Forté #15

A few things that have inspired me lately and what I've been working on..

Hi you, I recently wrote a piece about how lovely it is to have traditions in your life. If you missed it please check it out here. There’s also a recipe for delicious Christmas chutney which won’t disappoint.

And here's another fortnightly collection of things that caught my attention:

🍃 It was Joni Mitchell’s 80th birthday last week and that’s a nice excuse to listen to one of my favourite records of all time, The Hissing of Summer Lawns. It’s a bit more jazzy than Joni’s other albums, but that’s what makes it special. Here’s my favourite track from the album: “Harry’s House / Centerpiece”. Which is actually a medley of her song Harry’s House and the 1958 Jazz standard written by Harry Edison and Jon Hendricks: Centerpiece. Is it controversial to say this album is better than Blue?

🍃 Craig Mod recently did another of his walks from one side of Tokyo to the other. Documenting his journey along the way in long but fascinating email newsletters each and every day of the seven day journey. I adore his unique observations and writing style and for those who aren’t familiar with his writing, I do encourage you to check it out. But in one of his recent updates from the road, he made a note about loneliness that really struck a chord with me. This is an idea I so often resonate with—living in a big city sure can be lonely at times. Olivia Laing writes so beautifully about this in her book The Lonely City, but here’s Craig Mod on the subject of loneliness:

For many people in the world — and especially in big cities (and I imagine cities like New York and Tokyo exacerbate this maximally) — if they don’t initiate contact, don’t set up a dinner, don’t reach out to someone, don’t actively invest the energy to put something on the schedule, they go days or weeks with no inbound calls, no invitations, no sense of someone buoying them up in the turbulent seas of life. For folks with teeming families, children screaming in every room, this might sound like heaven, but for folks entering their fourth decade in life, still in this configuration, it can feel like death itself.

Oof. Please reach out to someone you care about.

🍃 There was a fun discussion over on Hacker News showcasing examples of unique band websites. The discussion started when someone noticed that Portugal. The Man’s official website is actually nothing more than a Google Sheets doc… Flick through the comments to find some great examples of creative band websites!

🍃 Ever wondered what it would look like if a whole bunch of North Korean army generals and soldiers sang the Monty Python classic “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”? Well, thanks to AI, you need wonder no more!

🍃 And this week I’ll leave you with this quote from Ram Dass which I feel should be printed and put somewhere to act as a reminder every single day.. 💃🏻

Thank you for being here, let me know what’s inspiring you recently. Hitting subscribe is always welcome and please do share with someone who might enjoy.

SJF