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19- and a lot of tenderness
Welcome to issue nineteen of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature.
You can support my work via patreon 🧡
EPISODE 19 SHOW NOTES
LISTENING, WATCHING, READING
Read
I have been reading Teju Cole for years, all his non-fiction. But I had never taken the time to dive into his fiction. This January, I treated myself to all three of his novels (one of them is said to be a novella but I don’t care for such definitions). Everyday is for the Thief (2007), Open City (2011) and Tremor (2023). It was an intense and beautiful experience to read all those books one after the other. Cole brings so many emotions out of me and most importantly, he creates that urgent space where beauty meets reflection, where imagination is always part of how we must look at the world. Cole does it so beautifully well through music, art, photography (including his own).
Watch
I have finally seen The Red Shoes, a 1948 film written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It’s been on my list forever, but I wanted to see it in a cinema and not on a small screen. So when I saw it was playing in my local beloved cinema Kriterion, I didn’t miss the chance. The story is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story of red ballet shoes that refuse to stop dancing. It follows aspiring ballerina Victoria Page (played by a mesmerizing Moira Shearer), who joins the world-renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov (played by Anton Walbrook), who will test her dedication to the ballet by making her choose between her career and love. Heartbreaking, very dramatic, a visual treat (especially for its time). It is also one of Martin Scorsese’s favourite films.
Listen
Ava Duvernay has directed a new film, titled Origin, based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, and both the film and the book are on my watch/read list. While waiting for the film to arrive to the Netherlands, I am listening to interviews with Duvernay, like this one on Radio Hour, where she tells about the process of filming, from funding to making, the urgency of the theme and why it needed to come out now and not later. A truly inspiring artist and visionary.
ABOUT
Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil (she/they) is a writer, literary translator and artist based in Amsterdam. She established The Attention Span website and its newsletter to publish their work independently: making the time to reflect, analyse and imagine.
View all episodes
By Canan (Ja’anan) MarasligilWelcome to issue nineteen of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature.
You can support my work via patreon 🧡
EPISODE 19 SHOW NOTES
LISTENING, WATCHING, READING
Read
I have been reading Teju Cole for years, all his non-fiction. But I had never taken the time to dive into his fiction. This January, I treated myself to all three of his novels (one of them is said to be a novella but I don’t care for such definitions). Everyday is for the Thief (2007), Open City (2011) and Tremor (2023). It was an intense and beautiful experience to read all those books one after the other. Cole brings so many emotions out of me and most importantly, he creates that urgent space where beauty meets reflection, where imagination is always part of how we must look at the world. Cole does it so beautifully well through music, art, photography (including his own).
Watch
I have finally seen The Red Shoes, a 1948 film written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It’s been on my list forever, but I wanted to see it in a cinema and not on a small screen. So when I saw it was playing in my local beloved cinema Kriterion, I didn’t miss the chance. The story is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story of red ballet shoes that refuse to stop dancing. It follows aspiring ballerina Victoria Page (played by a mesmerizing Moira Shearer), who joins the world-renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov (played by Anton Walbrook), who will test her dedication to the ballet by making her choose between her career and love. Heartbreaking, very dramatic, a visual treat (especially for its time). It is also one of Martin Scorsese’s favourite films.
Listen
Ava Duvernay has directed a new film, titled Origin, based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, and both the film and the book are on my watch/read list. While waiting for the film to arrive to the Netherlands, I am listening to interviews with Duvernay, like this one on Radio Hour, where she tells about the process of filming, from funding to making, the urgency of the theme and why it needed to come out now and not later. A truly inspiring artist and visionary.
ABOUT
Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil (she/they) is a writer, literary translator and artist based in Amsterdam. She established The Attention Span website and its newsletter to publish their work independently: making the time to reflect, analyse and imagine.