“Art can initiate conversations when other media fails.”
– Shepard Fairey
Lady Kia in front of her favorite eco-activist street art: Earth Crisis by Shepard Fairey, on the side of the Little Cupcake Bakeshop, St. Mark’s Street, Brooklyn.
Writing
✍️Finished my writing challenge, #30DaysofGaysianCulture, with a tribute to a photojournalist and a party promoter who changed my ways of seeing and being and making space for others.
Reading
🇵🇭 The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race by Anthony Christian Ocampo. As @AliWong says, there are Fancy Asians (East Asians) and there are Jungle Asians (Southeast Asians). I say it’s more fun in the jungle. 🌴
💼 Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business by Paul Jarvis. For all you fellow solopreneurs out there.
😂 The Worst Friend Date I Ever Had by Samantha Irby for The Cut, May 2020.
😔 I’m Sorry: How to Apologize And Why it Matters by Brené Brown. Oof, lessons in vulnerability are still the toughest and most necessary to learn.
🤳🏽 My Instagram, by Dayna Tortorici for n+1, Winter 2020. Love a good art journal take on social media.
GENRES OF INSTAGRAM I came to recognize after this door opened were: archival photography, astrology meme, travel photography, cooking/baking, fitness/exercise, political meme, celebrity stan, street fashion, makeup/drag, time-lapse photography, architecture/design, tactile or “satisfying,” cross-platform meme (e.g., screenshots from Twitter), female influencer, historical, inspirational, animal rescue, literary, home decor, viral dance, gymnastic/acrobatic, ceramic, houseplant care, illustration, and softcore pornography.
Watching
The Invisible Man (2020), a #metoo retelling of H.G. Well’s sci-fi novel The Invisible Man (1897), remade by Ralph Ellison in Invisible Man (1952), about a young, nameless Black man navigating cultural blindness and invisibility in an intolerant America. Elizabeth Moss, as always, dishing out revenge served cold. Streaming on Amazon Prime.
Creativity/Productivity Hack
🤖 How to build your own SMS bot (without coding) that uses Google Sheets to send and receive responses.
Creepy Spooky App
👻 What is Randonautica, the Spooky New App that Led Teens to a Dead Body?
Randonautica, which markets itself as "the world’s first quantumly generated Choose Your Own Adventure reality game," gives users a random set of coordinates to track down in their local area. "Randonauts" choose from three different types of locations: An attractor, a void, or an anomaly. To start, the user is invited to set an "intention" for their quest.
"It’s sort of a perfect storm of easy tools to create little vignettes and an algorithm that boosts the memetic nature of the phenomena," the co-founder Joshua Lengfelder told Nylon. "People see an interesting adventure, decide to try the app themselves, post a TikTok of what they find, and Randonautica ends up self-propagating."
As reported by Bustle, the app was programmed with both quantum physics and spirituality in mind. "Randonauting is heavily inspired by chaos theory and Guy Debord's 'Theory of the Dérive,' says app co-founder Joshua Lengfelder. In layman's terms, it means that a small change can set off a series of unpredictable events.
From the Mixtape
The casual brilliance and uplifting immaculate vibes of Alicia Keys’ Tiny Desk concert, featuring the premiere of “Gramercy Park”, a song from her upcoming self-titled album, ALICIA, set to be released this fall.
Dope Stuff for Your Desk
✏️ Passion Planner 2020 Dated. Half-Year $7 Sale (Normally $35). Support Cali-based queer Filipina CEO @AngeliaTrinidad’s popular and productive yearly planners, just $7 each right now across all sizes (Small, Medium, Large). Proceeds benefits Pencils of Promise.
Deck of the Week
The Art of Deckmaking by @AishaAnnHakim, founder of @thefellowapp, a mentoring tool for women, and the first app-based professional community for women in advertising.
How to Give Good Deck: Respect your ideas with good design that clarifies, polishes, and elevates.
Til next week,
Sharon & Kia 🐶
Motivation Monday #5: Invisibility, Randonautica, Art of Deckmaking