New year, new desk. Kinda. After years of spinning my wheels in blank word doc territory, I’m trialling writing from a dedicated space that’s not in my apartment and not at a cafe where my laptop is jostling with the coffees and water glasses for real estate. I have learnt the hard way that if I am attempting to work without an exterior–set deadline from home and my dog is there, I will just look at my dog. Thanks to a kind friend, today I’m sans poodle and looking out over a vast garden from high up in a convent once occupied by 150 Sisters, both novices and postulants.
I gave myself a wide berth at the start of 2024 – not rushing into it. Wanting to set up new schedules, new goals but also not wanting to be a total pill about it. Any date can be the beginning of the rest of your life if you want it to be, it’s just that more people are tolerant of boring behaviour and talking about budgets and “not really drinking” in the blush of a fresh Gregorian calendar. I told myself that by the time the New Moon in Capricorn rolls around, then it’s time to take the next 11.5 months seriously – whatever that means.
For me, that’s writing. Setting word goals that exist outside of the publishing world (for now) or the act of turning in a quick piece for an editor. Something that works solely for me to preside over, be the boss of. This newsletter is to help get me back into the habit, so the location of this new–to–me desk space is fitting, really. It will be a loose thing in a sea of all my work that is relatively narrowly focussed. Like me to cover something in particular? Do tell.
But back to reconfigured spaces, like many I am fascinated by them. I currently live in a converted warehouse (how Melbourne), and spent a few months sleeping (not squatting, important to mention) in a closed–down Brooklyn bar. My favourite place to stay is a turreted manor turned tiny hotel in a dusty neighbourhood close to where leopards live (more on that another time). I love being able to idly consider who came before me, between these walls. Michelle Williams and Chloe Sevigny, perhaps?
Of course I’ve heard this convent I’m writing from is haunted, to not stay much beyond the dark, but I feel I can deal. My first afterschool job was sorting files at an accountancy firm (that my dad was a partner in – nepo baby!!!). I’d spend weekends there in the kitchen where the manila folders were kept alongside the assorted Arnotts, a tiled room in the back section of a very old double–fronted house. To get to the back section, there was a steep step down and heavier doors than usual. Prior to its life keeping books, the house was actually a mortuary, the kitchen where much of the corporeal work was done. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t start skeeving me out when the sun started setting, but never did a hear a creep peep though.
Last year I had a couple of nights to kill in Berlin post film festival and I felt compelled to spend two of my three spare nights at a newly converted, former women’s gaol. I wrestled internally with the ethics of converting that kind of a building. Friends asked if I was worried about the “heavy energy” and, short answer, yes I was! The hotel is in Charlottenburg in West Berlin – a suburb most people I know don’t stay in because of its distance to the cooler spots over on the eastern side – but I’m attracted to its chintzy vibe, the endless antiquität stores and formerly Very Important bars and bistros. It’s where Tár kept her old “apartment for sale” apartment, and also houses the infamously rude Paris Bar where the witches convene in Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria (at the same timeline in reality as a few more well–known types).
When you check into the hotel/gaol, you’re ushered past a heavy gate to two connected buildings – one side mostly used previously for offices, the other packed tightly with prison cells. It’s a far cry from Pentridge Prison in Melbourne’s supposed glow–up with its incarceration themed words as decoration. The rooms are light and relatively spacious, the hallway fittings glow warmly, and the fish and pickle spread at breakfast is delightful. The grounds also house a restaurant so popular that it’s near impossible to get into. When I did manage to get a table though, I found it was literally near impossible to get into – I looked for the door for a good five minutes and then had to go ask at reception where it was.
The best part of the hotel came as a surprise to me on check–in, a private sauna in the attic that you could book into for an hour at a time, at no extra cost as a guest. I spent my allocated time and then some during my stay sweating it solo upstairs, singeing my nose-hairs with cedar and considering how ridiculous and inappropriate it was to be taking some quality moi time in a fully kitted–out crawlspace in what was no doubt a place of hell for some women until 1985. “Not every former prison in a major European city can be a museum or public space!”, I thought, attempting to placate myself. As nice as it was – for what it had been – I felt a little bit of relief when I checked into a different, hip boutique hotel in Mitte on my final night. Its bar was also easier to find.
But back in this room, the high, peeling ceilings and creaking floorboards – the bats will start their nightly journey past the window soon – which means it’s time for me to not push my luck with this building’s previous tenants. And look, I meant for this edition of the newsletter to be about Hal Ashby’s west coast hairdressing satire Shampoo but here we are in Melbourne and Berlin instead – L.A. will just have to wait.
Sidenote: today is my mother Nancy’s birthday. She died in 2018, and would have been, should have been celebrating 79. I miss her. Raise your eyebrows and/or a drink for her today if you please.
Reading: Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff – not sure it’s my bag just yet…
Watching: Fanging for the 2nd reunion ep of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City
Listening: The Sundays – Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (1990)
Kate Jinx is a writer, critic and film curator. She is the co–host of See Also podcast, Programmer at the Melbourne International Film Festival, Director of Programming at Golden Age Cinema ◠ On Instagram & Twitter