Jules Lewis

  Went down a bit of a rabbit hole over the past few days and ended up reading about The Public Universal Friend. What first grabbed me is that this was an actual name, and what made it more remarkable was that this person lived in America in the seventeenth century, when the idea of changing your birth name was presumably more unusual than it is today.  As I began to dig a little more, I realised there was a whole lot more that made this person unusual for their time, not least that they also became genderless. When you think about how hard certain parts of today's society are pushing back on the transgender community in supposedly more enlightened times, it's all the more remarkable that someone was able to do this publicly almost 350 years ago. The Friend was born in Rhode Island in November 1752 as Jemima Wilkinson. One of twelve siblings, they were raised a Quaker, and learned long passages of the Bible and Quaker texts by heart. In the mid-1770s, the Friend began attend...

In a feature almost guaranteed to annoy every reader, here is a little curation of the 'best' ambient albums that are actually on Spotify. This is mainly for my benefit, but if you get any use out of it, please feel free to let me know. Also, if there are any obvious holes in the list, do comment below. What this isn't. Your favourite albums. It's not even my favourite albums. One of my favourite ambient albums is The KLF's Chill Out and until recently the The KLF's catalogue wasn't available for streaming anywhere . Even now it's still only possible to stream a more copyright-friendly version of the album: Come Down Dawn . Another personal favourite is Dt Atmo and Ramin's Sad World ( Fax, 1993 ), but I can't see this album appearing on Spotify any time soon. Sadly, Ramin Naghachian passed away from a brain tumour earlier this year. Who says these are the 'best'? Although there are tons of useful Reddit threads in r/a...

 Image of the day Picture taken in Helston today ( view on Instagram ). Reminded me of the wonderful minimalist pictures of  Anne-K Imbert . Quote of the Day Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and colour of its birthplace. [ Oliver Wendell Holmes ]   St. Paul Enterprise, 12 January 1888    

  Saw Huw Wahl's The Republics at C-A-S-T today. Having just been given the all-clear from self isolating, it was a guilty pleasure to slip away and enjoy this unique film. Unfamiliar with Stephen Watts' poetry, I didn't really know what to expect, but most films featured by C-A-S-T are well worth a look, and this was no exception. Shot in black and white, using a Bolex ‘wind-up’ camera, The Republics follows Stephen Watts as he moves from North Uist in Scotland’s Western Isles to London’s Isle of Dogs to the mountains of Northern Italy. There is more about the film here , which explains it better than I can. What really struck me is Watts' ability to observe, captured over and over again by Wahl. There are scenes where Watts sits watching a dance, or is seemingly lost observing a goat and its kids gambol around an Italian village. Perhaps a key to poetry is to be able to truly look at the world around you. The rest of the time, Watts seems to be in constant m...