Writing project: index

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This is a post to list the words I’ve used for this project. It will be updated monthly.

2018

2019

2020

© bardofupton 2019

Reading project, week ending 27 Sep 2020

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What have I read this week?

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala

This is a nonfiction book about the history of race, specifically blackness and whiteness, including the author’s experience growing up black in Britain. I found this really interesting and I definitely learned a lot from it. I would definitely read more books by this author.

Favourite quotes:

The most dramatic example of the revolutionary human capacities of black nationalism comes very early in its history in Haiti where, after the only successful slave revolution in human history, the independent black government made the white Polish and Germans who aided the revolution legally ‘black’ in 1804.18 The revolutionary and oppositional nature of black identity is also part of why so many millions of people racialised as white are inspired by the black culture, music and art in spite of all racist propaganda that they have been exposed to asserting that these people – and thus their culture – are inferior. It’s why John Lennon – great as he was – can never be a symbol of freedom for black people in the way that Bob Marley, Nina Simone or Muhammad Ali are for so many white people.

Back in 2005, future prime minister Gordon Brown let the world know that ‘the days of Britain having to apologise for its colonial history are over’ – leaving us all wondering when those days of apology were. In a 2014 YouGov survey, 59 per cent of Brits declared that they were proud of the empire. The historian Niall Ferguson gloated approvingly on his Twitter, ‘I won’. I’d love to see a similar survey done with only British citizens whose families come from non-white former colonies, and of course the not-quite-whites of Ireland. Wouldn’t the true measure of the British Empire’s supposed benevolence surely be attained by asking the billions of humans that descend from the people it ruled if they remember it so favourably?

A Is For Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup

This is a nonfiction book about some of the poisons used in the novels of Agatha Christie: it discusses the symptoms and how the poison interacts with the body (i.e. how it actually kills), the history of its discovery and use in real crimes, and how accurate Christie is in her use of it. I found it absolutely fascinating, and would read more by this author..
© bardofupton 2020

Writing project, August 2020

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This month’s word is colourful, meaning “having intense colour or richly varied colours” or “vivid, rich, or distinctive in character”.

This one is late again, sorry!

————–

Everything’s so bright. I don’t remember it being so bright before. So… vibrant. Mostly what I remember before is a sort of muddy darkness, shades of brown, black and grey. This… colour is new, to me, anyway. I wonder what they’ve done to me this time.

As usual, I can’t move, just see and hear. I have a vague feeling that I used to be able to meet be, not a memory exactly, just a niggling thought that says “it used to be different”.

I wait, because that’s my only option. I try reaching out mentally, but there’s nothing there. I try speaking, but nothing happens. It’s just so much colour, and a low buzzing sound in my ears. Or at least I assume it’s in my ears. I can’t feel anything, but I can see and hear, so I must have eyes and ears, right?

I think I should feel panicked, should struggle to move, should be panting or gasping for breath, but instead there’s nothing but the colours and the noise.

After a long time I hear a voice.

“Can you hear me? Can you hear me?”

I shout yes but no sound emerges.

A second voice speaks.

“It’s no use, I told you. There’s nothing left. Just switch it off.”

“But what if…”

“It’s just a hybrid anyway. It’s already had two lives, if you can call this one living.”

“But what if I could repair it?”

“It’s not worth the effort. There are more important things to spend your time on. Just switch it off.”

I’m screaming and screaming but still not making a sound. And then click! The buzzing goes away, the colours go away, the voices go away, and it’s just me, screaming and screaming, all alone in the silent dark.

© bardofupton 2020

Reading project, week ending 6 Sep 2020

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What have I read this week?

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

This is a nonfiction book, the story of the author growing up and living and working as a black woman in the United States. I found it really interesting, and sad, and somewhat empowering. I didn’t really resonate with the author’s faith, as I’m not myself a believer, but the book was passionate and inspiring, and I would definitely read more by this author.

© bardofupton 2020

Writing project, July 2020

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This month’s word is sunny, meaning “abounding in sunshine”, “exposed to, lighted, or warmed by the direct rays of the sun”, “pertaining to or proceeding from the sun; solar”, “resembling the sun” or “cheery, cheerful, or joyous”.

Sorry this one is so late; I had real trouble trying to finish it.

————–

They call me Sunny. It took me a long time to understand that this was a mean joke. It’s not that I don’t have a sense of humour, it’s just different to most people’s. So I don’t get their jokes, and they don’t get mine. This makes it hard for me to make friends.

People always called me names, said I was humourless, weird, boring – different, wrong. But I never called them names, was never mean to them. I’d try to hide, but they’d always find me. I’d run, but they’d catch me.

So I learned to endure, to withdraw inside myself and present a stoic face to the world. So then they called me emotionless. It was at that point I realised there was no way to win, no way in which the decks were not stacked against me. That they would never let me be, let me be different, let me be myself. The only thing they would accept was the only thing I could not give: to be like them, to be one of them.

I’d tried to approximate it in the past, but it was never quite right. They were always having a conversation I couldn’t fully follow, always following rules I neither knew nor understood. I was always one step sideways, looking at them from an angle.

Always apart. Always different. But eventually, I realised, not wrong.

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Reading project, week ending 9 Aug 2020

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What have I read this week?

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

This is a novel about a young girl named Wen and her two fathers. They are on holiday in a remote cabin when four people arrive insisting they have to make a terrible choice. I didn’t like this; it was just horrible.

Beethoven Was One-sixteenth Black by Nadine Gordimer

This is a collection of short stories. I didn’t like these; I couldn’t get into them and didn’t finish the book.

© bardofupton 2020