45, more life 💪🏾

A little dispatch after returning from Mallorca, baggy-eyed but still basking in the glow of a magical wedding up in the hills of Deià. Congratulations to the chicest, Vic and Pete. It’s too soon to go through all the images. Running on random access memories for now but here’s a taste of the trip.

For all the struggles of this year, especially the dread of being in work wilderness and longing to feel closer to the centre of something, I must give thanks for privileges like this. Grab them while I can, if even you feel undeserving.

Seeing two people I admire celebrate their union among a warm-hearted and fun-loving bunch from several corners of the world – in such an exquisite and generous manner, and despite a few stern challenges – brings the potential joy in life into sharper focus.

Read more in Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

Also in this issue:

Lonnie Holley’s All Rendered Truth
Good advice for young journalists
A flaw in American Fiction
Mississippi Masala (black + brown love = complicated
Who cares about men’s personal essays?

Amar Patel

The anxiety is mounting whenever I open up a social network. We are losing pivotal figures at a rapid rate – each announcement feels like an ambush. Artists, musicians especially, will always be huge inspirations. But I have to give it up to the writers too, no doubt. They are all mentors. Because without them, would I be doing what I do?

Well Greg Tate was all of the above and more. When I first contemplated puttin’ down words for a living, there were certain scribes and texts that were required reading. I think it was a review in an early issue of Straight No Chaser magazine that put me on to Flyboy in the Buttermilk, Greg's essays on contemporary America, where he raged curiously through the prisms of race, politics, literature and music.

Amar Patel

A different view

Fly boy, fly – farewell to Greg Tate