#4: Sarah — Podcasts, Mediterranean Living, Books
Cold showers, Morning Pages, and podcasts that 'explode the brain.'
Some of us might dream about a Mediterranean lifestyle, but journalist Sarah Souli doesn’t have to. She lives it. Based in Athens, Greece, Sarah’s taste is rivaled by her big heart and gorgeous eyebrows. When I first met Sarah over Zoom for a job interview, I immediately felt drawn to this extremely kind, funny and intellectually voracious person. We worked together for a few months, and since then I’ve tracked her projects closely. (Don’t miss her piece called “A Matter of Honor” for The Atavist, which she spent years reporting in an effort to bring justice for three murdered Afghan women. Sarah is also the author of a guidebook to Athens and the Greek Islands. Check it out to get an insider’s take on these beautiful places.)
I’m thrilled I managed to extract even a smidge of the awesomeness that otherwise stays tucked away in her head. Keep reading for her favorite podcasts, books, and travel hotspots, plus a morning routine inspired by the women in her life. Virgo powers activate!
I think you have awesome taste. How do you think about cultivating it?
Oh, it's not something I ever think about. I guess the only thing I think about is making friends. And I think I'm just lucky that I make a lot of friends who have really great tastes themselves, and then introduce me to a lot of things.
But in terms of my taste…that's such a funny question. It’s so hard to describe yourself compared to how easily you can describe someone else. I'm at a loss for how I would describe myself. This interview feels like it's already going badly! (Laughs) I'm used to being on the other side.
Well, what kinds of friends are you drawn to?
I find myself very drawn to women. And in the last few years, especially, I've been really lucky to just have these very smart, creative, artistic, self-assured, super intelligent women with their own very specific sense of style come into my life. I've learned a lot from them.
But if I think more critically about it, I was also raised by parents who have really good taste. They come from two very different backgrounds, my father from Tunisia, and my mother from France, and they raised me in a third country (the United States). I was always hyper observant and very aware of everything going on around me, and I guess that leads to curiosity. Maybe that's the basis of taste: just being curious.
Do you have any rituals or systems where, when your friend recommends something, you file it for later or to share?
You're such a good Virgo, Mia. I don't do anything like that. It's all in my head, and it's all a big-time mess. If I hear something, I do it right away. Like if a friend recommends a book or a podcast, I usually just buy it or listen to it right away.
I do have a morning routine that's very influenced by different people in my life, which is cute. My friend Jamie and I were talking about how I feel stuck creatively. She gifted me this book called 🎨 “The Artist’s Way.” So I started doing this practice [called Morning Pages]: every morning, you write like a crazy person, three pages full on.
And then when my friend Alex was staying with me in Athens, I got inspired by these 💦 cold showers that she took every morning. Now I'm an evangelist for cold showers. You start your day with a challenge. You don't want to get into cold water, and you do it anyway. And it's OK. You're there, it's cold, and it's uncomfortable. I can only do it up to the point that I started hysterically laughing. But my hope is to get a good two minutes of cold showering every morning.
And then I listen to an album that my friend Maia and I listened to every morning when we were in Tunis together. It's by this 🎤 Malian musician — Toumani Diabaté. Beautiful kora string music.
Then I drink my coffee in a ceramic mug made by my friend Natalie Weinberger, who is an amazing artist and has impeccable design taste.
So I have my little morning routine, all inspired by women in my life.
Do you think there can be an algorithm for cool? Or, put another way, what is it about human taste that’s special?
The thing about coolness is that it's unquantifiable. You can meet someone who's not particularly stylish or beautiful, or whatever, but they just exude something that's very cool. And that's kind of it. A lot of times, the people that I meet that I'm like, ‘Wow, you are very cool.’ I don't think they would even know what an algorithm is or how it works.
You talked about cold showers. You talked about Morning Pages. What are some other things you would recommend that everyone read, watch, listen, eat or do?
I love podcasts. It's knowledge funneled directly into your brain. Some time ago, a friend of mine sent me this podcast episode of this guy interviewing the president of Ireland (which by the way if you didn't know, just Google an image of Michael D. Higgins, he's the cutest president ever and a literal poet. He also has a great personality and a really cute dog that follows him everywhere.)
🎙 The Blindboy Podcast
I'm going on a trip to Ireland for work in March so I’ve been deep diving. One of their national treasures is this guy, Blindboy, who used to be a rapper from Limerick, who is autistic and doesn’t appear in public without a plastic bag on his head. So he literally interviewed the president of his country with a plastic bag on his head. And they had the most soulful, human, deep, introspective conversation ever. I’ve gotten really hooked on Blindboy. Partly because he's autistic, he comes up with all of these connections that I would never think of on my own.
Sometimes I get very bad insomnia, and so I listen to him because he has this beautiful Irish accent and he talks on top of this melodic piano. Very soothing. He also has this thing called Hot Takes, which is him rambling for an hour, but well researched into very esoteric topics.
The last one he released starts with him talking about the artist Charles Turner, who used to paint very vivid landscapes. And then that goes into a conversation about global warming and how a friend of his has wood lice that are coming out prematurely of his basement floorboards, which led to him ripping up his floorboards and finding all of these horse skulls that were filled with coins, which then leads Blindboy on a multi week long in-depth research to uncover that in Ireland, people used to stuff their floorboards with coins, because it made the acoustics better for music and dancing. So every week he weaves these amazing threads that explode my brain.
🎙 Sufi Heart with Omid Safi
Recently, I have gotten into this podcast about Sufism, which is the more “mystical” branch of Islam. My father is Muslim and I wasn't particularly raised religious, but that's the religion that I feel closest to. It's just a very warm, spiritual, one love type of podcast, but that also is in line with my political, gender, and sexual orientation views.
📙 “Dune” by Frank Herbert
I'm always reading like six books at a time. I recently started reading Dune, fifty years late to the party. The 14-year-old teenage boy in me is super into it.
📗 “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber
Unfortunately, David Graeber passed away two years ago, but in my mind, he's the most brilliant thinker of our generation. He's an anthropologist, and during the whole book, from page one, your brain is just exploding non-stop because he's completely rewriting all of these societal narratives that we take for granted.
The Greek Romanian composer, mathematician and philosopher, amongst a certain group of musicians and artists, is like a hero. He made very experimental, strange music, and it's the 100-year anniversary of his birth. So currently across Europe, there are all these different concerts and retrospectives of his work. It’s not “easy” music to listen to but I saw an orchestral concert in Athens and got hooked. I also purchased this book that's a collection of interviews he's done. I've been enjoying reading that.
A quarterly print publication engaging with the politics of space and bodies from a staunchly leftist position (with great artwork, too!). My friend Inès di Folco, who is an amazing painter, did the cover for their summer 2022 issue.
In terms of travel, you've been to so many places, like what were some of your favorites?
A city that I keep getting drawn to is 🇫🇷 Marseilles. It checks a lot of boxes for me: on the Mediterranean, great food, a very warm, tactile culture — an ease of making friends and building community. It's a very French city, but it has an equally strong Arab and African connection; you see the ferries going every day to Algeria and Tunisia, which is very touching for me.
I'm also obsessed with the north of Greece and the 🇬🇷⛰ mountains. Everyone comes here for the islands, which is great, of course. But for me, the north is really where it's at, just to go hiking and then coming across these amazing waterfalls, natural swimming pools and to feel like a fucking fairy running around these mountains. And it has the best food in the country in my opinion.
I always love being in 🇹🇳 Tunis, especially in the old medina of Tunis, which is where my grandmother lives. Clearly I’m very Mediterranean based.
I love it! Sarah, what's next for you? What are you working on?
I'm working on my lifestyle. I'm working on figuring out how I can get those qualities of a Mediterranean lifestyle in every aspect of my life. Community, support, warmth, no stress. The goal is to feel like I’m always eating shrimps on the beach with a bunch of pals. Even if I’m very obviously not.
In terms of work, I have a couple of reporting trips coming up. I'm doing a story in Sri Lanka next month, and then I have a story in Ireland. I'm working on some different freelance projects. The future is also a very big question mark for me at this point in my life — as it should be!
Mia’s Queue is a free newsletter featuring an ordinary person with extraordinary taste. Subscribe to get posts like this in your inbox every other Thursday.
In case you haven’t noticed, I love people with good taste! In fact, I have a podcast about it for Flipboard. Check it out!
Sarah is indeed cool! I’m kind of obsessed w/her now. Such a cultural omnivore. Thanks so much Mia