The pistachio variegations

Hello!

This is Xander Beattie (aka Alex Matthews) — swimmer, artist publisher and author of The President. You're reading this because you're subscribed to my newsletter, a swimming pool library.

I was only there a few weeks ago, but Southern Europe – its ice cream and warm water and sun – feels laughably, surreally, mythologically distant.

I had quite a lot of gelato in Italy, but the one I keep thinking back to is one I had twice in Palermo, bought from a gelateria down a back street – small, unfussy, family-owned; the kind where they use real ingredients and make their wares on site.

The gelato was pistachio, but not like the pistachio I'd ever had it before. Unlike the monochromatic snot-green standard pistachio flavour, this was pistachio variegato, which meant the pistachio was a crunchy paste streaked throughout the pale scoop like the veins you find in marble. The pistachio variegations meant that, within a single lick, you were treated to both decadent, intense, sweet nutty explosions and svelte cool creaminess. Wow.

I am back in California now and haven't had ice cream since I returned (save for the less-than-satisfactory remnants of a cookies-and-cream tub pulled from the back of the freezer). Dark times indeed!

I've been experimenting with publishing web-only "field notes" on a swimming pool library – fragmentary reflections and observations that don't merit being inflicted on your inbox but might pique the interest of those who stumble across them. Here's something on Athens (the gratitude I felt towards it; the pang of no longer being there), on Amalfi, and on Rome.

I've also dipped my toe into publishing poetry (!) on here. Here's one on Gaza. And another, a poem-in-progress, really, about being back in the not-so-Golden State.

And, in case you missed it: the interview I did with Brendan McHugh about the reprint of The Butch Manual. I'm hoping to publish more interviews in the weeks to come.

To the (I suspect!) muted disapproval of my beloved Old Book Club, progress on Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain was painfully slow amidst the stop-start of travel. The only book I finished while on the move was The Future Was Color, a novel by Patrick Nathan. So, so, so good. Sexy AND cerebral; existential AND embodied.

Patrick writes an excellent newsletter (though is sufficiently prolific that I have some catching up to do). Another excellent/prolific newsletter-cum-novelist is Catherine Lacey (loved her recent interview with Molly Young about the latter's chapbook, Privacy).

Also excellent (but not prolific): the newsletters written by my friends (who also happen to be talented writers and intriguing thinkers and valued recommenders) – Amelia Greenhall, Melany Franklin and Jasper Nighthawk.

• Do you write a newsletter that I don't know about? Or one written by a friend or acquaintance you'd think I'd enjoy? Reply and tell me about it, please!

Since I got back, I've gobbled up Roman Stories, the collection by Jhumpa Lahiri (translated from the Italian she originally wrote it in). I'm busy with (and hugely enjoying) Lahiri's memoir, In Other Words, about her love affair with (and journey towards writing in) Italian. And I was blown away by Steven Tagle's 2021 essay for The Common, "Notes on Looking Back", about learning to read and write in Modern Greek. Who knows, maybe these will nudge me towards actually doing something about being so disgustingly monolingual (rather than simply feeling guilty about it).

Steven, as it happens, is going to be my conversation partner at the launch party we're doing in LA to celebrate the arrival of the pocket hardback edition of my novel, The President, on December 6th. If you're in town and would like to be added to the guest list, let me know!

(We had a launch for the hardback in London in September at The Common Press; here are some pics from what was a very lovely evening, all the more so because my big sister was in the audience!)

If you're not LA-based (or can't make the party), no fear: PRONK now has an online store, and we're shipping the new hardback to anywhere in the United States. Order this smutty, perfectly-sized stocking filler here. And, if you're a notebook fan (filthy masterpieces have to start somewhere, after all), I hope you'll consider getting one of our new 80 page soft cover notebooks, too. (Just like the hardback, and the previous Artist Edition of The President, the notebook was made by hand in Johannesburg by the fabulously talented folks at PULP Paperworks.)

One of the perks of being registered with (most?) public library systems in the United States, is gaining access to Kanopy, which has a staggering selection of movies you can watch for free (the selection skews Mubi/Criterion-ish). I've coerced my long-suffering husband into watching a streak of Subtitled Tearjerkers Featuring Closeted Men in Uniform (Eismayer – decent, punchy, Austrian; Moffie – more of a haunting mood board than an actual narrative feature?, South African; Poppy Field, a Romanian nail biter).

ALSO:

Fairyland, the opener at 2023 edition of the Frameline film festival, has finally gotten a theatrical release over two years since I saw it (here are the showtimes). I absolutely adored this big-hearted, extremely moving, gorgeously shot low-budget film – and maybe you will too. It's based on the memoir by Alysia Abbott of the same name (which I loved, too; I listened to the audiobook, which Abbott did an expert job of narrating herself).

What have you been watching, and where? Please do send any favourites/must-watches my way 🤗