Hi all,
A note to say this newsletter has been tough to write. Partly due to the dreadfulness of this year; mostly due to the commotion of new motherhood. This was the first edition of Two Nouns drafted entirely on my phone’s notes app, often while breastfeeding or otherwise trapped under my child. My brain still feels butter soft. I am somewhere at sea, searching for the taut rope that leads back to shore. But because women apologise too much, this is a not-sorry sorry. I’m planning a new rhythm in 21, and some upgrades (hello Substack) for the 2000 of you who are kind enough to read along.
Onward!
An invisible virus made 2020 a standout year for the imagination. For example, I considered murdering my husband, then didn’t 😇. Stuck in London, my ears traveled to Cabo Verde over and over again. I read a stack of great books taking me from Ethiopia to deep space, and watched days worth of increasingly lowbrow, increasingly subtitled television. Like you, I Zoomed, House Partied, and Clubhoused as a coping strategy, and listened to so. many. podcasts.
For me it's also been a year of intense physical experiences. I couldn’t run, so toddled dozens of anxious miles, alone and alongside friends, with and without the bump, in the heat and now the cold. I bought a house with stairs that creak in spots I've come to learn, tiptoeing up and down with a baby we made from scratch. I have pumped more than 25 litres of milk out of my body. I have roasted a coop's worth of chickens, savoured the crispy skin, boiled their bones to broth, then consumed that, too — a ritual somehow approximating the infinite loop of this year.
No envy for the students who will be quizzed on this era. Between scientific excellence and seismic anxiety, I'm not even sure what will make it to the history books.
But as it is the season of triumphal summaries, I decided to assemble my own list, of *the most 2020 things of 2020*. This is not a best of, but rather a most of — cultural flotsam to preserve the peculiar energy of this year.
APP (tie): Cashapp & Patreon
These remittance vehicles found their moment as the world needed ways to tip, tithe, and otherwise spread a safety net wider than many governments were able to provide. Just like immigrants and sex workers taught us.
CANCELLATION: "Cops"
This earliest reality TV, a 30-year glorification of bad cop energy, was finally yanked from American airwaves after George Floyd's murder. But despite all the whinery about cancel culture, the show quietly resumed production in the fall. Kind of how the whole Trump administration is going to launder their reputations in a blink.
ESSAY: “My Moustache, Myself”
Wesley Morris puts my multitasking to shame. This essay spun the lowbrow phenomenon of quarantine facial hair into a quilt of timely reflections on black manhood.
FILM: “Uncut Gems”
Technically, this was released in 2019, but most of the film industry spent the year in a medically induced coma. If you ever want to feel how 2020 felt in just 135 minutes, forget Contagion; you gotta watch this masterfully paced Safdie brothers film.
GARMENT (tie):
W/NBA jerseys
In a summer full of performative brand bullshit, the W/NBA — which executed its league bubbles well — also did the right thing, stylishly and flexibly, for its global audience.
& Karen Mabon PJs
Is this sleepwear? Does it really matter?
POLITICAL NEWS: Mink Wars
Topping Brexit, the US election, and assassinations in Iran, the fight over culling millions of Danish mink perfectly captures 2020's capitalism versus public health debate. The bumbling and recriminations and ministerial resignations highlight how hard even well meaning governments have had it this year.
PRODUCT (tie):
WFH Vase
If you are lucky enough to live at work // work from home, this clever bud vase can host distanced video calls and your dreams of indoor gardening.
& Who Gives A Crap
I smugly dodged the spring TP shortage because of my recurring subscription to this B Corporation, spending half its profit on toilet construction where it's needed.
TELEVISION: Love Is Blind
Praise to this Netflix trainwreck released in a simpler time, when we — like the show participants — were naive about how challenging romance would become this year. Extra marks for prescience on the strangeness of dating in isolation, with a nod to all you who have found creative solutions this year.
TWEET: Greta Thunberg dunking on Donald Trump
Knowing that she had the poise to hide this knife for 330 days gives me the strength to get through this, our collective marshmallow test.
VIRAL VIDEO: Tiktok Grocery Musical
Yes, the Chinese government is surveilling every moment I spend on the app. But the creative energy in this series of TikToks about food shopping showcases both the alone-togetherness of 2020 and the smart product features of the platform, and briefly restored my respect for humanity.
VISUAL AID: Exponential charts
But not the one showing viral loads by country (huge thanks to the data sharks who collaborated to give us statistical wisdom— you're all great.) No, the one showing just how much richer the already rich became this year.
WORD: Doomscrolling
Stop it! Stop it right now. Drink some water; I bet you’re dehydrated.
And may I lastly suggest ...
PERSON: Dana Clark
It feels dated to have persons of the year — like the last gasp of hierarchism, where single leaders are the solution. Hardly so. We need everyone doing something to scoop out the canoe. This journalist has captured Dana negotiating the trinity of crises in America and the world — racism on our necks, illness in the air, fairness on the ballot — and the child makes it newly personal for me. Dana made me sad, and proud. I salute her.
@ me your mosts of — or argue with me about these! And stay safe wherever you are. Thank you as always, for letting me write to you.
Dayo