Favorite Things From This Week 4/16 - Reinvention
There are no days off anymore. The high-school-sports-movie cliche has moved to gym t-shirts. The proverb is probably lit up in neon at your local Alfred's Coffee now for some reason. We live for tweet-length mantras, but this one rings especially true. Whether it is the endless news cycle (who goes to war on a weekend?) or the slow merging of work and living spaces, it's hard to break up a claustrophobic routine when there are no longer the traditional divisions of time and space, work and play, exercise and activity. Everything is crossing boundaries, breaking traditions, and piling up onto one another.
This weekend featured the previously mentioned bombings in Syria, Coachella (sorry, #Beychella), the Comey Interview, Kanye West's return to Twitter, and the start of the NBA Playoffs. That's a weird list of incongruous events (kind of...we can't confirm if Trump was responding to Beyoncé telling everyone to "suck her balls"), but taken together it makes for a spectacular, must-see, must-tweet, marathon of blockbuster-worthy events. Comey will probably be announced for the new Avengers movie this week.
Point being, what happened to nothing?
Jokes aside, I'm not talking about disconnection or going on vision quests because inherently, I don't think this blurring of life and work and days and weeks is a bad thing. Vice has you covered if that's your thing. What it has obscured or perhaps partially obfuscated is the time for reflection that comes with separation. It is increasingly difficult to see the forest from the trees when everything is the forest and oh my god I'm lost in the woods again please send help. Without as many opportunities to stand back and see the entire picture, it's tough to parse the meaning of what we're doing in our day to day lives. Because work is life and personal is public, how much time do we have for rejuvenation and ultimately, reinvention? We've brought a lot of this upon ourselves, but maybe we could truly apply some outside the box thinking by looking at how our actions truly intersect and how they may actually be useful, rather than just appearing as clutter.
With that in mind, this week I focused on topics having to do with reinvention. Some of these are grand, sweeping changes that have monumental implications for people, institutions, and movements. Others are more subtle and slow-moving, yet equally captivating. Piecing together where we've been, where we are, and where we're going has never been more difficult, so take some cues from those who are doing it brilliantly.
Tyler, The Creator Would Like to Reintroduce Himself [Noisey] - Tyler, The Creator burst onto the scene with an aggressive style of rap that combined crunching, minimal beats with vitriolic and profanity-laced lyrics. He immediately became a target, something he almost assuredly knew, and prayed, would happen. He was labelled a firebrand upstart with hate in his heart and a mission to offend. While he certainly hasn't shed the persona and those labels entirely, Tyler has achieved a rare feat in terms of his growth and maturity, moving beyond his initial critics by making impactful and personal statements. With the success and acclaim of his latest album, Flower Boy, and his forays into fashion and social conversations, Tyler has successfully rerouted the narrative and grown into a respected and anticipated voice in music industry and beyond.
The Worst of Times, The Best of Times. (Or How I Got Made Head of Strategy and All I Got Was This Lousy Industry Landscape) [BBH Labs] - Ben Shaw is the new Head of Strategy at the legendary BBH London office. While I don't know him, his work, as well as his shop's reputation and prominence, speaks for itself. The ad industry is going through its own, well-noted, changes, and adopting some of the points in Shaw's piece would certainly go a long way towards easing some of the transition. Keeping it simple in complex times is no easy task.
Kanye West Has Mastered Twitter Like Nobody Else [The Outline] - No piece on reinvention would be complete without mention of Kanye West. Mr. West has reinvented himself, the rap game, the music industry, the sneaker world, and social media. His return to Twitter this weekend was an event unto itself, and captured the public's attention with a few touches of wisdom and half-drawn shoe sketches. All hail the next coming of Yeezus.
There's Sprite at the Cookout [The Outline] - Soda is on a well-publicized decline, with cities levying taxes and doctors ramping up the warnings. The downfall of soda (LaCroix aside) may not be saved by the black community, but Sprite's extended association with rappers, black athletes, and black entertainment (BET) suggests a survival tactic that is on one side insidious and the other, ingenious. Context is one of advertising's more under-appreciated factors (see: banner ads), but Sprite's name association and reinvention as the "soda for black people" is something to marvel at, even as you dread and loathe the racial connotations.
4:53 timestamp for SNL timely joke about the trend.
Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits" for depression [BBC] - This story takes on two reinventions, representing major shifts in public perceptions. Conversations about drugs and depression, unrelated to one another, have become mainstream topics, leading to big conversations about drugs and depression, this time, related to one another. The medical benefits of narcotics are now being more rigorously tested, and as more and more breakthroughs are made, the stigma against lower-grade drugs is slowly dissipating. The correlation between drugs and depression, both in causing and curing, signals the changing way we address formerly taboo topics.
They'll Embrace You Like No Other [The Player's Tribune] - Victor Oladipo is a momentous story in a momentous season in the NBA. A discounted former no. 2 overall pick, Olapido made waves this season, and capped it off this weekend when his Indiana Pacers team thoroughly dismantled the Cleveland Cavaliers and the king himself, Lebron James. The Player's Tribune always provides thoughtful insight, and Oladipo's firsthand account of the season, the series, and his career turnaround is nothing short of remarkable and inspiring. Let's hope this story continues well into the playoffs.
The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma [The New Yorker] - Finally, the incredibly moving and affecting piece by Junot Díaz. Reading Díaz contemporaneously is to see a master in real time at the height of his game. I don't have much to say on this piece other than its brutal honesty and message resonate more and more as I think about. The theme of reinvention is clear, but the style and poignancy separate this from his previous work as the firsthand account enraptures and devastates.
Movie of the Week - A Quiet Place - I'm no fan of horror movies, but after seeing the taut, tense, and downright terrifying A Quiet Place, maybe I'll be reinvent myself as a horror fanatic. Enthusiast? Admirer? Grudging respect might be more apt, but this movie is a revelation. From director John Krasinski's persistent close-ups that remarkably capture the character's dread to the prolonged sequences of utter silence, A Quiet Place is as inventive and clever in its details as it is scary in its set pieces. I nervously, and quietly, chewed popcorn through out the movie, hoping the monsters wouldn't abduct me from my seat. The theater going experience is something to behold.
Song of the Week - "In Chains" by The War on Drugs - After a few weeks of incredible releases (Drake, Kacey Musgraves, Hayley Kioyoko, Amen Dunes, Tyler, The Creator, Frankie Cosmos), this past week quieted down quite with the music world's undivided attention focused on the Coachella Valley. Therefore, I went backwards to the best album of last year and one of its stand out songs, The War on Drugs' "In Chains," which received a re-release this week. Appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers and on Coachella's Outdoor Stage, The War on Drugs are certainly not in wind-down mode, but rather on a victory lap to celebrate the diehard fans who feel every chord bend and sax bellow deep within their core. Adam Granduciel is not one to show off (he usually lets the guitar speak for him), but it's a well earned run for the Grammy-winning band that never fails to draw up emotion with every note.