friendsourcing to fight the rhythm
this summer, touching brat counts as touching grass
This weekend’s full moon in Capricorn has already shown hefty potential for unexpected, but necessary, change. What unhelpful habit can you leave behind in the month ahead?
It’s been raining all weekend down here in Channing Tatum’s Alabama. Raining in the southern way, sneaking up behind you in rolls of thunder, sporadically, sometimes explosively, often with the sun slanting through the clouds at odd angles, lighting up raindrops like diamonds flashing past the window and clattering into the hydrangeas. We have a crude saying for raindrops and sunshine ‘round these parts; you can take the girl out of Bama, but you can’t make her forget that her good Christian upbringing told her a cloudless rain means the devil is beating his wife(?!?). The heat outside is heavy, weighed down by water even when the sky is empty. The bugs scream through the sunset, trying to drown out the church bells to the left and sirens to the right. In the immortal words of the reigning queen of brat summer, everrrrything IS ro-man-tic!
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we source our media lately, how to best discover novel material in a world where our lives are increasingly online, and our online spaces are increasingly hyper-specified to algorithmic data that we have little access to and even less control over. Listen, I LOVE the Korean journaling accounts in my Instagram explore page and I would absolutely ride for those divas any day. But Spotify can absolutely release Sabrina Carpenter from the shackles of my Discover Weekly POSTHASTE I have discovered her the song is literally inescapable there is nothing here to discover. cause i’m a singerrrrrr
PJ Vogt’s Search Engine podcast did a great episode on the difficulties of sifting through the Spotify stacks these days. He got me thinking about my own music perusing habits, how unreliable the algorithmic suggestion playlists have become lately, and if there was something a little more old school I could do about it. What if I just… asked?
I hatched a plot to steal from my friends and enlarge my library in one fell swoop. In other words, I texted a bunch of my favorite people and asked them to send me songs that sounded like a summer sunset, then I packaged the submissions together into one big beautiful playlist to share publicly with all of you gorgeous, delightful souls. I’m thrilled with the results — it’s hard work but it’s honest! Please enjoy this effort of great group collaboration responsibly, preferably near nature and with something cold to push the day away sweating on the table next to you. Scene setting, commence!
driving through a mountain town as the sun slips behind a ridge, bouncing around an old SUV after an evening hike on the way to the diner • sipping something effervescent on a dock looking over the water, steam rising into the trees, with bare feet pattering down the planks • making dinner with the windows open after a long day at the beach, freshly showered with wet hair and heat rising off toasted skin • snuggling a sleeping pet lying on a swinging couch on the screened-in porch with citronella candles flickering in the corner
I absolutely adored getting to hear (literally) my friends’ multitude interpretations of the summer sunset prompt, spanning decades and languages and genres, like a summer rainbow after the afternoon rain. Feel free to send more suggestions to my Instagram inbox; I’d like to keep the project organically growing at least through the end of the season. Oh and be sure to clear your Spotify cache if you want the shuffle button to actually work again btw <3
Everything old is new again, but I’ve been trying lately to lean into the old old, too. I saw Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 fantasy epic “Princess Mononoke” for the first time in theaters last week through Ghiblifest, a project bringing the famed Japanese animation studio’s most beloved properties back to big screens all over the country through the rest of the year. The animation and stylization was absolutely delicious, and the $16 popcorn combo made the larger-than-my-laptop viewing experience even more worth the effort.
We talk a lot around here about being present, bringing ourselves into the moment in order to experience our lives from inside of them before they run through our fingers. I believe that pursuing media that specifically isn’t trending is an essential part of living a modern creative existence instead of just a consumerist one. That’s easier to do when we make efforts to exit our screens, of course. But we can still use the screens as somewhere to bounce from.
An interior decorator on Reels told me to invest in old decorating books at antique malls for design inspiration instead of pouring hours into Pinterest, so I’ve started my own stack. I spent two hours at the flea market/antique mall last week after my DMV appointment proved difficult to complete (shock! horror! irritation!) and brought home two adorable hand-painted glass mugs as trophies. I went to the Korean grocery store and bought four different drinks with pretty fonts that I’d never seen. Corn silk tea, turns out, absolutely slaps.
🎶 everything is,
ro-man-tic 🎶
I’m keeping track of my more successful sourcing attempts to file away for the future, and I’d love to hear yours too. What have you been doing lately to make life more delightful? Which wormholes, digital or 4D, have you followed into new and marvelous worlds? What kinds of sparkling creatures have you been picking up to squish between your fingers and plough into the dirt?
Let me know how your summer’s hanging, and keep your chin up as we turn the corner into Leo season; the year is waxing gibbous now and is sure to bring many more surprises before it’s out. I hope you will listen to OUR playlist together somewhere with a sunset and send me a voicenote about how it makes you feel.
Stay sweet my darlings, and don’t forget the sunscreen. And reapply. And then reapply again.
See you on the other side of the moon,
Addison <3