All of which is to say that you do whatever is needed with music.
Paul Graham, Paul McCartney, Usher, Adam Silver, KAWS, and Yo-Yo Ma
1️⃣ How To Think For Yourself | (Paul Graham, 2020)
“Can you make yourself more independent-minded? I think so. This quality may be largely inborn, but there seem to be ways to magnify it, or at least not to suppress it.
One of the most effective techniques is one practiced unintentionally by most nerds: simply to be less aware what conventional beliefs are. It's hard to be a conformist if you don't know what you're supposed to conform to. Though again, it may be that such people already are independent-minded. A conventional-minded person would probably feel anxious not knowing what other people thought, and make more effort to find out.”
Ska defines who I am as a person.
2️⃣ Paul McCartney Is Still Trying to Figure Out Love | (New York Times, 2020)
“The idea of growing and adding more arrows to your bow is nice, but I’m not sure if I’m interested in it. The thing is, when I look back to “Yesterday,” which was written when I was 21 or something, there’s me talking like a 90-year-old: “Suddenly I’m not half the man I used to be.” Things like that and “Eleanor Rigby” have a kind of wisdom. You would naturally think, OK, as I get older I’m going to get deeper, but I’m not sure that’s true. I think it’s a fact of life that personalities don’t change much. Throughout your life, there you are.”
Big Gums: Sleeping in my 100 year old Gum tree
3️⃣ Usher: Confessions 9.0 Album Review | (Pitchfork, 2020)
“Usher spent much of 2004 dethroning himself on the pop chart, earning four No. 1 hits and reaping the benefits of binding his love life to his music. Confessions sold a million copies in its first week at a time when illegal file-sharing had labels frantic over the fate of the industry. Usher thrived between two very different eras of pop—the contemporary R&B rush of 2001 and the hybrid R&B of the 2010s, when Drake unleashed his inner lothario and assumed his role as the charts’ new lover boy.”
Post Malone Loves Fleet Foxes
4️⃣ All Stars | (Aeon, 2020)
“Let’s start with the notions of ‘synergy’ and ‘complementarity’, which pertain to situations where the collective output is greater than expected from adding up individual ability. ‘Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen.’ This statement, by Jordan in the documentary The Last Dance (2020), was so salient to the audience that it evolved into a refrain. Similarly, the idea of Battier as a Lego block that brings the team together resonates in the Lewis article as a powerful metaphor for what’s missing in our understanding of team dynamics.”
Philadelphia: Home to the #1 Kansas City Chief's Bar!
5️⃣ Adam Silver Goes Deep on the Wildest Year in NBA History | (GQ, 2020)
“As you entered the bubble, how concerned were you with the mental health of players, given what an artificial habitat they were going to be in for months?
I was very concerned. And in fact, when you're down here in the bubble, there's an app. And you do a daily check-in and you answer questions about COVID symptoms. And the only other question, other than COVID symptoms, is: Would you like to speak to a mental health professional? So we asked the players that question every day, and obviously when they [want to speak with someone], it's confidential. All I know is, the overall use rate of the psychologists, on and off campus, has been fairly high.
I'm really encouraged, and I've said this many times, but thank you again to DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love,* because something that was completely unacceptable a few years ago in the league is now part [of it]. Players think of it like they would going to a shooting coach.”
Whales' Bubble Net Fishing | Nature's Great Events | BBC Earth
6️⃣ KAWS Is Having an Effect on Popular Culture | (1st Dibs, 2020)
“In the beginning, Brian Donnelly was just a kid from Jersey City, New Jersey, who got into the graffiti thing. KAWS was his tag, chosen simply because he liked the way it looked. It was the late 1990s, and the artist, a 1996 graduate of New York’s School of Visual Arts, was making a living as an illustrator for the animation studio Jumbo Pictures.”
Fleet Foxes - "The Shrine/An Argument" - Pitchfork Music Festival 2011
7️⃣ Yo-Yo Ma and the Meaning of Life | (New York Times, 2020)
“During the pandemic, people, as always, turned to music for solace. Have you noticed common denominators in music that comforts?
I’ve been asking myself all my life, “What is the purpose of music?” It’s like trying to find the meaning almost every day, because the purpose yesterday may not be the purpose today. What the pandemic has crystallized in my mind is that we need music because it helps us to get to very specific states of mind. It’s not like, “Listen to my music; it will help.” But rather, everybody wants to get to certain states of mind during the day, during the cycle of the season. And during a pandemic, with the alienation of not having social contact, music is also that physical force. It’s energy. Then you get to more complex things, like how certain songs elicit memory. Certain smells can get to an immediate childhood memory of your grandmother’s baking apple pie. Music can do the same thing. Your first kiss. Your wedding. And unfortunately, during this time, we’ve lost a number of friends, and you have virtual memorial services and you play music for that. All of which is to say that you do whatever is needed with music. We need music to make us feel at equilibrium through hard times and good times.”