Considerations 8/17/20
Edition #4: New Mood, The Oatmeal, Glass Animals, Palm Spring and more
| Josh Waggoner | Aug 17, 2020 |
Welcome to another edition of Considerations, a thoughtfully curated monthly newsletter focused on creative inputs for multi-disciplinaries.
I feel like I’ve been working on getting this email shipped for 800 years. It’s been a hectic time in my life because the creative agency I was working for decided to close up shop. Currently, I’m just spitting in the wind, as they say. (Gross?) I’m feeling a little burnout so I’m still thinking through my next steps. I have some cool projects in the work for Renaissance Life and some exciting guest for The Renaissance Life Podcast... but in the meantime —
Here are some interesting things I’ve been considering lately:
1. New Mood — Onnit
New Mood has been a lifesaver for me the past few months. It’s marketed as a supplement to “support a normal daily stress response.” I think of it as mediation in a bottle. A literal chill pill, if you will.
Here’s a brief description from Onnit’s website:
“New Mood is a stress support supplement that assists the body in generating serotonin, a key neurotransmitter linked to mood, happiness, and positive outlook. Ingredients like 5-HTP, L-TRYPTOPHAN, and VITAMIN B6 work synergistically to increase serotonin levels without making you drowsy, allowing you to stay calm AND alert whenever you want.”
It also has Magnesium and Valerian Root which is good for relaxing your muscles and a natural way to induce sleep before bed without feeling groggy in the morning. When I have them on hand, I’ll usually pop two if I’m feeling stressed or anxious during the day, and another two before bed.
2. Eight Marvelous & Melancholy Things I’ve Learned About Creativity — The Oatmeal
I absolutely love The Oatmeal. Matthew Inman’s humor is my go-to strategy when I need a laugh. Eight Marvelous & Melancholy Things I’ve Learned About Creativity is a long-form comic about what he’s learned from ten years since creating The Oatmeal. It’s hilarious. It’s insightful. It’s a must if you consider yourself a creative.
3. Guide to Internal Communication The Basecamp Way
One of the biggest problems I’ve seen and experienced in business is miscommunication. It doesn’t matter whether its miscommunication with customers, clients, teammates, bosses and-or employees—it all leads to poor outcomes. Basecamp’s Internal Communication Guide is an excellent list of communication principles to base your work (and life) around.
4. Type Media 2019 Graduates
An incredible look at the final projects of the 2019 Type and Media Master’s graduates. Their work is hors de l’ordinaire. I love the simple clean look of the website too. Type and Media is “a master’s course in typeface design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (KABK).” My favorite type designs are Decibel, Picardy, Spec and Adorno.
5. Learn Music — Ableton
This is a great step-by-step interactive web guide for learning music fundamentals. Highly recommend if you want to get into music or need to brush up on your skills. (Again—great web design too.) Get started here.
6. Reverse Engineering for Beginners
First off—This pdf is a beast. Written by Dennis Yurichev, it’s coming in at a whopping 1000+ pages of information. I’ve only just cracked the “digital” cover, so to speak. But as far as I can tell, it’s a fantastic resource for programmers. Read or Download the pdf here.
7. App: Notion
Notion – The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.
I’ve been using Notion for the past year, and it’s quickly become one of my favorite apps. It has a lot of use-cases (too many to list here), but I mainly use it as an organization tool, ideation, biz dev, and writing tool. Because you can create pages within pages, one interesting trend I’ve noticed is people using a public Notion workspace as a pseudo website. For example, FAQ and product documentation and open job positions.
8. Palm Springs
Palm Springs is a rom-com movie on Hulu, starring Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg. Suffice it to say—I love it! I don’t want to give too much away. If you can, go in blind without reading about it. Give it about fifteen minutes and you’ll understand. Note: It’s Rated R, so hide your kid and your parents.
9. Quote:
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” — Vincent Van Gogh
10. Music:
Monsters — The Midnight
The Midnight just might be my favorite band I’ve listened to in the last decade. They have a killer 80’s vibe, but in a way that feels fresh and timeless. Their new album Monsters just dropped recently. Be sure to listen to Prom Night, Brooklyn, Dream Away, and America Online.
Here’s a description from Wikipedia: “The Midnight is a synthwave band composed of Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Jamison Tyler Lyle and Los Angeles-based Danish-born producer, songwriter, and singer Tim Daniel McEwan. The band was formed as a result of Tyler and Tim meeting during a co-writing workshop in 2012 in North Hollywood, CA.”
Dreamland — Glass Animals
Glass Animals is such a unique band. Dreamland is a perfect title for their new album because of its surreal atmosphere sounds and witty and eclectic lyrics. Tangerine, Hot Sugar, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Tokyo Drifting and Heat Waves are my favorite songs.
Wikipedia Description: “Glass Animals are an English psychedelic pop band formed in Oxford in 2010. Led by singer, songwriter, and producer Dave Bayley, the group also features his childhood friends Joe Seaward, Ed Irwin-Singer, and Drew MacFarlane. Bayley wrote and produced all three Glass Animals albums.”
Shameless Plugs
I hope you enjoyed the second edition of Considerations.
Have you discovered any interesting articles, books, music or what-have-yous recently? Email me at josh [at] renaissance life [dot com] and I might feature it (and give props to you of course) in next month’s edition.
If you are into books as much as I am, I’m also creating a monthly newsletter about what I’m reading each month called Bookaholics.
Lastly, each month Considerations will have a sister publication called Practices. Where Considerations is about creative inputs, Practices is about creative output.
Considerations is the gasoline. Practices is the match.
Considerations will always be free. But if you are interested in Practices, for only $5 a month or $30 a year, you can receive a thoughtful resource to help improve and change your life.
Sign up for here for your first month free.
Also if you convince a friend to sign up too, I’ll give you 50% off. Share Considerations with a friend and if they sign up, send me an email and I’ll send you a discount code.
Thanks for your time.
Be Well. Keep creating.
— Josh,
Insta: @Renaissance.Life
Twitter @wiggidywags
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