The December Specials
15 things
On the last Friday of each month I send out a list of the month’s Specials, or 15 things I’m buying, reading, watching, thinking about, eating, etc. The first few things on the list are available for everyone to read and the last 12 things on the list are for paid subscribers only.
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Here are the Specials for this month:
The Met recently replaced the tutu on Degas’ “The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer”, a bronze statue c. 1880 of a young ballerina at the Paris Opera Ballet dance school. They shared the process in a TikTok; Glenn Peterson, Conservator at the Costume Institute, takes us through the thinking and reasoning behind the changes they made to the tutu’s structure and material and it’s so beautiful and interesting.
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My reading goal wildly fluctuates each year, as does my success in reaching it (I’m 10 books short of this year’s 30 book goal) but I have a feeling that 2024 will be the year I pick up the pace again. I used to read 50-60 books a year and both my anxiety and creativity were better for it. I really loved Pandora Sykes’ essay “But how do you read so much?” earlier this year, which gave us a peek into the voracious reader and mother of 3’s reading routine, and last night I read The Deep Dive’s “People Aren’t Lying About Reading. You’re Just Insecure.”, which is for the haters. :) Both discuss the idea of reading goals, finding the time, prioritizing the things you want to do and guiltlessly deprioritizing the ones you don’t.
