Let's Knock Some Furniture Over
Isabella Rossellini didn’t waste time worrying about how her neck was aging and neither should I.
Let’s knock some furniture over
Major Wall Street investment in ending women’s access healthcare. AI spy vacuums. Care work capitalism. Semen supremacy and Christian nationalism. The monetization of domesticity. Big stories that affect our most intimate spaces and little stories that deserve to be understood in the context of big decisions. Our homes are being impacted by decisions made in Silicon Valley, Washington DC and local school board meetings. But few major outlets are willing to devote coverage to domestic spaces.
That’s why I created homeculture. The way yesterday, today and the potential of tomorrow impacts our homes is pretty much all I think about. (With a few stray thoughts reserved for wondering when I can get my next sandwich.)
As the news swirls and and my research goes deeper, I find dozens of things I want to write about…each day! All those ideas go into my “To Write About Later” notes. But then later doesn’t come because the next day has a dozen more additions to those notes. I want to get a few more of those ideas to you. But how?
I feel like I need to blow into every room, tear down curtains and strip wallpaper, while you tip over dressers to see what’s hidden behind the drawers.
My brain feels like whirlwind. I spend a lot of time and energy pushing against the rotation of my own mind. What if I decide to look at my whirlwinding brain as a source of real movement? What if, Wizard of Oz-style, I let the vortex pick this home(culture) up and drop it into more colorful places? Every week day, and once on the weekend?
Starting tomorrow, I am going to experiment with a daily newsletter, kind of like Heather Cox Richardson of Letters from an American. She sends out a newsletter each night, using her training as a historian to give context to a few political developments of that day. I like her daily letters because they operate within a newsletter model I keep calling “writing and reading with the urgency of understanding.”
I loved her newsletter last night about the SVB madness this past weekend.
“And, perhaps even more important, the weekend of panic and fear over the collapse of just one major bank should make it clear that the Republicans’ threat to default on the U.S. debt, thus pulling the rug out from under the entire U.S. economy unless they get their way, is simply unthinkable.”
Every day there is something she wants to help her readers understand. Each newsletter is deeply informed, and narrowly focused. The writing is fantastic! But her letters are ongoing conversations, not book-ready chapter length missives. Which is, frankly, what I write here a lot of time. I am going to KEEP writing that kind of newsletter. But it doesn’t seem like that’s enough to meet the moment. And it’s certainly not keeping up with the swirl of my thoughts.
I started this newsletter because I wanted to understand the American Home. I feel like homeculture began with me wandering through the American Home’s halls, knocking on doors, gently sifting through what I find. But now I feel like I need to blow into every room, tear down curtains and strip wallpaper, while you tip over dressers to see what’s hidden behind the drawers. (homeculture has over 12,000 readers now! We can empty a lot of drawers together.)
Basically, in this next phase of homeculture let’s take it down to the studs and knock some furniture over together, (nearly) every day.
A Soundtrack for our Lives
I couldn’t think about writing this urgently without the support of paying subscribers. So I’ve been working all weekend to figure out how I can give them thanks for their support. Some of it is more exclusive writing from me and more opportunities for you to be in community with one another. But a lot of the ideas involve sharing my gratitude while supporting other independent creators.
The first thing I’m launching is a monthly homeculture playlist made by Andie Ahedo, who creates playlists professionally, for brands and individuals. Which is just…the coolest job. The monthly playlist will always be home-themed - like my The Kitchen is for Crying (and Sometimes Killing) playlist! But made by someone who knows what the heck they’re doing. Each month paying subscribers will get the playlist in their inbox.
A homeculture soundtrack! That we’ll be listening to together while we’re apart. Which … okay…makes me tear up? And I’m not even PMSing right now. I don’t think.
I want your help picking the theme for the first playlist, it’ll come out the first week of April.
My first thought was Spring Cleaning but I know you’ll all think of something better.
I’ll pick one of your suggestions! Whoever gets picked will get a gift card for their very own custom playlist.
If I was going to have a playlist made JUST FOR ME right now it’d probably be titled something like,
Isabella Rossellini didn’t waste time worrying about how her neck was aging and neither should I.
I am not sure what songs would be on a playlist like that, but I think Andi could figure it out.
I don’t know if this will come across well in writing but, here goes: you don’t have to worry so much about doing things or buying special perks for subscribers. I subscribe to read your writing. I don’t need a playlist or art work raffles or tchokes or anything else. I also don’t think anyone pays half as much attention to your posting schedule as you think. Work on the pieces, post when they are ready, we’re here to read them. If you need a daily deadline, that’s fine, but I’m a bit skeptical, knowing what you’ve told us about how your writing happens, that these daily newsletters will help you with longer form projects. Just my two cents
I love the idea of shorter, more conversational daily missives! I admire your work SO MUCH and I look forward to your newsletter every week! But so often your really brilliant writing sits unread for days, even weeks, in my inbox bc I don't have the spoons to devote to reading it as deeply as I want. I'm excited to engage more frequently with your thinking and context-building in a way that feels lower stakes for me as a reader, too. (Also...when *will* you be compiling some of these pieces into a book, anyway?! ;-) )
Spring Cleaning sounds nice for a playlist ... or something about April showers, metaphorically connecting that to our collective tears of overwhelm and "letting the rain fall?"