Reflections is a bi-weekly newsletter from Moodboarding with Beth, recounting the best of the week that’s been.
I have some cracking articles to recommend to you this week, about everything from male and female beauty standards to Japanese fiction. I have also been catching up on the developments in the AI war against creatives. Creative Boom have a series of excellent resources about the disappointing updates to Meta and Adobe, including tips for how to cope with these changes and advice on ditching Adobe programmes for kinder alternatives.
5 GOOD THINGS
Gratitude for a boring life, and an exquisite ode to friendship. Two gorgeous short essays by
: My Life Is Boring and I hope my friends know that I love them.If you, like me, have found yourself in a reading slump, check out The Good Trade’s comprehensive list of 99 books for when you don’t know what to read, including classics, essays, memoirs, poetry and short story collections.
This excellent article by
for Culture Vulture on keeping women skinny so they don’t get too powerful (or the skinny trend to tired-and-passive woman pipeline). The historical correlation between women’s beauty standards and the order of gender roles being threatened is starting to rear its ugly head once again. The article pulls this quote from Mary Wollstonecraft’s, ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’, published in 1792 and still relevant today: “…taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”This piece in The Spectator about the boom in Japanese fiction across the west. According to The Guardian, one quarter of the two million translated novels sold in the UK last year were Japanese (without including Manga!).
- ’s essay on the quiet pain of ‘ugly’ men, based on emotional reflections from the late, great actor Donald Sutherland.
READING
I have just picked up The Guest by Emma Cline. I’m told it’s the perfect summer thriller!
WATCHING
Earlier this month I was lucky enough to see the amazing and joyful live parody show Six Chick Flicks (…or a Legally Blonde Pretty Woman Dirty Dancing on the Beaches while writing a Notebook on the Titanic). Their UK tour is coming to a close but if you find yourself in Edinburgh during festival season, I highly recommend treating yourself to an evening with Kerry and KK.
My favourite tv moment of the week was definitely the final episode of Inside No. 9 on the BBC. I have spoken before of my love for this horror-comedy anthology show, and it was truly the perfect ending to nine series of unsettling twists, unexpected turns and unparalleled two-handers.
Two very different movie experiences this week, beginning with the heart-wrenching Italian classic, Bicycle Thieves, followed by British indie film, Days Of The Bagnold Summer, exquisitely soundtracked by Belle and Sebastian.
LISTENING
I’m not really a pop girlie but my god are there some bangers out at the moment, courtesy of the queens Sabrina and Chappell who have respectively dominated my internal stereo for at least a month (and I ain’t even mad).
Over on Spotify I have had Hit Me Hard and Soft on repeat, particularly Birds Of A Feather and Wildflower.
I’ve also been listening to some old tunes from Flyte, and Belle and Sebastian.
Obsessed with Maggie Rogers tour videos. She is looking and sounding so incredible - this is a woman truly thriving and I love to see it.
QUOTE ON THE MIND
“And sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself because I could find no language to describe them in.”
Jane Austen
NEW TO THE FEED
Until next time, stay wonderful!
thank you so much for including me!
Ah thank you for including me! I’m also not usually a pop girlie but that Billie song is too good