20 Interesting Things to Learn Before a Dinner Party (or google)
Enrich yourself. End the awkward silence.
My list of cultural things to enrich yourself:
1. Black Cat, White Cat (foreign language film on the cusp of European/Central Asian culture.)
2. Satie, Gyn.1-3 (piano music that sounds like going crazy in isolation.)
3. La Haine (foreign language film about French poverty and violence on an estate.)
4. Vivaldi, The Four Seasons (clichéd but listen while doing nothing and see what happens.)
5. India’s Daughter (documentary by Israeli WoC director on rape culture.)
6. Beauty and Sadness, Kawabata (book about regret and gender in Japan.)
7. Dosas (thin pancake filled with paneer, or potato and vegetables, South Indian. Try them.)
8. Edo Period Erotic Wood Prints (google or get a book.)
9. Witches, Tracy Borman (history of witchcraft in Europe.)
10. Phenomenology (study of how our bodies and senses create and understand knowledge and stimuli.)
11. The War on Women (book about global oppression of women, from Balochistan to the USA.)
12. Ghost stories from Kazakhstan about the soldiers who were never buried. (Google it.)
13. Puccini’s anything (go to YouTube, type in Puccini, have a wild 45 minutes.)
14. And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda (Song about Gallipoli and the Nature of War).
15. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (book about the differences and complexities of faith, medicine and gender)
16. How Many Friends Does One Person Need (book, explores how humans need networks and what we can discover about ourselves through maths.)
17. Dutch Peasant Paintings (google, I could stare at them all day)
18. James Tissot (painter, he creates scenes from 140 years ago that look like you are there, watching)
19. Living Dolls (feminist book on whether sexualisation is liberating)
20. The Bodies In The Well (documentary about archeology, antisemitism and history)
