hey. i really don’t feel like writing this right now. i feel pretty tired, like i was just lounging around a lot today. feels like the wind got knocked out of me and i really don’t want to do this. if you can reach out and show some love, i’d appreciate it. specifically, send me cute pictures of sea otters. nothing’s wrong, there’s just a lot of other stuff i’m focusing on right now lol
there was an essay about firebending and some wisdom from Avatar the Last Air Bender that i wanted to write as a personal reflection, but i’ll save that for next month. i just didn’t have it in me this week. the only thing that picked me up today was this text i got from my roommate. Red doesn’t read my stuff (at least i don’t think so? lmao), but love ya Red. and only praying for the best for you!
but yeah i suppose this was a pretty prolific month! i pushed up 3 essays this month, and that kicks me up to 12 personal essays i’ve written since i started writing. crazy to think about the fact that just a few months ago this whole writing thing for me wasn’t really… a thing? hope you’ve benefited in some way from reading them, i’m gonna keep pushin’ them out and improvin’.
This newsletter is broken up into the following:
I. Articles + Essays I’ve read/written
II. Visual Art + Media
III. Music I’ve been listening to
I. Articles + Essays I’ve read
Donald Glover Interview by GQ
Artists of color are expected to be pragmatic, to make sacrifices for the future generations, and host of other noble sounding and lofty standards. But truthfully, an artist’s sole responsibility is to their creative vision and the actualization of that vision. If it includes the other lofty goals, so be it.
Glover embodies that and summarizes it both hilariously and succinctly. Namely that his new creative studio Gilga is only a failure when the studio starts prioritizing something other than what makes them happy. This entire article screams out “reincarnation of Steve Jobs” even though Glover has previously called himself a son of Kanye.
In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell
Giorgio Vasari, the great autobiographer, once wrote of Da Vinci and his ilk, “Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least.” I think it is well established the need for and utility of idleness in creative pursuits, however, what of at the civilizational level? Russell argues, albeit verbosely (i have the attention span of a sea otter [aside: idk what’s gotten into me, but like i’m really into sea otters today]), that the working man deserves leisure and idleness as much as the classes above him — especially in modernity.
I do find it rather ironic that today there’s a burgeoning class of knowledge workers who yearn for something tangible to work on with their hands (like farming or baking) as opposed to the nth excel sheet.
Also he has this quote that made me chuckle:
Broadly speaking, it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad. Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good but keyholes are bad.
Anyhow, he later makes a note of how majority of our leisure (back then and today) is passive. I implore you to read more thoroughly because of it’s length rather than in spite of it.
Building new cultures by Henrik Karlsson
This is a pertinent essay especially for the life project I’m working on. As you may know, Chai and Vibes, as unserious as it sounds, is an extension of my own life project of bringing people together. That project is a direct response to Islam and the Cultural Imperative. Go ahead and re-read those last two sentences, and it’s okay if you let out a snort, a giggle, or a chuckle — all things start off as jokes and humorous until it’s not. The crux of Islam and the Cultural Imperative is that Muslims, especially ones in the West, must cultivate cultural expressions that are authentic and not rooted in some fantastical or nostalgic projection that we have of Islam (e.g. Ertuğrul).
Karlsson’s work emphasizes the “curation of a social graph” i.e. picking your friends and acquaintances carefully, and levies sort of the same concept at a societal level with this essay. The key difference, however, is in order to build culture you need to build institutions — but most importantly: integrated institutions.
We live in a unique time where many subcultures are forming rapidly because of the internet. You can find any sort of niche you thought was previously not possible just by a simply TikTok or Twitter search. But this makes the process of creating + cultivating institutions that serve a variety of subcultures much harder.
II. Visual Art + Media
Saint JHN on Luck
Remember “Roses” the Saint JHN song that was viral and climbed + stayed on the charts for some time? Well here the artist behind it shares his thoughts on luck in relation to an artist. I thought it was cool, hope you do too.
Thinking about Marrakech in shades of pink today
I found this picture from a photo dump on twitter posted by هناء.
Novacaine — Frank Ocean
Normally, this would go under the music section. But I want to point to the construction of this music video and how well done it was.
Misc design stuff on the internet
The following two pieces are misc design stuff I found on Twitter.
III. Music I’ve Listened To
Mike Minelli
I went to a concert last night where Mike opened for another artist Anees. Truthfully, I liked Mike’s music more. Stuff was real soulful and beautiful, and he really crushed it with this song:
KAYTRAMINÉ
Last year we had Silk Sonic, this year we get KAYTRADA x Aminé (KAYTRAMINÉ). Rebuke & Sossaup were my faves.
Another Channel Tres Song
A friend of mine shared a playlist of songs and this was on that list.
Thanks for reading this edition. Share this with your friends, your grandma, or your neighbor. And if you made it to the end of this essay and you didn’t just scroll, dm me a 👾 on either twitter or instagram. or leave a comment! As always,
Sincerely,
Haroon
P.S. Check out my previous newsletter if you’re curious: Cool Stuff I Found #17