An Ode to the "Wonder of Life," Beautiful Michigan Photography, An Art Amusement Park, Remaining Optimistic, etc.
In which I share as much positivity as I can after a heartbreaking week in East Lansing.
💚 I’m wrapping up this week’s newsletter in my office across the street from the Michigan State University Union, one of two places students were senselessly shot a few days ago. Three didn’t make it. Five are still in critical condition just down the road.
A poignant piece in The Atlantic sums up my feelings far better than I can at the moment:
“As we spoke, a young woman ran up and hugged LaJoice. It was her close friend Penny Devine. After a long embrace, they began swapping stories. Devine was in the Student Union on Monday night. She heard three gunshots but felt frozen by the sudden chaos. Finally, seeing the stampede toward the exits, she bolted from her study table, shuffling to keep her slippers from falling off, and merged with the panicked masses streaming down the dark streets outside. Devine called her dad, who told her to stay with people. But she was surrounded by strangers. Two young women, overhearing the call and sensing her desperation, grabbed Devine and brought her to their friend’s apartment.
Devine vowed to fight for that community. She hadn’t survived this ordeal to wallow. If February 13, 2023, was going to define Michigan State, she said, it would be because of the response to the tragedy, not the tragedy itself. LaJoice was visibly inspired listening to her friend. Her disposition changed. She and Devine began drawing up a list of tasks that awaited them. Like every other student I met yesterday, they reminded me that they were resilient; that they were Spartans.
The losses of Monday night, they swore to me, would not prevent a victory for MSU.”
🕊 Last Sunday, we lost David “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur. I’ve been waiting so anxiously since De La Soul announced the re-release of their back catalog after decades of unavailability. Seeing them plug (pun intended, for those that know) two of my favorite songs of theirs (“Eye Know” and “The Magic Number”) on what’s been my favorite hip-hop album basically my entire life the last few weeks has been wonderful.
Tragic that Jolicoeur only got a glimpse of a whole new generation hearing his music for the first time, but I am happy it’s actually, finally happening (March 3) and their music can live on and on. Because of that, he, and the rest of De La Soul can live in hearts forever.
🎼 Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy is writing a book entitled World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music. Coming out this November, it will “detail more than 50 songs that shaped Tweedy’s life,” including numbers by The Velvet Underground, The Replacements, Otis Redding, Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton and Billie Eilish. Not sure which songs Tweedy picked, but each name I just listed links to my choices, for what it’s worth.
🚫 From Lifehacker: things you use or eat that aren’t made the way you think: they kill silkworms to make the silk, pineapples grow in the ground, peanuts plant themselves and cashews grow on a fruit.
Related: if you wanna go on a really deep rabbit hole, the list of common misconceptions on Wikipedia could kill hours. Netflix wasn’t founded because Reed Hastings got a late fee at Blockbuster; Coca-Cola didn’t create Santa; Twinkies don’t last decades; the term “420” did not originate from the Los Angeles police or penal code for marijuana use. And so on.
♝ How the bishop got its cleft.
💾 For my Bay Area friends: Did you know that San Fran’s Market Street subway runs on Regan-era Floppy discs?
📸 For my Michiganders (and everyone, really): the photography of Tom Gill. Lakes, lighthouses, nature. Lovely.
🌎 Richard Feynman died in February 1988 and, as Maria Popova put it, “left us, besides his Nobel-winning physics, his stunning ode to the wonder of life.”
☄️ In Space News™️: “Astronomers marvel at 'perfect explosion,' a spherical cosmic fireball.”
☮️ Yoko Ono turned 90 yesterday. Take a peak at the “Wish Tree” installations and the “Imagine Peace Tower,” her sculptural installation and tribute to John Lennon.
🏃♀️ From Identity to Inspiration: a reading list on why we run. Lots of (admittedly) long reads, including a great piece by Haruki Murakami, who also drops writing advice in parallel.
“Murakami suggests that writing, like running, relies less on quick decision-making skills than patience and long contemplation: ‘Long-distance running suits my personality better, which may explain why I was able to incorporate it so smoothly into my daily life.’”
⚽️ I don’t watch a lot of television, but Ted Lasso might be my favorite show right now and is probably worth the price of admission for at least a month of Apple TV on its own. New season starts March 15. Believe.
🧐 “What if you played an ignorant guy who was actually curious?” -Jason Sudeikis, on his approach to portraying Lasso, as mentioned in this great piece by Austin Kleon. “The ‘curious idiot’ approach can serve you well if you can quiet your ego long enough to perform it. A curious idiot is unafraid to ask stupid questions. Every stupid question you ask takes a teeny, tiny act of courage. Sometimes you have to muster the will to push the words out of your lips.”
💩 Kleon also links to this piece on giving a crap. “How do you know if you’re doing a good job? There’s always an external way to measure quality—being prepared, attending to the details, listening to the collective wisdom about what it means to do good work. Give a crap about the little things, and you’re good.”
🎨 Sitting in storage for over thirty years, an Art Amusement Park is going on tour, with rides and kiosks designed by Roy Lichtenstein, Salvador Dalí, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.
🎟 And if you are ever in Japan, Ghibili Park is now open. “Spread across 494 spacious acres, [there] are recreations of some of the beloved buildings and gardens depicted in Studio Ghibli's animated films, such as Howl's Moving Castle and My Neighbor Totoro.”
🎹 A peak inside the Steinway piano factory.
🪠 Sponsored Ad: Super Mario Bros. Plumbing: “Fixing pipes is our game!” Obviously a joke but a clever ad that made me smile. Love the nod to the original television series.
🌄 The brief, wondrous life of Little Leo, who “was born with a rare and deadly genetic disorder… his parents reshaped their lives, moving to the mountains, building out an adventure van, and making sure their son experienced the most beautiful wild places in the country during the time they had.” A bit long, but very much worth the read.
“Around his first birthday, we learned that Leo loved to be outside. When we took him to the boardwalk along the Saint Croix River and to local state parks, his eyes lit up and the laughter flowed. Time in nature seemed to energize him. That quickly became an evening and weekend routine: family walks, with Leo loving all the sunlight and fresh air he could get.”
🐟 And because I needed this again in my life this week, here is a video essay with text from “This Is Water,” a commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College on May 21, 2005. He would have turned 61. Here is a link to the full text for those interested:
“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship. Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough.”
😊 “Are you still an optimist?” Yep.
❤️ That is all for this week. To quote a favorite book of mine: “I am tired! I am true of heart! And also: You are tired! You are true of heart!”
Stay safe, cherish loved ones, and remember to keep the Hoping Machine running.
Love,
Luke
