In short, Londoners – GO! It’s special, Leah’s special – & all proceeds go to the Brain Tumour Charity

Leah was kind enough to welcome me into her studio last month & so generously spoke to me about what she called “the world between my head and my hands” – her artworks are astonishingly brilliant & radically reframe what it means to make & create at times of great uncertainty when the body revolts

Cavaliero Finn Presents: Brain Tumour Book - Artist Leah Jensen’s Journey Through Cancer Diagnosis to Treatment | 17 - 26 April 2026 Cavaliero Finn is proud to present, "Brain Tumour Book" a charity fundraising exhibition of artwork by Leah Jensen at the Fitzrovia Chapel in London from Friday 17th - 26th April 2026. The exhibition ...

“I swapped clay for textiles, something I could do from bed. It became an absolute necessity for me”

– a few words from Leah Jensen on her extraordinary second life in embroidered stitch-work since her brain tumour diagnosis, examples of which you can see at the Fitzrovia Chapel over the next week:

We live in a country where the two most dynamic, charismatic, eloquent politicians of this century have the first names Barack and Zohran. This is what bothers the white supremacists so much.

Lost Federico García Lorca verse discovered 93 years after it was written Eight-line poem found on the back of a manuscript sheds light on Spanish poet’s preoccupation with time

“The clock sings
I count the hours mechanically
Seven o’clock; twelve o’clock
It’s all the same
I am not here
It is the mark of flesh
That I left behind when I departed
So as to know my place
Upon my return.”

This is how you do it

I was particularly moved by the inscription ‘invenit et fecit’ that she added to her name on the canvas, a powerful statement that women had the ability to both ‘invent’ and ‘make’ just like men – and boy, could she make

I urge you all to go & see this small but mighty RA exhibition. Michaelina Wautier was painting extraordinarily humanistic portraits, mythologies & histories in the 1600s & I hope that the recent ascension of Artemisia Gentileschi leads to more awakenings like this; it is a triumph of scholarship

Bless you x

16 months typing away in my lightless basement! Still can't quite believe I've got something to show for it 😂

74,400 words. Holy shit, I think I may have just finished my first draft? I think I may have just finished my first draft — 😭

The Real Surreal: On the Road in the USA with a Polaroid Camera | The Quietus Kat Lister recreates the journey of Wim Wenders with Polaroid camera in hand to look at the transient nature of life and photography

I watched a wonderful Q&A with Wim Wenders last night, largely about his polaroids: how he gave away more than he kept because that medium seemed to belong to the photographed, not him – SUCH a beautiful sentiment. It reminded me of this essay I wrote about Wenders & polaroids for @thequietus.com:

It actually opens like a sweetie jar so I can keep all my shit highlighter pens nice and safe

She was even scared to give it to me as if I'd be disappointed to receive such a gift. Who'd reject this?! It's a hero amongst men.

My mum bought me a super-sized ex-display Parker Quink bottle for my birthday and can I just say that it is now the joy of my writing desk:

this did make me chuckle but, oh, how I can’t stand “how to” lists – and I opened my book with the weather! I think the beauty of writing is in its difference, finding your own voice

WIDOWS UNITE

*(Can you tell I had thoughts but no time to write an op-ed?)

Enough with the impossible ideal of the grieving widow. It's 2026: let women live their lives.

And yeah, I'm going to mention Courtney Love because this is consistent with her performance at Reading Festival in 1994, a performance that every commentator likes to point out was *five months after Kurt Cobain's death", as if by simply stating this time period as fact it sidesteps judgement.

Truthfully, this only goes to show how many of us still pedal the myth that there is some kind of linearity to grief. But also – & this is really important – how the concept of “good/bad" grieving can be gender-targeted, ie simply another way to hector women about their choices.

I’m seeing a lot of hot takes on all the ghouls coming out to widow-shame Aubrey Plaza’s pregnancy and can I just say AS A WIDOW I am really not surprised. It’s one of the reasons I wrote a 65,000 word book about it all.

Terrible take from the NYT: “Orban’s defeat is a setback for the global nationalist revival promoted by President Trump.”

Is that what we’re calling Fascism these days? (Also, it started with Putin.)

❤️

There’s nothing like a bunion flare-up to welcome the week you turn 43, is there. Easing into the inflammatory arthritis like a pro.

Dancing through time | Returning to Pina Bausch’s Kontakthof | Dance Documentary YouTube video by Sadler's Wells

What a moving night, watching the original cast of Pina Bausch's 1978 production of Kontakthof reunite in their seventies: dancing with their younger selves, dancing with friends they've lost – all with their bodies, their bodies, which carry their history with such grace:

and even that’s insulting to rectal polyps – I’ve seen mine in a sample test tube and they’ve got more going on for them than this guy

Tradwife movement ‘attracts men who are hostile to women’ The strongest predictor of support for women staying at home and deferring to their husband is not, as researchers expected, chivalry but ‘hostile sexism’

"Among young American men, the strongest predictor of support for the tradwife lifestyle was not gallantry but hostility towards women"

Apparently this is not what researchers "expected". Which makes one wonder: had these researchers thought about it for 30 seconds?
www.thetimes.com/life-style/s...

😂

Up there for me! I think it's special, glad you agree