CFW: Corners From The Week
It’s the day before the Spring Equinox, and after a week that has felt like another heavy one with the tragic racist and misogynistic actions of yet another white male against the Asian community outside of Atlanta, I feel like I need some beauty, some lightness to fill the world.
But I started to wonder, is this ‘weight’ just going to be our life week-to-week, and seemingly the weight we will just live in and have to accommodate our beings, our mental space, and our emotions towards? It has truly seemed that the heaviness of life hasn’t really cut us a break. Are we going to learn from our actions as humans, are we really going to stop burning through fossil fuels, our forests, our animals, our oceans, and ourselves (with the gun epidemic)? I know that it seems like such an unhopeful sentimentality, but I’m wondering if we’re not being realistic enough with ourselves, so then, in order to make true fundamental changes as a human race and as a society. How do you move forward to a more holistic future, if you don’t get real with the present?
In order to take some weight off, I’m writing in here, which for me is a soothing activity. And to offer a lighter load, I’m listing out my “corners from the week.” What I dove into, whether it’s content in any shape, things I fancied, and general links worth passing along for consideration.
As I close up one week and move into the first week of Spring, I’m going to try and set next week’s intention around “blooming”—just like the above magnolia trees somehow continue to do season after season in Brooklyn. The photo is from almost a year ago when the pandemic had buried its grip on the world, but we just didn’t quite realize how deep it was digging into becoming a part of our lives. I snapped the shot on one of the first of many “sanity/social distancing walks” I tried to take as often as possible to keep my head light, and to leave the weight of it all behind—if just for a walk’s time during the day.
Podcast Episode: I was pumped (that’s not hyperbole) when I found out Season 2 of The Art of Travel would be launching this week. The first episode out is with Lesse (pronounced “less” as in “less is more”) beauty brand founder, Neada Deters. It was great to hear her story of her tenacity and the details around landing her first job in NYC/America after arriving in her early 20s. The brand is an ethical and organic one to keep your eye on because every detail is decided with intention and care. I’ve yet to sample anything but I’m intrigued. Each episode of this podcast dives deep into a creative person’s trajectory in life, and I love it. Other fave episodes from Season 1 include Richard Christiansen and Laura Rysman.
In My Ears: Jon Baptiste. Full stop. His new album, “WE ARE” (caps are intentional and accurate to titling.) After listening to a NPR Fresh Air interview with him last week, I was hooked on his sonic sound. He waxed on all the music theory and design behind the tracks, and you can audibly hear how music moves him in the spirit. Lovely to listen to someone happy in that moment of an interview and at the same time riffing with impromptu scales and unprompted pure joy. Which is what the title track, “WE ARE” and “I NEED YOU” tracks are—pure joy. Which some touches of Mavis Stapleton and Zadie Smith, the album layers it all on for cool, smooth sound to listen to in full. And that is how you should listen to it—in one full swoop, motion, and sitting, or dancing if that’s your thing, too.
Give Back: This year I decided to donate to a new-to-me-charity each month for the entire year. This month, I donated to Apex For Youth. It’s just one of many ways to donate in support of the AAPI community right now. Apex For Youth delivers possibilities to underserved Asian and immigrant youth from low-income families in NYC because there’s over 140,000 Asian public school children where 1 in 2 live in poverty.
Pages Turned: I started Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey and finished Sheila Heti’s Motherhood within the past week. Neither are at all similar unless calling out the obvious fact that both are voiced in a first-person female narrative. Reading Heti’s “novel” (it’s apparently fiction, but using names and scenarios from her life, so more in the vein of “auto-fiction” as they call it these days) was strange since it at times was like reading my mind. She voiced all the questions that most women in my decade voice if you don’t already have children. The undecided, questioning voice did become weary after awhile, I’ll admit, but being a woman is very much, weary. Hoping Patti’s book brings chapter to chapter delights and forced underlining of memorable sentences.
Stream to Stream: Unexpectedly, I watched the reboot of “Mad About You” on Amazon Prime. I needed something this past week that was light-hearted and well, mindless. The show picks up 17 years later after the original series ended with The Buckmans starting out on parenthood. If you want something familiar, cozy, and chuckle-worthy, this is it. But for film fanatics, I’m diving into Mubi tonight. What’s Mooo-beee? It’s a cool film streaming app that is highly curated films of international, cult, documentaries, and not-your-blockbuster skew. Don’t even try to type “Marvel” into the search bar, I beg of you. I currently have a free 30-day trial, so I’m diving into a doc tonight, Max Richter’s Sleep, which showcases Max Richter’s attempt to stage an open-air overnight concert of his masterpiece Sleep (an eight-hour composition) in Los Angeles. Off to go pop my bag of Newman’s popcorn now (with butter, duh).