#durga chew bose

[deadpoetsmusings]

“I care little for plot and prefer a lingering glow..”

[fuckyeahwomenfilmdirectors]

Durga Chew-Bose

[cinnamonchaos]

It still comes as a shock to me how irreversible life is

[firstfullmoon]

Imagine that. Even when we’re pressing snooze and rolling over in bed, folding ourselves into our covers and postponing the day’s bubbling over, and soon after notching cold butter on warm toast, or later coming to a halt as we bound up a flight of subway stairs only to stall behind an elderly woman whose left leg trails behind her right leg—one leaden step at a time—even then, when time decelerates and the relative importance of our lives, of our hurry, undergoes a sudden, essential audit; even then, our heart never stops. . . despite these bouts of wonder and alarm, when my heart races, dimples, is weary and deflates, it never exhausts. How is that possible? How does it maintain? Stays going. On and on.

Durga Chew-Bose, from “Heart Museum,” in Too Much and Not the Mood

[lazyydaisyyy]

Durga Chew-Bose, “Heart Museum” from Too Much and Not the Mood

[oldfilmsflicker]

new-to-me #688 - Bonjour Tristesse (2024)

[fullibooked]

There is something childishly delicious about the names of paint colours. Something tastefully awkward about standing around in the paint aisle saying "Do we want to go for the gold rush or the traveller?" Something comforting about a mum next to you saying "Now I'm talking to myself. Paint won't talk back" while you laugh politely. And there's something brash, honest, and kind about Durga Chew-Bose writing about the heart museum, and her family, and her skin, and nook people, and living alone, and coming home, and trying. It's interesting to read two books back to back that I've fallen in love with for two WILDLY different reasons and vibes. Too Much and Not the Mood so quickly and so deeply got me that I was nearly in tears before even the fifth page. I found it abstractly fitting that the colours of the book cover were named Ice Apple, Evening Haze, and Iris Flower. They fit. And made no sense. In that perfectly genuine makes you smile messy way. Durga makes me poetic, sad, and in turn happy again. That cathartic kind of crying from sad movies. This is that kind of book. My soul needed this. Durga is a poet.

[aaronsrpgs]

book I finished / book I started

[guy60660]

Durga Chew-Bose

[webweabings]

WE’RE NOT MEANT TO STAY THE SAME

Deepak Chopra; // "Love's Ripening: Rumi on the Heart's Journey", by Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (2008); // Lisa Brooks; // "The Angles In Heaven Done Signed My Name", by Leo "Bud" Welch; // "Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays", by Durga Chew-Bose; // "The Book of Disquiet", by Fernando Pessoa; // "I've Changed a Lot", by Sarah Juers; //"The Rom Con", by Devon Daniels.

[northwindow]

Do you have any light-hearted comforting reads? Feeling a little down

sure! i hope you’re feeling better soon. maybe you’d like one of these, depending on what you’re looking for:

if on a winter’s night a traveler by italo calvino is a really delightful escape. there’s a playfulness that drives this book, especially after a few chapters—it kind of reminded me of the feeling that i used to get reading lemony snicket as a kid

i always crave something funny when i’m feeling bad... priestdaddy by patricia lockwood, zambra’s chilean poet, happy hour by marlowe grenados?

the rachel incident by caroline o’donoghue is a new book that really charmed me, it’s a portrait of an early-20s friendship and an illicit affair set in cork, ireland. it’s literary-leaning of a beach read but it has that candylike quality (not every moment is breezy, but overall really fun)

i thought too much and not the mood by durga chew-bose had this lovely optimism in a genre that can be stereotyped as moody (personal essays). a clever and effervescent book that left me inspired to create things

i would not call her work lighthearted, but a novelist that makes me feel like you can face the most fucked-up challenges in life with moral strength and heart and humor is miriam toews. i would probably start with fight night for something on the lighter side of her spectrum. i might add banana yoshimoto on a similar note, some of her themes/plot points can be heavy and mysterious yet the books have this soothing effect on me, they feel colorful and warm. kitchen is a popular starting place and a quick read

[deadpoetsmusings]

Durga Chew-Bose, Too Much and Not the Mood

[criphd]

just some articles [& video essays ig!] i rly loved recently (idk where to store these so i thought i'd make a sort of rec list)

"in the middle of fighting for freedom we found ourselves free" by june jordan [intro'd by alexis pauline gumbs] - rly beautiful tribute from one incredible black feminist poet to another

facing amalek by maya rosen - a rly fantastic essay abt the differing interpretations & ethical responses to what is sometimes considered a biblical injunction to commit genocide [wiping out the relatives of amalek] during a genocide, & one in which the rhetoric of amalek has literally been used

two paths for the personal essay by merve emre - this was so great & articulated something i didnt realise i quite thought about a lot of the personal essays being churned out. the essay specifically looks at durga chew-bose's essay collection too much and not the mood and the politics or lack thereof behind it as well as personal essays writ large.

sexual knowledge in print culture - this is just a good overview of exactly what it says on the title! thanks victorian web :) the bit that interested me the most was abt translations i guess... and also at the beginning the bit abt where ppl were learning abt sex; the bible, charles dickens, george eliot etc :) i thought it was cute

the radical stardom of clara bow : the first it girl by be kind rewind - i had some vague knowledge abt clara bow but i rly enjoyed learning more about her & her energy. the history of film is rly interesting me rn !

also have to include this podcast i think bc i have a crush on elif batuman now after listening to it - novels and political consciousness (with Elif Batuman and Merve Emre) - which centres on the novel convenience store woman but circles around a lot more than just that novel and instead uses it as a jumping off point to look at the way that novels can politicise or even depoliticise ppl.

[taumont]

My list of books I wish to have read by the end of the year:

Quiet Days in Clichy -- Henry Miller

La petite vertu -- James Hadley Chase

Breakfast of Champions -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Call at Corazon -- Paul Bowles

Solaris -- Stanislaw Lem

Slaughterhouse-Five -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The Savage Detectives -- Roberto Bolano

La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams -- Georges Perec

Mon corps pour me guérir: décodage psychobiologique des maladies -- Christian Flèche

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living -- Joseph Campbell

Speak, Memory -- Vladimir Nabokov

Supreme Influence: Change Your Life with the Power of the Language You Use -- Niurka

The Journey and the Guide: A practical course in Enlightment -- Maitreyabandhu

Egon Schiele: Drawings and Water-colours -- Egon Schiele, Erwin Mitsch

Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears -- Pema Chodron

Rumi Revealed: Selected Poems from the Divan of Shams -- Rassouli

Confessions of an Art Addict -- Peggy Guggenheim

The Executioner's Song -- Norman Mailer

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead -- Olga Tokarczuk

Flights -- Olga Tokarczuk

America -- Jean Baudrillard

Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays -- Durga Chew-Bose

I Had Nowhere to Go -- Jonas Mekas

Francesca Woodman -- Marco Pierini

Yves Klein -- Hannah Weitmeier

Dune (Dune #1) -- Frank Herbert

Oreillers d'herbes -- Natsume Soseki

Les Choses humaines -- Karine Tuil

The Energy of Slaves: Poems -- Leonard Cohen

Selected Writings - Antonin Artaud

The Sisters Brothers -- Patrick deWitt

Pastoralia -- George Saunders

Signs Preceding the End of the World -- Yuri Herrera

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley -- Peter Guralnick

Break, Blow, Burn -- Camille Paglia

Voyage au bout de la nuit -- Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Philip K. Dick: In His Own Words -- Philip K. Dick

Autobiography of a Yogi -- Paramahansa Yogananda

A Confederacy of Dunces -- John Kennedy Toole

Babel -- Patti Smith

Keith Haring Journals -- Keith Haring

Foam of the Daze -- Boris Vian

Inherent Vice -- Thomas Pynchon

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 -- Goran Olsso

Le Diable au Corps -- Raymond Radiguet

Bluets -- Maggie Nelson

Girl, Woman, Other -- Bernardine Evaristo

Devenir un ange -- Francesca Woodman

Faithfull: An Autobiography -- Marianne Faithfull

The Master and Margarita -- Mikhail Bulgakov

Eve's Hollywood - Eve Babitz

In Watermelon Sugar -- Richard Brautigan

[firstfullmoon]

“When I think of my brother’s childhood friends, of the two who are dead, I become, in those seconds, not inconsolable but wanting for my parents. I am homesick. Parent-sick. Cousin-sick. Okra-sick. . . I am sick for those years when I was paying attention without purpose. When I was arranging stories free of import, and when my imagination could draw courage instead of warrant that I stay in. . . I am sick for using change to buy lime popsicles. Sick for slamming doors to emphasize my temper. I am sick for not perceiving winter. For being unbothered by February’s frost. . . I am sick for packing a snowball but being too shy to throw it and so I’d carry it in the gloved pillow of my palm like a pet snowball. I am sick for using small scissors to cut cardboard hearts; for gluing them on paper doilies and writing someone’s name with felt marker. I am sick for cardboard and paper and markers, and the time it took to make things before gifting them. . . I am sick for my incorruptibility. Sick for believing. Sick for my body before. Before I’d ever noticed I was in possession of one. Before full-lengths. Before I knew anything about valleyed collarbones, a stomach’s folds, smooth legs, small wrists. . . I am sick for wearing orange. For those years when I knew nothing about the need to abide. When I smiled with my teeth.”

— Durga Chew-Bose, from “Part of a Greater Pattern,” in Too Much and Not the Mood

[lazyydaisyyy]

Nobody ever teaches you how to be a person torn-between. How to shape your breaths so as to accommodate both the solitude and the stampede.

Durga Chew-Bose, “Part of a Greater Pattern”from Too Much and Not the Mood