-
McFerrin
It is a curious refrain embedded into key moments throughout 2017’s The Square. Calm moments surrounded by uncomfortable situations; intonations amplifying unwelcome serenity.
When I first heard this portion of the soundtrack, I thought it was a unique instrumental. By the time it resurfaced during the last scene – the calmest of emotional climaxes to the story, where a young girl looks up at her father from the back seat, her previous respect undermined by his unstable actions and not-so-well-hidden mistreatment of others – I knew I needed to look it up. The track is such a perfect auxiliary to the ridiculous, and occasionally important, musings of Ruben Östlund. And of his many flawed characters.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was Bobby McFerrin’s improvisations that scored this maelstrom of a film. In many ways, appropriate accompaniment.
An indie ditty for the middle of this, a most testing, week.
-
Weekly Picks – May 26, 2024
Credits (clockwise from top left): David Guttenfelder; Jesse Winter / The Narwhal; Current Affairs; Rizek Abdeljawad/ Xinhua via Getty Images; Cristina Gottardi; Hokyoung Kim; Shannon Stapleton / Reuters; monticelllo/ Getty.
This week’s collection:
- Not Your Childhood Library
- “Deny, denounce, delay”: The battle over the risk of ultra-processed foods
- It hurts, but it’s holy
- The Voyager Probes Were a Triumph of Collective Endeavor
- Beyond Athens and Jerusalem
- The Criminalization of Poverty Is Creating a More Violent World
- A portrait of pollution around Canada’s busiest port
- Gaza’s Stolen Healers
- Nova Scotia’s Billion-Dollar Lobster Wars
- Can Sports Survive Climate Change?
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
-
Embracing Prevention
It has been a recurring theme this week, popping up in conversations, media consumed, and in silent moments of reflection as I have considered what meals to prepare.
The concept of prevention. Specifically, prevention of negative outcomes in personal and societal spaces.
I was on the road again this past Sunday. Somewhere just after passing Clinton, halfway between Vancouver and Prince George, my vehicle’s sound system stopped registering my iPod Touch. The 2009 device seemed to be working fine, so perhaps the connecting cable was shot. Whatever the matter, 15 years without issue is not a bad run.
With no music to listen to and 4 hours still to go, I combed the FM airwaves until I landed on the only available channel – CBC Radio. It went in and out as I weaved through the mountainous terrain, fuzzy for much of the journey. I had to re-tune several times to find the right frequency. But for the rest of the drive, my ears followed the programming as my eyes browsed the landscapes that the hosts discussed. The news programs spoke about the upcoming fire seasons. The interview podcasts featured guests who were experts in disasters, mental health, and wringing comedy from dark times. A little politics, here and there, seemingly the same polarized discourse we have been having for the last decade. It was clear that a lot of the shows were pre-taped, as the situations had changed even by then – the Sunday morning updates from BC’s Northeast and Alberta’s Fort MacMurray markedly different than the headlines being repeated.
One of the programs, “Cross Country Checkup”, ended by fielding calls from Canadians who had questions or wanted to share their thoughts on the modern mega-firescape that has gripped the nation’s summers in recent times. Some wondered why the provincial government had not banned campfires, given the predicted disaster-filled summer ahead. Most fires are human-caused, after all – the result of hot mufflers, discarded cigarettes, grass burning run amok, industrial activity. Why not prevent what we can? (Arson, it must be noted, represented a tiny percentage of the causes.) Other callers suggested preventative measures to deal with the new megafire reality; introduce large fire breaks around towns and populated areas. The idea being that these would be effective in aiding response efforts and save a lot of forested or agricultural land from eradication. The callers were also mostly fire-affected. Former evacuees; anecdote-holders whose trauma from recent events fueled their passion for the subject.
-
Weekly Picks – May 19, 2024
Credits (on the left, clockwise from top left): reptiles4all/ Getty Images; Anouk Delafortrie for the EU ECHO via Flickr; Stuart Isett; Micha Bar-Am/ Magnum Photos; Nigel Van Wieck; Chase Lindberg. Credit (right): Kavan Chay.
This week’s collection:
- Aurora Banks Peninsula
- Not Too Wet To Burn
- The Modern Beggar
- Humans Are Driving a New Kind of Evolution in Animals
- The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel
Also recommended: The Law In These Parts. - The world isn’t watching
- Can You Lose Your Native Tongue?
- The age of uncertainty. Liminal time
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
-
Weekly Picks – May 12, 2024
Credits (left to right): Julia Nimke; Estelle Caswell / Grist; Mark Harvey / 3 Quarks Daily; Herron Stock LLC
A lighter set of reads this week. I had little time to dwell on too many longer pieces as I transported myself around the Lower Mainland for work and leisure. I hope you enjoy learning about parasites or taking strolls through idyllic Italy without any mention of the mafia or political frays.
This week’s collection:
- The Creatures that Control the Natural World
- Sicily Sold Homes for One Euro. This Is What Happened Next.
- Snake Oils, Vitamins, And Self-Help
- If You Build It, Will They Come?
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
A supplementary collection from the past week, not quoted below but linked here for those interested, on the ongoing student protests seeking an end to an apartheid state and a genocide perpetrated via collective punishment. These pieces focus on American campuses but are relevant to movements happening worldwide.
-
Suitcase Diaries
Il est minuit à Tokyo, il est cinq heures au Mali
Quelle heure est-il au paradis?A couple of days ago, a decent chunk of a city was glued to their screens as their affiliated team produced a classic comeback to win a playoff game. The fifth of sixteen they will want to claim top spot in North America’s premier ice hockey league, for the time being.
I had wanted to join them but found myself exhausted. Falling asleep on the couch, I relented and headed to bed, only for my envisioned nap to turn into a night-long sleep. My energy levels can be an issue when I am away from my regular abode and routines, as I have been for the past two weeks. A combination of interrupted sleep, more arduous daily excursions, and social exuberance needed during times of increased movement.
– / – / –
Last calendar year, I spent just over four months away from my apartment. (I refuse to call it my ‘home’; that designation has not yet been earned.) Living out of a few bags and transporting myself from location to location, mostly for work and a little on vacation. This year and only ten days into May, I have already racked up over two months in the same situation. Transience has been a regular theme of my life for the past eight orbits. A voluntary one, for the most part – I have enjoyed going to every corner of BC and witnessing transformative projects in person.
No complaints on my chosen path. But I was reflecting on the transitory life; a microcosm of our long existence.
-
Weekly Picks – May 5, 2024
Credits (clockwise from top left): NASA/ Johnson; Hamilton Matthew Masters; Knowable Magazine; Paolo Pellegrin/ Magnum for The New York Times.
A few minutes on aligning phases of cyclical cicadas:
This week’s collection:
- Discipline and Protest
- Alien life is no joke: How UFOs almost killed the search for life in the Universe
- ‘Where Is the Palestinian Gandhi?’*
- From toxic fungus to soy sauce superstar
*A companion piece, filed here to underline other, valid responses/ forms of struggle against oppression:
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
-
Weekly Picks – April 28, 2024
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Arif Qazi; Arhivele Naţionale ale României, f. Romproiect, 7288; TIO/ NOIRLab/ NSF/ AURA/ T. Slovinský; Zachary Scott; Anthony Rathbun; AP Photo /Teresa Crawford, File; Elle Griffin/ The Elysian
This week’s collection:
- The Architectural Gift
- No one buys books
- The great commercial takeover of low Earth orbit
- Protecting the Darkness in Chile’s Atacama Desert
- How Do We Know What Animals Are Really Feeling?
- How to Eat a Rattlesnake
- Dozens of deaths reveal risks of injecting sedatives into people restrained by police
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
-
Interpretations: Bach, Cello Suite No. 1, Prélude
Do you know it? An introduction to one of the most widely interpreted suites in the history of the humble cello.
In its singular form:
Presented with visual flair:
In context of the full set:
And always inviting innovation:
A late night entry, filed under ‘M’ for mesmerizing.
-
Weekly Picks – April 21, 2024
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Fairfax Media via Getty Images; Suraj Pokhrel/ iStock; Nicolás Ortega; Nature; Fredrik Lerneryd; Zachary Pangborn; Wang Naigong; Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images. Center: Jim Uruquhart/ Reuters
This week’s collection:
- The economic commitment of climate change
This study has been covered by many outlets since its publication the past week. I share with you the source article. Among its findings – that the cost of damages associated with climate change, already in the trillions, is expected to rise to $38 trillion a year by 2050 if left unmitigated. It will also leave you 19% poorer, through increasing the cost of living independent of non-climate factors. - What is ‘lived experience’?
- Universities Are Profiting From Blocking Drug-Price Reform
- Europe poops in its own nest
- Inside the Kenyan cult that starved itself to death
- Death and Taxes
- Yellowknife to Fort McMurray: lessons from the frontlines of Canada’s worst wildfires
- The Cloud Under the Sea
- The Life and Death of Hollywood
- Welcome to Mass Market Mountaineering
- Winners of the 2024 World Press Photo Contest
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
- The economic commitment of climate change