Living In The Margins and Loving It
Sophie and Karen had a writing date and accidentally wrote this week's newsletter
This week, Dames Sophie & Karen are here with a revival of one of their favorite types of Damesing, the little catch-up chat that takes some unexpectedly moving turns along the way.
Dame Sophie: Hellooooooooooo my darling
Dame Karen: Hello! How are you?
DS: I’m ok! I’ve felt like I’m getting a cold for the last few days but the symptoms are static? Which is weird. I decided a nap was in order this afternoon & whaddya know, actually feel a tiny bit better? Rest! Who knew? And you?
DK: I also just took a healing nap—I was feeling very sad and low all day for no good reason and feel much better after a snack and a lie down
DS: I love when we get reminders that doing the basics like this are so helpful. We are in our mid-40s and yet re-learning is still a thing.
DK: Mid?! ::eyes to side:: But yes!
DS: Oh, true! 48 is late, isn’t it? Famously, I did not major in math.
DK: Yes, and it really kind of freaked me out on my last birthday! I’m feeling very weird about being almost 50. I felt the same way turning 30. 40 was a complete breeze, 50 feels heavy. ANYWAY…beats the alternative, I guess, nyuk nyuk.
DS: I tend not to get the aging weirdsies around milestone birthdays, but somewhere in the middle I can be prone to that. 50 feels—and this is by no means an original insight—younger to me than I thought it would. Once we crested 40, and then 45, I feel like, what’s the difference? Some of it is just “well, I’m still here. Huh!” and the alternative being way less appealing, of course. I also think some of it is the very common feeling of “wow, my parents/grandparents/whatever elders we choose were younger than I thought they were at Age XYZ”. Then again, it seems as if ages are younger than they were across the board, for all sorts of reasons—second-hand smoke has been particularly on my mind lately. It used to be inescapable, and now it’s difficult for me to think of spaces where I might encounter it at all. That was making people feel older all the time, I’m sure.
DK: Yep! So true. It’s wild thinking about how that was such a common part of daily life.
DS: So common! And it made my mom so mad. At the time I felt the classic young person’s irate mortification, and now if I were offered a seat in a smoking area at the diner, which used to happen every time we went to the diner, I would walk out. Time!!
DK: Haha, same, and I say this as someone who desperately misses smoking.
DS: Shamefully, same. My last cigarette was a middle finger to death, actually—so original of me! I attended a funeral for a 24 year-old five or six years ago, and immediately and gratefully bummed a cigarette afterwards. I don’t think I even finished it, but however many drags it was, they were cathartic.
DK: Oh man, that seems like an appropriate time for sure. I actually have an “emergency” pack in my freezer and had one a few weeks ago. It was bad after like three drags! Which, thank goodness, really.
DS: It’s so rude of our bodies to dislike the once-in-a-while tools of nihilism that we used to rely on.
DK: ACTUAL LOLS! How dare these bodies?!
DS: These meat sacks we walk around in want to…what? Stick around for decades?! And protest when we fail to treat them like the everyday precious objects they are? It’s too on the nose, send it back for revisions!!
DK: Outrageous!
DS: Let’s carry on! It’s not as though “ugh, bodies, why are they” is groundbreaking, but I think one of the nicer, kinder things we can give ourselves with the hard-won perspective of each passing year, is the understanding that basically no one breaks ground, ever, and it’s comforting (in a substantive way, not in a sort of throwing up our hands and surrendering to the void kind of way) to be reminded of that. I don’t expect anyone else to dazzle me with brand-new insights, and it should be enough for me to find the occasional glimmer of something new-ish within myself. Not that I’m that kind to myself automatically; I often have to go through the silly little dance steps of being kind of mean to myself first.
DK: Yep, I spent the entire day being mean to myself before I let myself have a little cry, snack, and lie down. I was working, of course, so I couldn’t have done it any earlier but definitely didn’t have to spend the day telling myself how disappointing I am as a person wheeeeeee. And I also knew I’d feel better chatting and writing with you, which helped. <3
DS: I’m so glad it did! I have to say that I don’t like it one bit when anyone talks shit about my beloved friend Karen, so you should definitely summon me for an intervention with yourself, on your self’s behalf. I’m very fond of your good self, as you may be aware, and will brook no nastiness inflicted on that self by others, even when that other is also yourself.
DK: Thank you <3 Likewise, of course.
DS: A pact for life. Did I tell you I’m reading a biography of The Mitfords? You may have read it, too – it’s The Six by Laura Thompson.
DK: Ooo, I have not, but I want to!
DS: I find it fascinating—firstly, because the Mitfords themselves are so odd and brilliant and singular as individuals & as a family, and because the tone is exactly as gossipy as I imagine and as their surviving letters show them to have been. There’s the distance you get with time and a popular scholarship approach, but it often feels like Thompson wishes she had been there, sort of hovering over their shoulders.
DK: Oh, I bet! Speaking of which, I have The House of Mitford lying directly to my right, which was written by Diana Mosley’s son and his daughter, and I bet it is WILD!!!! I should get down to it at last.
DS: Please do let me know your thoughts as you’re reading it! Is it by Max Mosley?
DK: No, Jonathan Guinness—her son from her first marriage.
DS: Ah! I wondered particularly because her son Max, [one of two sons from her marriage with the truly vile Fascist leader Oswald Mosley], who died in 2021, was a big muckety-muck in Formula One. Another of those “are you kidding?! Time, what even!” things – all that family and world history, and obviously I know he can’t be held responsible for his parents’ political identities, but it seems like it’s all washed away, somehow? And I can’t escape the idea that maybe he even benefited in life by being the son of notorious fascists?
DK: Yiiiiiiikes
DS: I love when someone who either inherits notoriety blamelessly or who is notorious because they're mis-perceived by the world gets a second chance or is reassessed later, or just permitted to live normally. Preferably that happens while they’re still alive to enjoy it! Maybe Max Mosley was a sweet leftist in his heart or something, but the possibility that his was an apple that didn’t fall far from the tree continues to lurk.
DK: Haha, that’s ok. I get it. And yeah, I feel like ol’ Jonathan Guinness is going to be like “Well, DECCA married a COMMUNIST, so IT’S ALL BAD,” but maybe he won’t, who can say? I sent you the author photos and bios to your phone—they make me laugh.
DS: Oh, my god the photos. And the font in their author bios!! What incredible mid-80s artifacts.
DK: “And if you want to know what happens next…read the book!”
DS: Totally. I find myself keen to delve into all sorts of Mitfordiana; they didn’t sire a monarch or even a very low-ranked person in the line of succession, but they seem nearly as important as the Windsors in English political & literary history.
DK: Oh yeah, maybe more so! Yeah, this was one of the books I snagged from…did I tell you about this? When I was still at Mount Holyoke [I worked there from 2014-2019] the library had some book carts in the front entrance with books they had taken out of circulation and I’d always check them. At one point a SEA of books in which I was interested showed up and just kept coming. Lots of biographies of British women in the arts and letters, tons of Viragos, on and on. I finally went to the librarians and asked where they had come from. A woman had died and somehow MHC ended up with her archives. She had no connection that I could find to MHC—she’d been a women’s studies and English professor at CCNY. I forget her name now, but I have it written down. Anyway, I have quite a bit of her library and I think about her all the time.
[NOTE: I went back into my beloved copy of Hilary Spurling’s Ivy: The Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett because I was pretty sure there was a piece of correspondence tucked away in there and I was right. The woman is Jane Marcus and she is a “pioneering feminist literary scholar” who “devised groundbreaking analyses of [Virginia] Woolf's writings, upending a generation of criticism that ignored feminist, pacifist, and socialist themes in much of Woolf's work and critique of imperialism and bourgeois society,” among other things. Fuck yeah!]
DS: I both love and want to cry over that story. It’s wonderful that her library crossed paths with you, an exactly right person to encounter & appreciate it, and it breaks my heart that hers was a library that wound up available for sale on a book cart.
DK: FREE!!!! FREE ON A BOOK CART! I know, I was like “I have to keep all of these forever and guard them with my life!” And now someday they will go to another book cart, probably, and maybe some other person will find them and be delighted. I’ll have to sneak some info about both of us into some of the books.
DS: FREE. Free on a book cart outside the library at a small women’s college in Western Mass. I can’t help feeling like that’s a bit of the essence or wellspring of feeling weird about aging. One of the things it’s always about is the question of what kind of record we’re leaving behind. Which is tough to talk about in a way that doesn’t sound extremely up its own ass, but it’s real! This woman, whose name isn’t likely to be celebrated in history writ large, is gone, and one day we will be, too, and maybe when that happens, we’ll think that our libraries and *personal archives* winding up on a book cart where someone who might appreciate them will find them is pretty great? Aspirational, even?
DK: Absolutely. A best possible outcome for sure—bringing random, unexpected joy to a stranger who appreciates the same things you appreciated. It felt like a rolling gift; I went over to the library with such anticipation every day and would leave with bags full of books, marveling at my luck.
DS: I’m now chuckling at myself because on the one hand, I’m so mad about this woman’s legacy being so unfairly reduced, and I’m also tearing up at how small-scale miraculous and beautiful it is that you derived so much joy from it and get to be its steward in some way, and that I’m getting to enjoy learning about it (and maybe a couple of our readers are, too). In a perfect world, maybe someone makes a short documentary about this CCNY professor – who I am now allowing my imagination to embroider as a colleague of Robert Caro, thanks to having recently watched the documentary Turn Every Page—and in our imperfect world, at least her self-curated archive continues to have a happy home on your shelves.
DK: Yes! I need to find her name—there were little notes and things tucked into the books here and there, including notice that she’d been granted tenure!
DS: That’s so cool! And is why I’m such a fan of marginalia. People, write in your own books! Please! Future readers and maybe future scholars will appreciate it! Everything is a palimpsest! Your asides to yourself have value!
DK: Yes, I had a wonderful English teacher in high school that INSISTED we all take notes in and mark up our books, which was such a gift.
DS: 100% agreed. Everyone has something to offer, and a great way to claim that idea and work that muscle is by making little notes—in pen, if you’re really feeling your oats, but let’s not pooh-pooh the noble pencil if that feels like an easier way to start! – in the margins. Which is where most of us live, anyway.
DK: Hear, hear! Beautifully put! Wow, this is wonderful—didn’t know what we were going to write about, but here we are.
DS: I think we can never go wrong when we reflect on mortality and the ways we both shoo it away and make room for it to sit next to us. I feel like the 2100ish words we’ve just written can’t be wrong.
DK: Again, beautifully put.
DS: I’m so glad we made this writing date! I love you!
DK: I love you too! Let’s prioritize these for sure.
DS: Yes, please. Who knew brushing a stray tear off one’s keyboard could be so life-affirming and joyful? (Well, we did, but once again, reminders are helpful!)
DK: Always here to remind each other <3
DS: Just like Burt Bachrach suggested. That’s what that song is about, right?
DK: It must be! ::hums horn refrain::
DS: I’m going to sing it very loud & tunelessly—but with gusto!—as I potter around this evening.
DK: Saaaaaaame.
Dames Nation: Keeping It Classy-fied
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And Another Thing
I (Dame Sophie) interviewed Stephen Moyer about his role as the baddy in the new Sexy Beast prequel series, and about the wildly disturbing scene in which his character rapes another man. If you’re in the market for a series that can only be described as Batshit Prestige, Sexy Beast is a pretty solid choice.
There is no yearning like gay junior high yearning. <3
Speaking of yearning…Patrick McKemey on the lost joys of the desktop internet for Dirt.
loved this conversation so much and am so thrilled Dame Karen ended up with all those beautiful Viragos. I definitely understand where Sophie is coming from with her dismay over the woman's personal library ending up on a freebie cart, but it sounds like they came with her personal papers. I'm a curator at an archives and special collections repository and in most cases, we have to do the same thing—we simply and literally don't have space, resources, or staff labor to steward every donor's book collection. There are exceptions of course and it's definitely worth challenging assumptions about whose books get saved and why, but in this scenario, letting Karen given them a second life sounds close to ideal.
I think I also was in Mr. Kennedy's senior English class! This conversation was fascinating & maybe a prequel to a... podcast? 🫶🏼