Last week, I shared a few of my favorite posts from my first year on Substack. Here are a few oddball posts on some of my favorite extracurriculars (folktales, travel, trying to make sense of totalitarianism): On Italo Calvino’s Italian Folktales: Rivers of milk run through these fables, and there are dark forests with bright clearings, slumbering kingdoms, sorcerers and beggars (sometimes sorcerers in disguise), unspeakable curses and enchantments, unbreakable bonds, contrary and deadly sentinels (“if her eyes are open, she’s asleep; if closed, she’s awake”), cross old women peeled wrinkle by wrinkle, the misadventures of consecrated wafers. Bold protagonists tame by charm, calling snakes macaroni and blood wine and bile milk, thread the needle of impossible desires and futile precautions, and observe mysterious and exacting rites that must be performed without any hope of ever being understood.
Ooh dreamy and haunting. A lovely departure from the uszh. 🧡
Unless I missed it, I’m struck that you haven’t shared this one (which left an impression on me, at least): https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/escape-routes
I loved that Greece piece. Hope you do more travel writing.
And I can't help smiling at the fact that one of your favourite extracurricular activities is 'trying to make sense of totalitarianism'!
(Mind you, I can't talk. My idea of relaxation is doing The Times crossword...)
Possibly my oldest hobby, dating back to about age 12!
Don't think I'd heard of the word Totalitarianism when I was 12 !
Ah, well, maybe you had friends!
Not really. I spent loads of time reading Agatha Christie novels and books on cricket. Nerdy in a different way..