July Please
Toss me around
and because failing to sing my song
finally
finally
got on my absolute last nerve
- June Jordan
Welcome to The Hannah Show. I hate polyester (I hate ‘dri-fit’ and ‘heattech’ like come ON, we all know it’s a petro-polymer), I hate Amazon, I hate cars, I hate the sulfuric death-gag of a failing catalytic converter, I hate gas stoves, I hate food delivery apps, I hate plastic shrink wrap made for cuts of meat to cross the world. But I love crossing the world. I love the plane. I love the smell of jet fuel. I love a bento-like meal of tiny delights on a fold-down tray table. I love the thousands of kilograms of thrust on the runway, deep-throating us skywards.
I spoke to a person once who’s father ran a green-values kind of company. And she said he was too afraid to post his travel pics online because he didn’t want people to know he flew on planes. The person also called me a bad feminist for shaving my armpits. Look, I said to her, the crystal stick does not work as well on a forest of hair! Look, I said to myself, who am I to put the genie back in the bottle and un-invent air travel, un-invent diasporas, un-invent colonial hubris and family-splintering migrations? Look, who am I to un-invent AI, says the school administrator. Who am I to un-invent billionaire hubris and society-splintering inventions? Oh.
At a meeting this month we were asked to share something that’s important to us on the job. And I said art. And they asked why. And I said do you really want to know? This is a work meeting, not The Hannah Show! And they said, no go on Hannah. And I said, okay, I suppose it’s because it’s important to me to look at the world and people on their own terms and to listen rather than extract. It’s about witnessing the world rather than looking for what I can gain, I said. And they said, oh boy that sounds like a hard way to live. And what one of them said exactly was, that sounds like a bruising way to live.
I bruise easily so be careful when you handle me, sang Natasha Bedingfield. But I say toss me around. I bruise easily, but don’t worry, I won’t even notice. Ryan is always pointing out new bruises and asking me how I got them. I have no idea, but whatever it was mustn’t have hurt too much. It doesn’t hurt to live like this, is what I’m trying to say. I used to think my low episodes were a problem. But it’s just being alive to all experience. It’s just being alive to the pain of the present moment. Just live long enough for the next moment. If we all had to put our problems in a big hat I would still love to pull out my ones. No swaps, please!
July 2026 Life Online, Events to Remember
Between the Cusk and Natalie Portman thing, and the Joyce Carol Oates pan of Emily Wilson’s pan of Nolan’s Odyssey thing, the literary world is feeling very Real Housewives right now. I love it.
The Atlantic article on everyone’s lips this July was THE END OF READING IS HERE. A lot of doom, including the new-to-me statistic that more Americans place a BET than read as a go-to form of leisure. But you know what, doom is also a form of hype. I think people got an erotic charge out of the article. It wasn’t just that we all read it and got to feel less alone and individually guilty about our busted attention spans. To read the article was to skirt with a terrifying and thrilling tabula rasa horizon; epochal-level transgression and destruction. That’s my read on the widespread reading of the death of reading article, anyway. In anecdotal news I saw an awful lot of people reading-while-walking their way around my neighbourhood in London this month! Uno reverse.
Something happened a few years ago and I still struggle so badly with texting! It used to be such a treasured way to keep in touch. Now I read a text and I often don’t know how to automatically say things back. Or I don’t know how to line up the logistics of the request, like there are so many pieces to work out before I can commit to the thing they are asking, and then it all disappears into a fog. GOD, HANNAH. So Lena Dunham sharing her struggle with texting in this piece helped me a lot. Does anyone have any helpful ideas though?
This month Boa Editions teased Naomi Shihab Nye’s new collection Sidekick (to be published September 2026):
My dad did not buy hummus in a tub.
He stirred and stirred
the floating chick peas in a simmering pot,
dropping moons of garlic into the pool,
he hovered in the kitchen singing
in Arabic, humming a lemony homesick songThis month Wang Jibing won the Lu Xun Literary Prize for his collection Low Flight (to be published in English by Chax Press in December 2026, translated by Chen Du & Xisheng Chen):
Who prescribes that with wings spread one must fly highLow flight is also a flight
With wind rustling like birds’ chirps
And wheels speeding like shooting stars
The meal delivery note attached to a takeout
In clear black and white symbolizes urgency
Like a legal document and a magic incantation
Madonna cast a spell again, school is in session:
There’s only one thing I like more than sharing what I know with other people
And that’s learning
Please, someone, teach me something I don’t already knowLove Island UK is over, but what will live on is the whole country uniting in defense of the National Rail. Even better than football. God I love trains:
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July 2025 [Waiheke]
July 2024 [Edinburgh]
July 2023 [London]
July 2022 [Waiheke]
July 2021 [London]
July 2020 [London]
(Just look at all that world-crossing! GOD, HANNAH.)Thanks so much for being here.
Okay then, goodnight moon, goodnight July,
H x
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Loved reading this! As always <3