5 Things I Consumed Last Week (bounty from the cherry tree 🌸)
on desk notes, words against strangers, veep, escape the cave, the more loving one and we are 1000
As I begin to write this newsletter today, I am reminded of the countless number of hours I have put in sorting these 5 things every week amongst a gazillion number of links on the internet. On some days I couldn’t wait to share what I have read, on others I had to push myself really hard to not miss the issue but on all occasions I have tried to be transparent, in terms of sharing my true-self. Thanks for keeping me accountable. There are more than a 1000 inboxes to which this email will go to and I almost can’t believe my eyes when I think about it!
On a separate note, it’s the season of pink flowers in Mumbai and I see them everyday on my way to work. Though I am getting pro at working in the car, I am not yet pro at sketching on the road but I desperately wanted to draw these flowers as a keepsake to remind myself of the bounty that they offer. Hence the cover!
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How We Read Now | Desk Notes | Charles Schifano
I secretly admire every content piece which despises the deceptiveness of the internet age and also people who write such pieces. Seldom do I find such newsletter writers who kills it in every issue. I know Charles is one of them.
There’s no editor to pitch. Nor will a good review or notice usually help. What is needed, instead, is to gauge the hidden formula that activates the screen in everyone’s pocket. What hits the algorithm just right today? What ranks highest in search results? What drives most newsfeeds? And the answer to those questions is to conform to just the right box at just the right time: to ensure that anything new fits into the already expressed old desires.
I stumbled on his newsletter through link hopping on Substack and I couldn’t stop at just reading one of the issues. His writing is elegant, peppered with monochrome pictures which set the right tone to immerse yourself in something intense. Give it a shot!
Words Against Strangers | The Pudding
Last year I went into a rabbit hole of exploring visual representation and I link hopped across many artists starting from Giorgia Lupi’s exquisite data visualization on Famous Writers’ Sleep Habits and Literary Productivity and ending on The Pudding’s game where an AI judges how awful is your taste in music.
Since then I have been following The Pudding for their eccentric work and that’s how I stumbled on this game where you have to guess more words than your opponent within a set time frame for every prompt - it could be nouns starting with ‘I’ or else adjectives containing the letters ‘it’. Nothing better than a fun game to unwind.
Veep | Disney Hotstar
Selena Meyer (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is the Vice President ("Veep") of the United States. We see how she and her staff go about their day and the things and people they have to deal with. Julia kills it again but single handedly this time after Sienfeld.
A brilliant, biting comedy on the hollowness, superficiality, manipulation, keeping-up-appearances, lies and deceit that is US politics (and politics in general). The humor is dry, witty, and fast paced and keeps you hooked throughout.
A well deserved break after a long day at work.
The More Loving One | W. H. Auden
If you visit The Marginalian’s website as much as I do, you will know how this poem was one of the pop-ups for a long time. I recently found out that they made a Universe in Verse issue on this poem and it is absolutely breath taking (like any other Universe in Verse videos)
These lines almost always break my heart:
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Read more about behind the scenes of this poem to soak in the whole experience.
Escape the cave | Better Ideas
I am not big on YouTube and I can go on for days without even opening the app, on the days I do - I mostly watch music videos but I do follow some no BS productivity channels, Better Ideas is one of them.
Presented as one of those happy go lucky videos with an easy going aesthetic vibe, the message it conveys on the spirit of sauntering is extremely profound.
Before I came across Maira Kalman’s compelling case for walking, I was already acquainted with Thoreau and his long treatise on Walking. It’s simple and yet surprising how many of our problems seem to solve themselves only if we step out and this video is just about that.
We are 1000
I still distinctively remember the rainy day in South Goa in 2021 when I was reading a New Yorker magazine with my partner (which we searched on Torrent for quite a long time, but in our defense we did get a physical subscription later) and we came across an article on the history of newsletters. By that time we were already following a couple of them, primary love being
and The Marginalian. The article explained 's growth to what it is now and also mentioned how she started with sharing 15 Things She Consumed In a Week and that is how the idea was born. Thanks to my partner who pushed me to do this and thanks to South Goa.When I shifted to Substack last year, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the growth that these issues brought week after week. Extremely thankful to all of you and proud of the community that we are.
The aim for this year to is to organize more Book Swap events across the country to be able to meet some of you :)
Until next time, keep reading!
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With a singing heart and tons of love,
The Hummingbird🌺
I really missed reading these! Therapeutic to be winding down to this 🥹
Your art <3 I love the angle.. I could almost smell the flowers..