Happy Friday! ☀️
Coucou from the French countryside. This week’s highlight was a day trip deep into the Dordogne to visit three castles that each were very distinct to the other. The Dordogne valley is known of its well maintained castles and it was nice to discover some I hadn’t yet visited.
What I’m reading 📖
This book turned out differently than I had imagined. In one of our regular check in calls, my friend Matze recommended that I read Jenny Oddell’s How To Do Nothing after I told him that I had reached a state in which I struggled to ‘endure my own uselessness’. I expected the book to be a much more practical guide on how to disconnect and enjoy time off but I was surprised that it had much more depth than a self-help book. In 5+1 chapters, Odell takes different perspectives on what it means to disconnect and replace with attention and I found it more like a mix of personal memoirs, a curation of insights from sociological studies and the attention economy, and a bunch of new things I had never heard of (i.e. bioregions). Given my expectation, I found it surprisingly refreshing and can highly recommend it. More about the book.
What I’m listening to 🎧
After asking here for recommendations for narrated investigative podcasts my colleague Louisa suggested that I listen to Wild Wild Web, a podcast series that goes deep on some obscure parts of the internet. The first season is about the internet personality Kim Dotcom (of Mega fame) and the second season takes an in-depth look at Pornhub and the intersections of those two industries. The podcast is in German and produced by Bayrischer Rundfunk and super well researched and narrated. Thanks, Louisa!
What I’m watching 📺
Hanging out in castles this week put me in the mood of watching movies set in medieval times. I had never watched Ophelia and it was a nice fit. The movie follows Hamlet’s story from Ophelia’s perspective with a strong performance by Daisy Ridley who plays Ophelia and Naomi Watts who plays Gertrude. What stood out for me next to the strong performance was the production and costume design, which I give an A+. All in all a good and fast moving movie, although mid-way through it moved through the plot a bit fast for my liking. Watch the trailer.
What I’m thinking about 🧠
For me, doing nothing means disengaging from one framework (the attention economy) not only to give myself time to think, but to do something else in another framework. – Jenny Odell
What else?! 💯
This week I learned more about the life of Josephine Baker while visiting the Chateau de Milandes, a chateau she owned and lived in until the 60ies. Josephine Baker was an American-born French dancer, singer and, actress known for breaking onto the Paris scene as a dancer, joining the French Résistance in World War II, and for her life-long work in advancing civil rights. The castle and its gardens is definitely worth a visit to learn more about who she was and how she lived.
Thanks for reading, bon weekend!
David
Instagram | Website | 2021 Playlist | Company