Flex, Plague, Romance, Clown, Choir

How F. Scott Fitzgerald Flexed Gatsby's Bookshelf Ironically

Thought & Word | YouTube | 28th June 2020

In today's era of video calls, bookshelves are "an ideal way to 'low-key flex' without coming across as too braggadocious or overly pretentious." Similar bookshelf boasting can be found in Fitzgerald's seminal The Great Gatsby. "Of the hundreds, or maybe even thousands of books that he possesses, Gatsby hasn't actually read them" (6m30s)

A Journal Of The Plague Year

The Writer's Bloc | YouTube | 30th June 2020

Daniel Defoe's "A Journal of the Plague Year," a semi-fictional chronicle of London's 1665 Bubonic Plague epidemic, contrasted with Parliament member Samuel Pepys' account of the same event. "While the serfs of London were burning by the dozen in a great fire, Pepys was burying in his cheese in the back garden – and that's not a euphemism." Visually ravishing (9m24s)

How Romantic Attachment Works

The School of Life | YouTube | 1st July 2020

Drawing the line between Konrad Lorenz's famous study of "filial imprint" in geese, and your love life. "It seems, via Lorenz's work, that our biological makeup privileges attachment to anyone over attachment to someone able to fulfil our needs...It is no insult to recognise that we are sometimes, in intimate areas of our lives, as helpless before the workings of imprinting as a goose" (5m58s)

Music & Clowns

Alex Widdowson | Vimeo | 25th June 2020

A man interviews his brother Jamie, who has a severe form of Down syndrome. "When I'm stressed, and may have not even known I was stressed, he's come up to me and just touched my arm, and you can almost feel it draining away. It's like a lightning conductor. Just a small touch." A candid animated short (7m37s)

Impressionistic Video Of The Week

A boys' choir debacle in Seoul, à la Saul Bass

The Viewer is brought to you by the Browser, the curated newsletter of writing worth reading. The Browser is to writing what The Viewer is to video. Try it for free: https://here.thebrowser.com/

Comments? Suggestions? Write to us anytime at editors@theviewer.is

Editor: Abe Callard
Publisher: Uri Bram [uri@theviewer.is]