“Our resources aren’t infinite… Every billion dollars spent on high-speed trains, which may or may not be suitable for North America, is a billion not banked for disaster preparedness, reparations to inundated countries, or future humanitarian relief. Every renewable-energy mega-project that destroys a living ecosystem—the “green” energy development now occurring in Kenya’s national parks, the giant hydroelectric projects in Brazil, the construction of solar farms in open spaces, rather than in settled areas—erodes the resilience of a natural world already fighting for its life. Soil and water depletion, overuse of pesticides, the devastation of world fisheries—collective will is needed for these problems, too, and, unlike the problem of carbon, they’re within our power to solve.”

— Jonathan Franzen

What If We Stopped Pretending: I’m sorry to sour your morning/evening with such sobering truths but Jonathan Franzen’s latest article for The New Yorker needs to be digested and debated by one and all. For my money, Franzen is one of the most engaging and enlightened voices in the global literary community with his 2001 novel The Corrections opening my young adult eyes to the depths of humanity and familial ties. Franzen doesn’t pull any punches. With the current state of affairs, our little planet will continue to undergo some terrifying changes in the coming years. It was deeply unsettling to be reunited with familiar thoughts and feelings from the past, fears that had once surfaced from equally damning articles and which I’d buried in favour of living for the now. As Franzen makes plain, we’re all guilty of warping the truth, putting off the inevitable in favour of feeling good. As our global leaders continue to kick the can down the road, devoting tax-payer resources to inane pursuits like Brexit, peace in the Middle East and the ramifications of 5G technology it’s easy to lose heart. Though before we embrace pure nihilism, perhaps Franzen’s final thoughts on ‘doing our part’, resetting the imbalance in our own lives, holds the answer to this existential riddle.

Amazing Grace: My lady and I went to a Sunday session of this film, a visual accompaniment to Aretha Franklin’s legendary 1972 live album Amazing Grace, captured at the New Baptist Mission Church in Los Angeles. After digesting this article in the Guardian, it became clear why the original footage took close to fifty years to see the light of day. When Franklin made clear her intentions to record a live gospel album, Warner Bros hired a young Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa), to oversee the visual accompaniment which was originally intended for release on TV. Unfortunately the production was one giant shit-show, with no synced sound or recorded set list. The film would sit on the shelves for close to forty years until Alan Elliott, a protege of Jerry Wexler (Franklin’s longtime music manager) would be tasked with syncing and itemizing the footage. With this process finally completed in ‘08, the film was once again relegated to purgatory with Franklin herself unwilling to grant its release. It was only with her recent passing last year that allowed Elliot to finally receive the green light. Watching the film itself was a special kind of revelation. To witness Franklin pouring her heart out on a big screen was the kind of full body experience that helped me to remember the golden rule: life is what you make it.

Kinky Boots: I came across this film while half-heartedly browsing my lady’s Netflix account and became intrigued at the notion of Joel Edgerton playing a Limey (and Chiwetel Ejiofor made up in drag!). The whole film revolves around the true story of a young man inheriting his father’s ailing shoe factory and contemplating whether to love it or leave it. As it happens, Edgerton somehow finds himself mixed up with a group of drag queens on a trip to London and is soon hit with a Eureka moment. While I was completely unaware of this film’s existence (including a musical adaptation of the same name) I found the story deeply heartwarming, allowing myself to transcend its deeply depressing setting (English urban planners really knew how to build metropolitan eyesores). It’s always nice to watch a movie whose message is both enlightening and empowering, offering up characters who have the courage to turn their fear into love, their ignorance to wokeness.

The Sound of Silence: On a drive back from Newcastle this week I plugged into On Being featuring Krista Tippett’s conversation with Gordon Hempton. The 2012 conversation, pulled from the archives, is a fascinating look at one man’s quest to capture and protect the sounds of the natural environment for the sake of posterity. Hempton is an audio ecologist, a man who has devoted much of his life to inspiring audiences on the dangers of noise pollution and its endless encroachment on the natural world. Thanks to the podcast’s sampled demos, I’ve discovered his extensive recordings on Spotify this week, playing them over my Bluetooth headphones while burning the midnight oil. After sitting in the calming sounds of the forests and jungles for hours on end I’m happy to report my demeanour is more balanced than ever. The whole acoustic experience has got me reflecting on my recent European travels. After spending less than a week in London last month, its incessant noise and constant hustle left me drowning in anxious energy and reminded me why Sydney is so bloody special. Hempton’s beautiful collection of recordings are the perfect antidote to a busy week and are pure nourishment for the soul.

Yusef Lateef: The Blue Yusef Lateef

As I scrolled down my Spotify homepage in search of something suitable to work to, countless suggestions of past albums and playlists filled my gaze until I came across the complete works of Yusef Lateef. Lateef is a man whose music I’ve long admired yet knew absolutely nothing about. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee (talk about a delectable mouthful!) as William Emanuel Huddleston in 1920, his family would relocate to Detroit a few years later, a city coming into its own with the rise of the automobile. Converting to Islam in 1950, Lateef was tapped for his musical talents and began to lead recordings from 1957, increasingly infusing his sound with Eastern influences. Lateef would devote much of his life to teaching and education, completing a bachelor and master’s degree in music before earning a Doctor of Education in 1975. The Blue Yusef Lateef, recorded in 1968, brings all these curious elements together, culminating in an album littered with one revelation after another.

"The Blue Yusef Lateef is one wild album. In sound, it is the very best the '60s had to offer in terms of experimentation and accessibility. This is blues you can dance to, but also meditate to and marvel at; a pearl worthy of the price". — Tom Jurek

Albert Hofmann

I discovered the fascinating world of Albert Hofmann after picking up a copy of Michael Pollan’s How To Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics. Gifted to me by my lady, it has become one of the most fascinating reads for its mission statement alone: dismantling a culture of fear that arose in direct response to the counter-cultural movement of the nineteen-sixties. Hofmann is celebrated for being one of the founding fathers of psychedelics, a Swiss scientist best remembered for accidentally synthesizing a mix of chemicals that would come to be known as lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD for us hep-cats (groovy baby!). As this Rolling Stone article attests, Hofmann was also the first person to ingest and experience a full blown acid trip in 1943, a full decade before Aldous Huxley’s immortalized publication of The Doors of Perception. That first ‘experience’ began while cycling home with his lab assistant, a day now memorialized as Bicycle Day. Hofmann would become dismayed at the hysteria surrounding its use during the summer of love and beyond and would continue to cite its ability to overcome and cure all forms of psychic maladies up until his passing in 2008.

“Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux,” he wrote. “It was particularly remarkable how every acoustic perception, such as the sound of a door handle or a passing automobile, became transformed into optical perceptions. Every sound generated a vividly changing image, with its own consistent form and color.”

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Until next time.

Xo