The Seattle Film Festival, Tools for Critical Thinking, Jim Henson, etc.
In which we all hopefully learn to "eliminate the bullshit."
🎬 The Dinner Parting is streaming now-June 13th as part of the Seattle Film Festival. You can watch via the eoFlix app, available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and the web.
🌈 If you’re not gonna watch my movie, maybe try the new Jim Henson doc on Disney Plus?
🚫 Tools for critical thinking: “"The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them—especially not from yourself. Instead of turning away in denial when you make a mistake, you should become a connoisseur of your own mistakes, turning them over in your mind as if they were works of art, which in a way they are. The fundamental reaction to any mistake ought to be this: ‘Well, I won’t do that again!’”
🤯 Also, this: “If we can’t work smarter, we resort to working harder. We cut out lunch, skip the gym, and run from one meeting to another so we can fit more in. Being busy seems to matter more than getting stuff done.”
✍️ The benefits of writing by hand. “In kids, studies show that tracing out ABCs, as opposed to typing them, leads to better and longer-lasting recognition and understanding of letters. Writing by hand also improves memory and recall of words, laying down the foundations of literacy and learning. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material.”
🥤 Who took the coke outta Coca-Cola? “The medical profession saw nothing wrong with offering a cocaine-laced cola to white, middle-class consumers. Selling it to Black Americans was another matter.”
📈 Speaking of, Coca-Cola is still #1, but apparently “We don’t have Coke, is Pepsi OK?” isn’t okay enough to keep them at #2.
🍿 Cinema truly peaked on June 8, 1984, when Ghostbusters and Gremlins both premiered in theatres (take that, Barbenheimer). An interesting video essay on the Ghostbusters’ conception. And if you have a lot of time on your hands, you can read this oral history on the making of Gremlins. Did I watch both last night? Duh.
🍼 A new documentary on the Brat Pack drops this week on Hulu. “In the 1980s, everybody wanted to be in the Brat Pack. Except them.”
📺 Also on Hulu, most of Wes Anderson’s early work, including Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic.
📚 If you’re looking to write your own, take a look at these maps revealing the structure of Choose Your Own Adventure books.
♟️ Faustino Oro, aged 10 and known as “the Messi of chess,” has two international master norms and is looking to break more records.
🎵 Saw Khruangbin this week in Detroit, and was reminded of an article I read last month: yes, a disproportionate number of women really do play bass.
📋 So much great advice in Sasha Chapin’s 50 Things I Know.
“Ask yourself, next time you’re doing something enjoyable: are you really surrendering to the full enjoyment available here?”
“You will find it exceedingly difficult to write if your motive is trying to convince people that you are not dumb, or not boring, or if you’re hoping that you will not offend anybody.”
“I know that most people overrate the difficulty of hard conversations, and underrate how good it is to have them. Conflict avoidance slowly rots your whole life, and many people are about eight awkward discussions from a much-improved existence. In other words, go squash all of your beefs.”
✌️Squash the beefs. Eliminate the bullshit. Keep the Hoping Machine running.
Love,
Luke
