Mi like mi coffee very importante
10 sundry Sunday notes
What’s happening everybody? Me again, trying to add some randomness to your inbox. Here are some things I found worth sharing this week:
Finished Десять поколений, a memoir-style novel about the Yezidi experience in the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet space. While most associate Yezidis with Iraq (and the horrible genocide perpetrated by ISIS), the Yezidi people found their way to places like modern-day Armenia and Georgia. Being an endogamous group (meaning marrying outside the culture is akin to leaving it) with a distinct religion and a millennia-spanning history of persecution, some Yezidis stick to their traditions, while others adapt and change their lifestyle. Like, there’s a whole Yezidi village who converted to the Jehovah’s Witnesses sect.
I’ve been fascinated by the Middle East since my freshman year, and what always mesmerised me most was the patchwork of different sects and religions. From the Zoroastrians to the Mandeans, and from the Druze to the Bektashis — every one of those groups has a separate lore, corpus and rich history. A good entry point into that rabbit hole is the 2014 book Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East by Gerard Russell.
When I was 15, I took out a book on Zoroastrians from the city library, and lost it. I was super paranoid about this mishap backfiring. Honestly thought they’d fine me for not returning a book. Or send a library cop (great Seinfeld episode, by the way) on me. It’s been 20 years and nothing happened, but maybe it’s not too late (there are documented cases of arrests, after all). Generally, I always found the whole library experience daunting (even wrote a short piece about it).
Eurovision — an event that both divides and unites Europe — swooshed by quickly. Here’s an interesting piece by Synthesis on “political alliances” between nations — nice to see Croatia and Serbia voting for one another consistently.
According to the same research, “"Love" remains the hottest theme, but has been steadily declining since the Nineties. The last 25 years saw the growth of "identity", "emotional turmoil" and "resilience", while hope collapsed to almost zero after the 2010s.“ I wonder if the decline of love correlates to the “Gen Z having less sex than previous generations” trend.
Politics and music at the Eurovision do get weird sometimes, though. A few years ago, Ukraine’s Minister of Culture publicly apologised that Ukraine’s jury didn’t give Lithuania any points. This year, apparently there’s an alleged psyop on Lithuanian Facebook, with posts rehashing the narrative that the Ukrainian jury snubbed Lithuania again and that this is somehow linked to the fact that we’re donating less money than before. Sigh.
I haven’t been following this year’s Eurovision drama (and ESC is all about drama, after all) that closely. The only thing that reached me was the story of Italians complaining about Estonia’s entry mocking Italian culture. The lyrics of the song in question include 'Ciao bella, I'm Tomaso, addicted to tobacco. Mi like mi coffee very importante,' and 'Mi money numeroso, I work around the clocko. That's why I'm sweating like a mafioso.' (To my US readers: Is Eurovision to you the same level of incomprehensible as, let’s say, Super Bowl is to us Europeans?)
Finished reading La Puerta by Manel Loureiro — a crime/mystery novel set in a remote part of Galicia. While I was a bit disappointed with how it ended, the book does a great job at introducing old Celtic beliefs and the importance of megalithic structures. I have visited a few sites in Malta and they all looked fascinating. Of course, to each their own. As one tourist remarked, “this is my third tour this week, I hope there’s no megaliths, I’ve had enough”.
One of the many megalithic sites of Malta Speaking of Galicia, here’s a great documentary about the region’s Celtic music:
I don’t know a thing about wine, I don’t really drink wine, but found 121 wine questions for Jancis Robinson in the FT really enlightening. Answers include: “36. Is it OK to add ice cubes to wine? Absolutely. Especially as wine is getting stronger and stronger. 37. Is it OK to add sparkling water to wine? If you want to, why not? 38. Is it OK to not really care about wine?
Definitely.“
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it! Recommend Fictitious to a friend or foe, buy me a coffee, and simply share something cool you’ve recently learned with me by answering this email. Any suggestions, ideas or thoughts are welcome!
Till next time,
Oleg