“In truth, there’s not a big difference between writing and drawing”

In this edition of the Weekender: Drawing with a typewriter, trick questions, and the push and pull of Hollywood

By Manu Montoya

This week, we’re examining a “fearful mer-baby,” making art on a typewriter, cooking with rhubarb, and asking hypotheticals.

VIDEO

Ding!

Sound on to enjoy the full, delightful experience of Erik Winkowski’s short film.

The Written Image

—

Erik Winkowski

in

Paper Films

When I bought a typewriter, I never intended to write with it. I wanted to make drawings.

In truth, there’s not a big difference between writing and drawing. The alphabet began as pictograms, and over the course of 5,000 years, those pictures of ox heads, huts, and fish were simplified and abstracted into the letters we find on our keyboards today. I learned this in typography class back in art school, and it completely blew my mind. It still does. Just imagine what ancient images are lurking in this sentence.

I bought a vintage sage-green Smith Corona typewriter off Etsy a few years ago, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned. Unfortunately, it’s spent most of that time sitting in its case, collecting dust. So last month, I decided I’d finally make some drawings with it.

[...]

I spent the next three days making typewriter drawings. I like using new tools that force me to work in a different way. A typewriter is stubborn, uncooperative, and utterly ridiculous as a drawing tool. And yet that’s what makes it fun. Every drawing feels like discovering something you didn’t know you were looking for.

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ART

Creative liberties

In which Nathalie Olah considers “Play of the Nereides” by Arnold Böcklin—or, as she calls it, “the worst painting in the world.”

The worst painting in the world

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Nathalie Olah

in

sacred and profane

“Play of the Nereides” by Arnold Böcklin (1886) is two metres wide and almost as tall. In Greek mythology, the Nereids are fifty benevolent sea nymphs who often appear alongside Poseidon. Here we see just seven of them, not counting a possible baby sea nymph who is also shown clinging to a fish. I am not a classicist and would like to know if this scene is from a particular story. What I do know is that four of the mermaids are anatomically impossible. One of them is cut off mid-fin by the edge of the painting. The rock at the centre of the image defies all laws of space. It is both cave and monolith—close by and very, very far away. The only realistic element of the painting (and Böcklin is aiming for a realism of sorts, just not in his subject matter) is the lasciviousness of two men captivated by the mermaids’ sopping breasts. One of these men has a sort of Cabbage Patch quality, while the other resembles the parking lot guy from Mulholland Drive.

[...]

Böcklin is Swiss and actually from Basel, so that goes some way to explain why the gallery chose to display so many of his works, including those that strayed from the more austere paintings of his earlier career. Still, awestruck by what I had seen, after leaving the gallery I messaged a friend who had lived in Basel for many years. He knew the painting well and was fond of the fearful mer-baby. “Imagine painting that,” he said. “What must be going through your head?” The answer was probably very little, or at least very little conscious thought. Böcklin was not a good painter, and his interests veered towards the cornier end of the corny nineteenth century. From a scan of his Wikipedia page I also found out that he would travel to Italy, making the following statement a bit of stretch; but I like to imagine that beneath the stiff formality and conservatism of Swiss society, and a landlocked nation whose large, placid lakes have never known turbulence, lurks a desire for errant bodies and crashing waves.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

“Acadia National Park in the summertime,” by Lexi Brown

PROSE

A Sixth Finger

—

emma girl

in

my vape is dying

If there were a mandated monogamy law—if, tomorrow, it became illegal to be single and unwed: Would you choose me? This is a hypothetical of course and I don’t really care either way, it’s just like. Well. Well, you have to choose someone don’t you? In this hypothetical world. If you say me I’m going to assume that means you want to marry me one day. If you say someone other than me I’m going to assume you never found me worthwhile to begin with. It’s not a trick question, no, because there’s only one right answer. You’re making it more complicated than it has to be. All I want in life is to be loved and it seems programmed in me—not by nature nor nurture but some inexplicable force only I am burdened with—that I either deny this truth or settle for less. It’s a fucking illness, it’s a burden, and it’s all I am. Despite that, everything is moving and bending and breathing and crumpling at all times. Stillness is a bedtime story, a children’s fable. To move with the world is a gift only granted to the gods but to move in spite of the world is a technique we all harness. We move not because we want to move or need to move, we move because it’s all we know how to do. Every time I move closer to you, the universe bends its arms back. When I move away from you, the universe clenches its teeth to dust. The rare times I move inside myself, the universe is fearful as to make any movement at all, but since it must, it folds its knees into its chest so everyone can hear the heartbeat. I could never be a waitress or a surgeon because I have shaky hands. You could never be my lover or my friend because that would require a person to exist outside of your own head. See—we both have our faults. I remember dancing with women who were not my friends in places I didn’t know the name of. That’s because, sometimes, movement is involuntary—it can be mechanical and sweeping and despotic. Your version of that is dancing with women whose names you don’t know in places you’ve grown tired of. Every man talks to me like I’m a man, or worse, like a friend. I’ve never felt the urge to be friends with a man, not in that way, no—it feels like a mild death. It feels like an endless chore and a rotten sense of responsibility. It feels like the easiest way to make me think poorly about myself but I’m a creative person so I have already found enough ways to do that. I want to feel like a sixth finger: perfect and necessary in humor and in beauty but not in biology. But you don’t get that—or do you? I need you to know that everything I say is meaningless and important at the same time or else I can’t fall in love with you. When the bath is numbingly hot but you get in anyway and your skin only glows hot pink once you step out, not while you’re in it. Is that a metaphor? I’m not mad or poetic, I know that’s what you’re thinking; everything I’m saying is truthful and justified and pastoral in spirit. But if those words make you feel better, I don’t mind.

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ILLUSTRATION

Artwork by Danielle Kosann, shared by Hadley Greene

HOLLYWOOD

Awards season

As the film industry prepares for its biggest night, Liz Goldwyn reflects on her “love/hate relationship with Hollywood.”

You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again

—

Liz Goldwyn

in

STARF*CKER

It’s Oscar week and I’m in L.A. This fills me with anxiety, the stench of social climbing hangs thick in the air and your place on the totem pole is never so clear (let’s call mine negative 568 at the moment). Even nominees are ready for the long slog of shaking hands that started last fall (or summer if their film premiered at Cannes) to be over.

Though I may recoil from it, I still love the smell of Oscar week hustle, even if, in the aftermath of the fires and a White House that hates Hollywood, this season has a more muted fragrance.

The last time I was in town was during Golden Globes week, just before everything went even more to shit. But as the song goes, there’s no people like show people, they smile when they are low … a saying that my father drilled into me from the time I could sing along. Dad’s best friend growing up was Mary Ellin Berlin, daughter of Irving Berlin, the songwriter of “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” When I was born, Irving gave me a necklace of a single pearl surrounded by three tiny diamonds which my parents allowed me to wear once I turned 16. I never took it off until a bad car accident broke my ribs in my 30s and I accidentally left it in a chiropractor’s office during an adjustment, never to be seen again. Ever since my dad died, whenever I hear the song come on, I think of him talking to me through the sound waves—You’re broken-hearted / But you go on—and I shed a (real) showbiz tear.

I acknowledge my love/hate relationship with Hollywood, aware that as much as I reject it, I secretly want to be accepted. The other day someone texted asking if I was “hosting the Future Perfect party at the ‘Goldwyn’ house tonight?” which sums up my insider/outsider status. Not only was I unaware of said party, my grandad lived a mere few years at the location they are marketing as the “Goldwyn House.” The real “Goldwyn House,” that my grandparents built, in which both my dad and I grew up, is now owned by Taylor Swift. So there you have it in a nutshell—apparently I am not cool enough to merit an invite to a party which is being sold using the “glamour” of my own last name.

Welcome to Hollywood, folks.

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PAINTING

“Morning Sea at Bikuni in Shiribeshi Province,” 1932, Kawase Hasui, shared by Ben Sims

FOOD

Rhubarb season

There have been some stunning rhubarb-focused recipes appearing across Substack in the past couple of weeks. Sarah’s ode to rhubarb for A Good Table offers several approaches to the vegetable, from chamomile, lemon, and rhubarb scones to mini rhubarb, rose, blood orange, and pistachio baked Alaskas.

Celebrating rhubarb

—

Sarah

in

A Good Table

Blushing pink against the season’s monochrome, it arrives like a quiet rebellion to the lingering chill. Its slender stalks, vivid as watercolor brushstrokes, cut through the grey with a brightness that holds promise. The vegetable’s acidity, tamed by sugar and spice, softens into something lush and deeply comforting. If the season refuses to turn, we’ll summon its warmth ourselves, one mouthful at a time.

This week’s newsletter is, once again, a love letter to sugar, laden with rhubarb in all its tart, fragrant glory.

The recipes take inspiration from bakeries and restaurants in both New York and London. Some lean into the art of slow, weekend cooking, such as the mini pistachio, blood orange and rose rhubarb baked Alaska. This was inspired by a particularly lovely Valentine’s dinner my husband and I enjoyed at Spring, in London. Others are simpler, more immediate pleasures: chamomile, lemon zest and rhubarb biscuits (or scones, if you’re English), dipped in a blood orange and rhubarb glaze, then crowned with a jewel-like sliver of stewed rhubarb—perfect with a cup of tea.

We’re also exploring ingredients that pair well with rhubarb, especially when they make the most of its versatility. One example of this is where a homemade rhubarb syrup does double (or triple) duty, appearing in a rhubarb and grapefruit fizz cocktail with plenty left over to drizzle on ice cream, use in jellies, or as a glaze for tarts.

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MUSIC MACHINE

Substackers featured in this edition

Art & Photography:

Manu Montoya

,

Lexi Brown

,

Hadley Greene

,

Ben Sims

Video & Audio:

Erik Winkowski

,

David Watts

Writing:

Nathalie Olah

,

emma girl

,

Liz Goldwyn

,

Sarah

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The Weekender is a weekly roundup of writing, ideas, art, audio, and video from the world of Substack. Posts are recommended by staff and readers, and curated and edited by Alex Posey out of Substack’s headquarters in San Francisco.

Got a Substack post to recommend? Tell us about it in the comments.

03/01 at 08:34: This post was updated to correct an editing error, which misattributed the Goldwyn family’s connection to MGM.