Video of the Week:
Lecture by Kurt Vonnegut

Articles of the Week:
How Writing ‘My Struggle’ Undid Knausgaard by Ruth Franklin

Poetry Spotlight:
1. I Do Not Want to Visit Your Grave by Leon Palix
2. Tortious Tortoise by u/DevoidOfCharacter
3. Haiku 931-933 by Claudia McGill

On Apple Music, the introduction to The Beach Boys’ album Pet Sounds contains this phrase: “the core of courage is innocence.” I have not been able to get it out of my head since I first read it almost a month ago. How true and how disappointing it is to realise that ageing is — to an extent — an education in caution. There is no preventing it. Those with more safety nets at their disposal can take far more risks and treat as a bruise any failure that to many others would be a bone-crushing injury. Does that make innocence a luxury? Perhaps. The more I write here the better I realise that this is a subject that cannot be explored in rush of sentences. It does require some nursing. Ha!