hello friends, it’s been a little while since we’ve been here. a lot has happened and changed over the last month that I’d love to share with you.
When I created coffee corner, I initially wanted it to be a community project. I had so many new people around me and had just become ever so slightly established in the book-creator world. however, life happens. Other commitments are had and eventually life gets busy; I’m speaking about myself here.
This past week has been especially hard on me mentally. From bad news to hard PTSD symptoms, my therapy session was practically begging me to attend. At the moment, it feels like I am torn between two worlds, two paths, and I have no idea what is right or wrong or what is best for me and the others around me. What I do know is that I missed writing coffee corner.
Coffee corner has always been a passion project. As someone who hadn’t been able to write for years, fic or non fiction, due to my PTSD, thanks to CC, I’ve written thousands and thousands of words this year. Ultimately, it has healed my inner child ever so slightly. I thank all the hundreds of you subscribed. If I could hug you all and buy you all a cuppa coffee, just know I would.
I’ve spent the last month wondering what on earth I do with coffee corner. It’s my baby and maybe it was meant to be mine and just mine. Equally, all I do is social media, mostly about myself or with my face attached even for other companies. I have struggled to understand or imagine what a balance may look like here, in what direction it should go without entirely changing its purpose, which was to help and inspire people.
In speaking on the bullshit I feel at the moment, I noticed that maybe that in itself is inherently what coffee corner was for. Is about. In the good old miar5sos days (don’t ask), I would rant in my captions or stories and let them expire, never to be remembered (by me) and forever something funny I hope people remember, no matter how depressing. Whilst instagram has changed monstrously over the… cough, decade, cough, that I started, so have I. Maybe I don’t want thirteen thousand people seeing my inner thoughts attached to an aesthetic photo, able for anyone to easily find. Whilst hundreds of you are here, reading these, it still feels slightly anonymous. It feels safe. Perhaps my lack of care for structure, views, likes, aesthetics, on here, is what makes me feel absolutely open to share; you don’t need to care about me, and that’s freeing.
a lovely friend of mine, aischa, posted a beautiful substack the other week that heavily inspired me to get back on here and just talk. I kind of figured, after that, that maybe that’s all coffee corner needs to be.
I will share my deepest thoughts, be open and honest, talk about my PTSD and the struggles of loving so deeply. My current watches and reads and what I’m listening to, things that I’m hating and that have ticked me off so bad I want to punch a hole in somoene’s throat (like America, atm).
Still, coffee corner is reliant on community. On you, on my following and coffee corners writers and their audiences, no matter how big or small. So I would like to open the floor up a bit. Coffee corner will now predominantly be a place for us to talk. You don’t actually have to talk, by reading this you’re communicating with me in a way only you need to know about. I love that. But, I’ll still have some of my writers shed some of their light. Hannah, for example, my beautiful friend of many years, has a tarot reading for you at the end of this little rant. You have no idea the joy it would give me to receive a little reading in my inbox everyday that didn’t require social media at all! And, I will soon open up the possibility for people to send in their pieces to get on here; I’m not sure how yet but keep your eyes open!
To end this quip, I want to say that I adore you all and can’t wait for new stories, new loves, new lights, new sentences and words and books and everything, to share with you all. If you’d like to, I have a coffee corner broadcast channel on my instagram that you can join if you’d like to have a bit more consistent interaction (you can remain anon or reply to everything, totally up to you). Back to a biweekly, maybe more freely, schedule soon. Anyway, bye. Mwah.
Love, mimi xoxo
Tarot Reading with Hannah
We’re gonna make it home.
Week 1: Nov. 11th – Nov. 17th
The Three of Cups talks of celebration, harmony, friendship and about positive reinforcement. The last few weeks may have provided time for a deep dive into our motivations, what we are personally dedicated towards, and where this stems from. This week encourages us to celebrate the hard work we have already put in. It asks us to lift those up around us, but also ourselves. If you are prone to beating yourself up after coming to difficult realisations, or for feeling as if you are behind, this is a week to begin to redirect those thoughts or actions, to ones of a more uplifting nature. The Moon in Pisces from November 10th – 11th could bring up emotions of dissatisfaction with your surroundings, perhaps seeing the changes you need or want to make but feeling insecure about putting these into action. Followed by the Moon in Aries from November 12th – 13th, the urge to act might be stronger, wanting to see the changes occur immediately, so make sure you provide room for reflection before acting. The Full Moon in Taurus on November 15th will bring this to light, to be released. Look inwards to see what you rely on. What patterns or routines bring about positive stability – not stagnancy. This Full Moon is about noting where you find self-acceptance and where you see success. Is it through the material things you own? Or about how you feel about yourself, and how this changes the way you see the world around you?
Song of the week: The Weatherman – Nick Folwarczny “The waters thicker than we’d ever seen before, we lost our ways cause we can’t see the road... We’re gonna make it home.”
Week 2: Nov. 18th – Nov. 23rd
The Chariot talks of action, willpower and drive, this felt force of something universal – whomever you entrust spiritually – guiding you forward. Sometimes, we are pushed forward into choices that could make us feel stuck, for the purpose of us realising what isn’t for us, and what we can let go of. Finding out something isn’t working for you, is just as important as finding what is. The Chariot asks you to let go of how you think things should be going right now, to release perfectionism, and stay present on the journey that is. With the Moon in Cancer from November 18th – 19th, you may find yourself more in tune with your emotional world, craving comfort and home. It’s important to remember your emotions relate to your perception and can change frequently. Learning to let them come and let them go. A lesson that holding onto something just because it feels familiar, can do more harm than good. The Moon in Leo from November 21st – 22nd might ask you to reevaluate your relationship to criticism, and self-image. The following Moon in Virgo starting November 22nd, clarity can find you, wanting to clear out anything that makes you feel disorganised, The Chariot, encouraging this deep clean. The Chariot reminds us that sometimes, willpower isn’t enough. Pulling on a door you know has dissatisfaction behind it, simply because it is what you’re forcing yourself to want, won’t change those emotions once it gives way. Sometimes, it’s better to recentre, and refocus your attention in a different direction.
Song of the week: Monsoon – Amber Mark, Mia Mark “Staring into space, you’ve lost yourself. The rain has fallen through, and there’s nothing I can do.”
Films with Jente
Kill Your Darlings
As a former resident of dark academia Tumblr, I am all too familiar with the film Kill Your Darlings. It took me, however, until this year to watch said film; it emerged into my consciousness again after my friend Ra recommended the book ‘And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks’ to me, which the film is loosely based on.
For it all to make sense, let me introduce you to a few important players of the beat generation. At the helm we find the poet Allen Ginsberg (portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe), who arrives as an inexperienced freshman at Columbia University in the year 1944. Here, he meets Lucien Carr (portrayed by Dane Dehaan), who takes a doe-eyed Allen under his wing and expands his horizons through the usage of alcohol, drugs, and the art of making love.
Lucien introduces Allen to the peculiar William S. Burroughs and later on the writer Jack Kerouac, the two writers of our aforementioned novel. They all share the same ambition: to start a new literary movement as a form of rebellion. Disillusioned by the conventions of mainstream American life as a result of World War II, Beatniks lived through and by their poetry. They believed that the joylessness and purposelessness of modern society were sufficient in justifying their withdrawal from said society and protesting against its traditional values. They inspired many other subcultures, the hippie culture being one of them. And Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Kerouac were at the helm of it.
But that doesn’t solve the mystery of Lucien Carr, does it? In the film, Lucien and Allen find themselves on the cusp of a love affair as their literary movement expands, much to the disgruntlement of a Colmubia professor named David Kammerer, whose relationship with Lucien isn’t one of love but control. Kammerer has his claws set into Lucien since the day they met, forcing him to be intimate with him in order to not get expelled from the prestigious university.
The climax of both Kill Your Darlings and Hippos takes place when Lucien murders Kammerer by stabbing him and leaving his body in the Hudson river then goes to his friends for help. While he’s held in contempt, Lucien asks Allen to write his deposition for him. He reluctantly writes a piece titled "The Night in Question," which doesn’t paint Lucien in a favourable light. After more evidence is revealed of Kamerer’s predatory behaviour towards Lucien, he ends up receiving a short sentence for manslaughter.
“The Night in Question” was submitted by Ginsberg as his final term paper. His words were seen as so provocative at the time that he got threatened with expulsion if he didn’t withdraw his paper. He decides that conformity isn’t really his style but is forced to leave the typescript behind. Two weeks later, Allen finds the typescript mailed back to him with a note from his professor to ‘keep writing’ as the film comes to a close.
Kill Your Darlings is right on the nose in showing how pivotal the beat generation was. The importance of freeing yourself through your writing, going against the grain of (then) modern society, and creating a way for young people to find a lust for life again after the world has been torn by war and division. It’s a great introduction to its most prominent figures and only makes one grow curiouser and curiouser.
The work of the beat poets, writers, and musicians is just as relevant today as it was back then. For us outsiders, there’s still much cruelty, especially in a world that tries to silence our voices. For me, it’s both motivational and comforting to read the works of Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac,... They make me want to explore myself as a writer, where I stand in society, where I feel like I belong, and most importantly, it makes me want to be the best version of myself I can be at this moment in time.
