This book didn’t make sense, but it was only about 100 pages. I read this after Lost in Thought, and it was just as pointless, but this was lay shorter (it’s only 100 or so pages, and the dimensions are tiny – not a lot of words on each page).
It’s just kind of free-assocation, stream-of-conciousness thoughts about performing. The author is a rapper and a spoken word poet. (He’s a trans-man, and so you’ll find a lot of YouTube videos under the name “Kate Tempest.” I watched some of his post-transition stuff, and he has some absolutebangers out there.)
Is there anything actionable here? No, I don’t think so. It seems to be some form of self-therapy.
The title sort of promises that if you connect with other people, that will help your creativity, which I get. Towards the end, the author talks about him experience performing and how it helps him to concentrate on real people and real life – it grounds him and calms him down.
And that’s about it. There’s just not a lot to go on here.
(Although, it did have a praise quote from Flea, the bassist from Red Hot Chilli Peppers, which I thought was fascinating.)
I bought this at a little bookshop in Berlin, from a very small section of English language books.
Book Info
Author
Kae Tempest
Year
Pages
144
Acquired
I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on September 4, 2025.
A softcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.
This is very short – it’s a glorified pamphlet, really. The best I can say is that it introduced me to George Perec, who is a French writer. He died in 1982, but he did a lot with something called constrained writing, which is where you put arbitrary constraints on your writing to do something...
I loved the title and subtitle of this book. I was enamored with the idea of an “intellectual life.” And this is a neat thing. I mean, we have love lives and social lives and sex lives, but how many people talk about an intellectual life? I feel like I have this, but I never really had a word for...