Illustration: Mark Long/The Guardian
Hello, happy Saturday, and happy birthday to my dad for yesterday. (I love you!)
There’s so much going on. I see reading as one way to take things in slowly, in your own time, when you’re able. You can choose what to focus on – and can always come back to the rest later on.
Here are a few things that caught my eye around the Guardian this week.
1. ‘Heartbreak leave’
Italian PM Giorgia Meloni recently took a personal day to process the very stressful-sounding separation from her partner of 10 years (and father to her seven-year-old daughter). Speaking at her party’s conference via video link, she apologised – but also stood her ground. “I’m sorry to not be with you in person,” she said, “but I, too, am human.”
Elle Hunt took the occasion to reflect on the many good reasons to give people a day off when they’ve had their heart trampled.
How long will it take to read: two minutes.
Further reading: Wonderfully humane as the concept of heartbreak leave is, it’s no reason to forget about Meloni’s politics – notably less humane. As this piece looking at her many political faces notes, Meloni leads Italy’s “most hard-right government since the second world war”.
2. Assassination-core: a history
“If you wanted to trace the origins of our conspiracy-addled times, Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963 might well be ground zero,” writes Steve Rose. “The assassination of JFK was probably the genesis of the post-truth, fake-news, ‘don’t trust the experts’, ‘do your own research’ brand of media scepticism and alternative information ecosystems.”
A tiny upside? As Rose notes, the event provided creative fodder for many. It fed into, for example, “the golden age of 70s conspiracy movies such as The Conversation, The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor” – eg the best genre. These are all very good films. The last (starring Faye Dunaway and Robert Redford, pictured above), might be my all-time favourite.
How long will it take to read: six minutes.
3. Ziad’s diaries from Gaza
Ziad, a 35-year-old Palestinian, has been sharing daily diaries from Gaza since 7 October. His dispatches are a surreal mix of mundanity and terror – the frantic search for documents, the family jokes, the unremitting grief.
When Ziad and his sister evacuate, they pass a family: “A man was holding two children while his wife was dragging a small suitcase, and their teenage daughter, tears running down her eyes, was yelling: ‘I don’t want to leave … I don’t want to leave.’”
In every entry is the overpowering feeling of fear: adults trying to pretend they don’t feel it, to put on a brave and reassuring face; children overwhelmed, terrified, confused about how to act. There are moments of humour, and beauty. Ziad shares a poem from the Notes app on his phone:
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
How long will it take to read: a while – entries can be read alone, and take anywhere between three and 15 minutes. But reading them in order gives a unique perspective on events as they unfold. As of yesterday, the UN has said nowhere in Gaza is safe for civilians. At the time of writing, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry has reported more than 7,000 people killed in Israeli airstrikes, including more than 2,900 children. Israeli authorities have reported more than 1,400 people killed.
Further reading: This conversation between Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American activist, and Joshua Leifer, a prominent progressive critic of Israel, about the future of the region, the flurry of global and personal responses from outside of it, and “where the left goes from here”..
4. Elaborately weird medieval art
One of my favourite Twitter (now X, I guess) accounts has made a book. Olivia M Swarthout, the London-based American data scientist behind Weird Medieval Guys, is taking her visual treasures – think: giant warlike snails, sweet bats, alarming owls – to the printed page. Phil Harrison suggests they’re “a gently fascinating insight into the marginalia of a lost era” – also, that they’re essentially old-fashioned stock photos.
Why are they so pleasing? I think it’s the expression of puzzled, hopeful weariness on everyone’s faces: the armless frogs, the floating women in hair coats, the eagles made of human heads, the fish-dog in the picture above. No one has any idea what is going on.
For fans of: Daniel M Lavery’s (né Ortberg’s) immortal Western Art History series for now-closed site The Toast (to wit: Women Leaving Tactfully in Western Art History, Women Who Are Dating Peacocks in Western Art History, Comfortable Children in Western Art History, Miserable Tambourine Players in Western Art History and so forth).
How long will it take to read: This article? Two or so minutes. But you can spend many enjoyable hours scrolling Swarthout’s account online.
5. Lying awake in fury
A colleague told me this week that he can hear his neighbour snoring from downstairs – this, through the floor of an otherwise soundproof apartment. Spare a thought for the loud slumberer’s partner. And ponder, if you will, what it would take to get you into a seperate bed. (As a sleep talker, blanket stealer and snorer, I have several ideas.) As Emma Beddington writes: “Our sleep needs are idiosyncratic and only a lucky few couples find themselves in agreement on the optimum conditions for a good night’s rest.”
So how about everyone else? Well, “sleep disagreements” can be the cause of anger, frustration and feelings of rejection. Or they can, to take the extremely glass-half-full view of one expert, be the “gateway drug to working on your relationship”. Choose your own adventure (or bed).
How long will it take to read: about five minutes.
Have a lovely weekend, and sleep tight. Then email me about your dreams, why not: australia.newsletters@theguardian.com
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