Forté #22
A few things that have inspired me lately and what I've been working on..
Hey you, in my latest letter I encouraged readers to Suck at Something after finding the one thing that I love to do but am terrible at. I hope it resonated with some of you! I’ve also been spending some time working on new music over the last week or so — something that will definitely make it into my next letter. See you then.
And now here's another fortnightly collection of things that have caught my attention:
🍃 First up is this beautiful song from Ethiopian nun / musician Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru which is just heavenly. Voice and piano, recorded on cassette tape sometime between 1977-1985 when she was living in Addis Ababa, just before she fled to Jerusalem to escape persecution for her religious beliefs.
🍃 Please take 30 seconds to watch this beautiful video on Instagram, from artist Lily Clark, of a sculpture that uses superhydrophobic ceramic and water to create something both minimalist and beautiful.
🍃 I really do have a soft spot for the darker entries in Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s stunning filmography — Tokyo Twilight being one of his most serious (and my particular favourite). But I watched Early Spring the other evening and loved how Ozu so perfectly “represents the delusion of the salaryman’s dream on-screen”. This brilliant review from Windows on Worlds explains the topic of the movie perfectly: “by the mid-1950s, Japan’s economy was beginning to improve but now that the desperation that went with hunger had dissipated it freed those who’d managed to climb out of post-war privation to wonder just what the point of their ceaseless toil was.” Although I would recommend watching the movie before reading the rest of this spoiler-laden review!
Early Spring (早春, Yasujiro Ozu, 1956)
🍃 Here’s a wonderful article from The Guardian about Nicholas Saunders who started both Monmouth Coffee — an institution in the London coffee industry — and . Hippy, capitalist, guru, grocer: the forgotten genius who changed British food.
🍃 And I’ll let the title of this one from Atlas Obscura do all of the talking: The Weird and Wonderful World of Sex Under the Sea.
Thank you for being here, let me know what’s inspiring you recently. Please do share with someone who might enjoy. If you'd like to support this newsletter please buy one of my albums over on Bandcamp.
SJF
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