February 27: And I will be better.
The Crossover Appeal
I couldn’t cosy up to the future. The present was far too loud.
Becky Chambers, To Be Taught, If Fortunate
My partner will go for her second round of the COVID vaccine this week. When I will be able to get one remains unclear - I’m one of the lucky ones who can work easily at home and who lives without conditions that might worsen my risk for infection - but the feeling that we’ve all entered a tentative, transitional period of slow, dawning consciousness from our long pandemic hibernation is strong. It’s a weird feeling with bits and pieces of anticipation, guilt, hesitance, desperation, and hope all mingled in a grab bag of quarantine malaise. As a full year of collective isolation rounds the corner, I’m learning that getting better may mean trading the anxiety of solitude for the fear of normalcy.
It is, as I said, a mixed bag.
I think this week’s recommendations live in this weird space along with us. There are things for making the domestic scene more like being elsewhere, that make the fantasy of living in a carefully curated space a little bit easier to sustain. The music, videos, and reading I’ve brought this week all share an aesthetic undercurrent of something like wiping the sleepies from your eyes, adjusting to the light of a new day. I find myself being drawn to things that slow down and linger on the question of “what might be good about this?”, not because I’m looking for silver linings, but because it’s a question I’ve fallen out of practice asking.
Have: Hacha Dinnerware
This recommendation falls squarely in that category of “nice things that are nice to have, you don’t need them, but boy they are nice.” HACHA is a ceramics design studio out of Tlaquepaque, Mexico run by Santiago Padilla in his grandfather’s old workshop. There, Padilla produces gorgeous plates, cups, bowls, and platters that fuse together a modernist affection for form and material with a playful, domestic prettiness. I absolutely love these things. As our Christmas present to each other my wife and I ordered a set of small plates, large plates, tumblers, and bowls in an array of glazes ranging from deep aquamarine to a ruddy pink. They make all of our food look beautiful and I feel a stupidly child-like joy every time I look at them. Shoutouts to the inimitable Rick Martinez for putting these on my radar. Incidentally, you should follow Rick’s instagram too.
Read: Becky Chambers, To Be Taught, If Fortunate
A good science fiction novella is one of my favorite things. The constriction in form down to just 20k words or so lets writers set aside all the bric-a-brac of detailed world building that I tend to find deflating in big SF epics and focus, instead, on how a single, interesting idea challenges and transforms someone’s world. In To Be Taught, If Fortunate - a book that takes its title from the inscription on the Voyager gold record - that idea is what if space travel, but compassionate, anti-colonial, and conservationist?
The story that rises in the wake of this idea is a sweet and heart wrenching meditation on the tenuous possibility of a human future. To Be Taught challenges our notions about what scientific progress must look like, what drives and sustains it, and what it means to preserve our humanity by looking to change ourselves instead of the environments around us. There is optimism here, but it’s a spare and waning thing. Instead of defiantly refusing to go quietly into that dark night, To Be Taught, If Fortunate wonders whether or not going quietly is not sometimes nobler.
Listen: Adeline Hotel, Good Timing
Dan Knishkowy of Adeline Hotel has been releasing music under that name for the better part of a decade, but his new instrumental folk album, Good Timing, has been my first introduction to his work. I’ll be spending time diving into his back catalog in the coming weeks because what’s on display here is layer upon layer of sweetly affecting composition. Coming off like a singer-songwriter without the singer, Good Timing leaves you with the feeling of having woken up to an old friend noodling around on the guitar in the corner of your room. Its mysterious and warm, a slow rousing from the slumber of quarantine that reveals something new about itself with every listen. I don’t know which tracks to recommend because, frankly, while they are compositionally distinct, I never look over at the screen of whatever device I’m listening to when I’ve got Good Timing on. It’s enough to let it mosey by and dream of lighter days.
Watch: Donut Media, Why 407 Mail Trucks Have Caught Fire Since 2014
It probably slipped under your radar that this week the U.S. government settled on a contracted partner for the USPS’s new mail trucks. You may wonder, in these times of economic recession and despicable miserliness, why the government would even bother with this kind of massive investment. Well, the boys over at Donut Media, a longstanding car enthusiast YouTube channel, put together an incredible little mini doc on the history of our iconic mail trucks and why they, like any other piece of aging federal infrastructure, are in fact in dire need of updating. At bottom, it’s a story about the way our world is shaped by a whole host of contingent, incidental decisions that eventually amalgamate into the way things are. And once things have settled there, the inertia is immense.
Note: The host, Nolan, wears a shirt with the “OK” sign on it, a sign that has recently become associated with white supremacist groups. In this case, the shirt is a Pandem brand shirt, a longstanding car tuning company group run by Kei Miura. There is as far as I can tell zero connection to the more unsavory associations.
Watch: Haegreendal, You can’t take anything away from me, and I will be better
A friend and colleague turned me on this week to the world of South Korean lifestyle vloggers. To be honest with you, I’m still not sure what a lifestyle vlogger is. If pressed, I’d probably think of guys like Casey Neistat - people who know how to frame a good, clean shot and who have committed to making the million tiny decisions that make up a life into something worth watching.
The tone here with Haegreendal, however, is much different. Her videos look and feel like the middle passage of a Wong Kar-wai tone poem. You sink into them like a pile of grey-beige wool blankets, soaking in ten minutes of attainable aspiration. This video, in particular, shows off her range. Part reflection on personal set backs, part meditation on modern family life, and part instructional video on how to make a good onion and egg curry, Haegreendal deploys the quiet careful attention of her camera to draw connections between the most deeply felt moments of a life and the simplest chores. It is a project of aesthetic unification, like Marie Kondo by way of Park Chan-wook. I am sure that its slow pace and bourgie aesthetics will put some folks off, but for those of you who stick with it, the craft and sincerity make You can’t take everything away from me, and I will be better an important bit of pre-post-pandemic viewing you shouldn’t miss.
Take care of yourselves this week. Thanks to those of you who signed up this week. If you enjoyed any of these recommendations, let me know and pass the newsletter along. I’m glad you’re here.
Jordan Cassidy