Hello. The internet be can overwhelming. News can be scary. Here are a few things, people, etc. that may or may not ease the pain of being on Earth.
Everywhere at the end of time by The Caretaker
Leyland Kirby, aka The Caretaker, made ambient music that explored memory and was supposed to sound like the progression of dementia. Listening to it is a very haunting and beautiful and sad, cathartic experience—perfect for a moment spent alone.
Judith Baca
If you live in Los Angeles area, you’re very lucky because you’re able to go to Valley Glen and see the Great Wall of Los Angeles, a half-mile long mural done by Judy Baca (with the help of 400 other people), depicting all sorts of monumental moments in history, including the California Gold Rush, the development of suburbia, and the civil rights movement.
If you live on the west side and don’t want to go all the way to Valley Glen, Baca founded the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, which has a wonderful exhibit going on dedicated to the continuation of the Wall.
The City of Tomorrow by Le Corbusier
I read this book a few months ago and loved it so much. Le Corbusier was an architect and city planner from Switzerland (who moved to France in 1917), certainly one of the most famous architects of all time, but the world of architecture is new to me and exciting, so learning about his philosophies and reading along as he builds this imaginary—but real!—utopian Paris was such a fun journey. And some of the things he says, design-wise, are so straightforward and easy enough to never think of, like a straight line is for business and a wavy line is recreational.
I recommend checking your local bookstore first before ordering it on Amazon, but here’s the link anyway.
An Introduction to Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki
I was planning on reading a different book by him, something less introductory, I figured: I read, I could handle it, but in reality, this was the perfect first step into a realm that I knew/know nothing about. And what a soft, pillowy first step it was. That’s not to say the book wasn’t confusing; it was wildly confusing, but that’s kind of the heart of Zen, if I understand it correctly (which I don’t). One plus one doesn’t have to equal two. If you’re on a bridge with a river underneath it, it’s not the river flowing but the bridge.
Amazon again 🙁
Pretty much any movie by Hong Sang-soo
My personal favorite is The Novelist’s Film but Grass is good too, so is On the Beach at Night Alone, and many more. The usually consist of a lot of eating and drinking and talking about love and relationships, art, aging, you know, typical human focal points. “Tender” is how I would describe a majority of his films.
