I am not a very regimented person, but for the past few months, I’ve made a point to wake up an hour or two before I need to and write in my journal, do a tarot reading, work on this newsletter, tick off book-related tasks, or study the week’s planetary transits.
All that flew out the window this week and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the leak in my kitchen faucet that I made arrangements to fix, then it went away, so I canceled the appointment – and now it’s back with a vengeance. Naturally, this happened on a Saturday, so I won’t be able to get a hold of anyone until tomorrow, and while wiser people would just stay in their room away from the maddening noise, I insist on being in the same room, watching it, and going slightly insane. Or maybe it’s the new Taylor Swift album, and my addiction to all the discourse surrounding it.
1. Discourse
All week, I have been reading Taylor Swift discourse before I sleep and as soon as I wake up. I was consuming so much discourse that it clouded my judgment of the album. I liked The Tortured Poet’s Department on first listen, then I thought it was garbage after reading a few negative reviews and lots of Reddit threads – judging myself for loving the music of this master manipulator with a victim complex, who inserts ‘narcotics into her songs’ (her lyrics, not mine) and decimates our ozone layer with her private jet use, the embodiment of American cultural imperialism, etc etc etc. Then, while walking around during my lunch break, I listened to one of the songs that had wormed its way into my head, which led to another song on the album, and another. And I just liked them. It had nothing to do with who I was as a person or my opinions on her merits as an artist; I just liked the music. It stirred something in me.
That’s something I’ve always liked about pop music, maybe all music: It can only be intellectualised so much. A song makes a dart for your brain; if you open yourself to it, the intensity of the music takes over and you don’t have much space for your own thoughts. (Maladaptive daydreamers know this all too well.) Whatever conclusions you make about a song, emotion will sway the vote.
I feel like all the discourse around TS and the new album is based around rationalisation: Is her music actually good enough to be this popular? And the conclusions sway ‘yes’ or sway ‘no’. Because that’s the framework rationalisation allows: Does it make sense? Does it not make sense? It’s a grossly simplistic approach to a topic as complex and emotional as musical taste.
On a few recent occasions, I’ve been asked why I like Taylor Swift’s music. The questions weren’t malicious or ill-intentioned, but I sensed a level of judgment – I very well could have projected it. As a result, I struggled to give a straight answer and ended up sounding defensive, and thus giving off the energy of some sort of crazed superfan who cannot handle criticism of her queen. I was tempted to actually step into that role of crazed superfan – even though I do not believe Taylor Swift is above criticism – just because it felt stronger and more self-assured; I felt it could protect me from humiliation.
This is exactly what Naomi Klein calls ‘the mirror world’ in Doppelganger: an environment – fanned by social media – where people are encouraged to turn loosely formed, nuanced opinions into extreme partisan beliefs. Because extreme partisan beliefs will get you more attention (good or bad, doesn’t matter – all attention is currency). Extreme partisan beliefs also provides a twisted sense of community, where a group of people are united over hating or loving something with a ferocious intensity that defies logic; they will protect and support you. It makes people feel united in fighting some sort of big, threatening enemy. The enemy does not actually exist, but that’s not the point. The point is feeling like heroes, great defenders of ‘the real truth’, in a time when billionaires (…like Taylor Swift) have rendered so many of us powerless. (It is no coincidence Swifties have been compared with QAnon.) The great irony of all this is that groups like these are the most vulnerable to political manipulation.
Anyway, what I’m trying to get at here is that if you like a song enough, no amount of discourse can change that, however well-argued. I wish I was righteous enough to disavow T Swift’s music because she’s a billionaire, but I’m not; I still like the songs. And I have no interest in defending this as some sort of ideological stance. I still very much respect the opinions of people who do not like her songs or think she is an interesting artist. (I don’t think T Swift is doing anything particularly interesting or revolutionary either, btw, but I still like her music.) And there’s something quite nice about that – enjoying music through all the noise. Lately I’ve been wishing T Swift was just a regular famous pop artist like Miley or Dua Lipa, so I could enjoy her music without it being A Thing. Regular like…
2. Daal
I always dreaded eating yellow daal growing up; it was so regular, so… daal. (Articulate, I know.) I guess what I mean is that it was so normal. Compared to black dal, which is delicious and full of butter, yellow daal is healthy and just whatever. I spent all of my 20s avoiding yellow daal as much as possible. But now, in my 30s, I recognise the value of making and eating things you don’t necessarily like just because it’s healthy, cheap, and freezes well. (To quote Metallica: Sad But True.) In fact I kind of hate this idea that everything you eat needs to taste amazing; it feels like an extension of the idea that we need to be happy all the time. It’s not realistic and not even that fun; variety is the spice of life!
But I recently found a way to make daal more palatable, which is to use coconut milk as a base instead of water. I first tried this at the Sri Lankan restaurant Rambutan in Borough Market (highly recommend), one of the rare restaurants that opened after its eponymous cookbook and not vice versa. I made a variation of that using Thai red curry paste as a flavouring, based on a Mob Kitchen recipe, and… it tasted like Indian daal anyway. I’ve realised that daal will always taste Indian, even if you add three times the recommended amount of Thai curry paste, but that’s fine. Daal is fine! But it’s like, above average fine when you add coconut milk, which takes away that sandy, austere taste. Coconut milk gives daal a sweeter, richer, more mellow flavour, and it makes me want to actually eat it instead of forcing myself to.
You can find Rambutan’s recipe for it here, and vary the flavours with whatever spices you have. Miso could be nice. I doubt it would make a big difference, because daal will daal, but it will give you something to talk about on the microwave queue at work.
Nice one Nikkitaha !!