Death.
Life in death.
Death.
This month we continue our new format (catch up here if you have no clue what I’m talking about) exploring death. Whilst last month was about light and hope, this month’s theme is based on the opposing force.
“without your past,
you could never have arrived-
so wondrously and brutally,
By design or some violent, exquisite happenstance
...here.
And in the death of her reputation,
She felt truly alive.”
- Taylor Swift
The Kitchen Table Chronicles
Footnotes of creative inspiration and recommendations on a theme shared from the place all the best conversations happen, straight from my kitchen table, to you.
To watch…
Meet Joe Black. City of Angels (I feel like that might be a popular title so for clarity - Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage). I keep coming back to them (because I have a dark soul maybe?) - Frankenstein, Crimson Peak and I’ll add Wuthering Heights into the mix though really having just finished the book I can’t help but feel I’d like Guillermo del Toro to finish the story where Emerald Fennell left off because I think he has a very good grip on the sadness that embodies death but also the manner in which that death occurred and that really she left the story as it was just beginning. Companion films to Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights - Mary Shelley and Emily. Midsommar. A Good Person. I can’t think of others right now but I’m sure as soon as I hit publish they’ll all come knocking at my door saying “what about me?!”.
For the record player…
“Bigger than the whole sky” - Taylor Swift.
Soundtracks to the above films and I feel like anything by The Cure, even the cheery stuff, somehow feels of death.
“God moving over the face of the water” - Moby. Also, “When it’s cold I like to die”.
For reading…
“Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte. The poem “Stop all the clocks” by W. H. Auden. Again, my mind has drawn a total blank as I came to write this. I will update it as I remember.
Soul food
Embracing death as a necessary force for rebirth. My computer died a death this week putting the final nail in the coffin of a lifelong dream career and 20 years + of work (after the head injury it’s been a constant question mark in my life, whether I would ever be a full time graphic designer again), but maybe it is the burning down of a house that I need to rebuild or move on from rather than propping up and hoping for the best. Sometimes it just takes something final to help us let go.
If you know someone who would like to join us at the kitchen table, invite them!
Apologies for the sketchy nature of this post. There’s not a lot to go on, I appreciate that. April is tough, I lost a lot to her (more on that here) and have been stuck in a rut of late. Moving through April feels both difficult and cathartic. It’s a cocktail of emotions. Maybe Spring is a bit like that? The death of winter and a whole lot of re-birth before settling into the steady hum of summer?
If you have any additions that will add some meat to the skeletal bones of this post please do let me know. I feel there must be thousands, if not millions, of film / tv / music / books things based on death and my mind can barely think of any of them.
Although, right now I’ll add “Interview with a Vampire”. So much death.
Sending love,
V.V x
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