It’s nearly April in Scotland, my second since moving here. Spring feels somehow more special here. Perhaps it’s my age, or unfamiliarity with the rhythms of the weather in this country and the precipitous west coast. Maybe it’s just a sense of collective relief: that we made it through winter, and there’s light at the end of it after all.
The light here is different—silvery, more ethereal somehow—it never feels quite as thick and golden as it can in the south, but contains a certain cool-blue clarity.
Every year it feels like it’s been so long since the trees have had leaves that I can’t help but wonder if it’s just not going to happen this time. Like we’re just waiting for that one day to come when the blossom fails to bloom, the birds forget how to sing. The winter’s been more gloomy than usual, a dark grey headwind numbing the cheeks and stinging the eyes, leaving us yearning for safety and certainty.
And yet, April rolls around again and the trees begin to bud, in spite of everything. The fog is lifting. Yesterday I heard the sound of a woodpecker again for the first time since last summer, I didn’t realise I had missed it.
I’ve noticed I’ve had a few more subscribers since I last posted a few months ago now: thanks so much for signing up! Some of you might be here following the news that we’re dissolving Glimpse. It’s been an amazing experience that’s set me on a particular path that I’m very grateful for—the organisation is dispersing but the work continues 🙂
I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’m ever going to be a regular writer or content-creator in the way that you seem to have to be to build a following in this new personal-brand-economy: work gets busy, or I periodically just run out of things to say. I don’t think I can have opinions or interesting takes on a deadline. Some people are so good at that, but it just sounds exhausting to me. But I’m happy to have an outlet where I can put thoughts sporadically out into the world, and I’m grateful for anyone who is interested to read them!
Right now I have a lot of thoughts about mass communication and climate change. I’m trying to process and format them in at least a slightly coherent way, so keep an eye out in the coming days/weeks, as I’d love to discuss and hear from other people who are thinking about this stuff.
In the meantime, here’s a really good podcast series from Benjamen Walker: “Not All Propaganda is Art”
It’s about the CIA’s cultural influence in the 50s and 60s in turning the European view of US culture as crass and vulgar towards the celebration of individualism and populism that is so much the background of our mediated world today. I’ve been a fan of Walker’s for years now but this is the most coherent and binge-worthy thing I’ve heard for a little while.
Thanks for reading. If you like what you’ve read here, you can subscribe for free to get a little nudge next time I post. And consider sharing with one of your cool and interesting mates 🙂
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