among millions of people,” she wrote in Family Lexicon, her most celebrated novel, “just one of those phrases or words would immediately allow us to recognize each other.”

5. Laughing Shores

   Sailors, exiles, merchants and philosophers: how the ancient Greeks played with language to express a seaborne imagination.

6. Do You Remember School?

   In collecting my classmates’ stories, I’ve become more attuned to the tricks of memory, the way it both binds and divides us.

7. Nothing Could Happen Between Us

   “You see, I have been chronically unlucky in love, a classic self-sabotager. I have a habit of eagerly searching for reasons to reject men who court me, nit-picking them into oblivion. And when I got lonely enough, I would consult my list of favorite exes for some make-believe being in love.”

8. A Teen's Fatal Plunge Into the London Underworld

   After Zac Brettler mysteriously plummeted into the Thames, his grieving parents discovered that he’d been posing as an oligarch’s son. Would the police help them solve the puzzle of his death?

9. The Essay as Realm

   “I think this is important: memories and ideas happen in a place. An essay is a place for ideas; it has to feel like a place. It has to give one the feeling of entering a room.”

10. Getting the Spark Back

    “I went to one of Tinder’s in-person dating events. I was not expecting it to go like this.”

interlude ii: what i watched this week

I watched Little Fish, which was emotionally devastating to say the least, but an amazing movie. I watched this on Tuesday, and I feel like it’s the sort of movie that creeps up on you because I’m thinking about it more today than I was an hour after finishing it. I also rewatched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind today, which was…also emotionally devastating. I don’t know why I keep coming back to this movie because I quite literally can’t function properly for a good two hours after finishing it (same with Aftersun), but it’s just such a beautifully and aesthetically well made film.

Here is my Letterboxd!

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postlude

Haystack at Giverny by Claude Monet, 1886

things i love: diptyque’s citronelle and cannelle candle lit together, classic books from 1930-1970, one direction’s four album, the new season of the great british baking show