5 THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

Hello!

Hope you’re well. Every Friday I send out a newsletter that highlights things from the internet that will inspire, stoke your curiosity and Maybe even improve your life. 

These are 5 things you may have missed:

1. From Dust to Digital

https://www.instagram.com/dusttodigital/?hl=en

Though From Dust to Digital has its website (https://dust-digital.com) and a few other mediums that it produces content with, their instagram account puts out some of the most interesting. From Dust to Digital curates music from all over the world. You’ll see artists of all ages and races, performing songs solo or in the company of a friend, family or a whole city block. You might hear an interpretation of a familiar song or an entirely new way of music making. A post from From Dust To Digital is expansive and always enjoyable.  

2. How I Broke Up With Adobe

James Lee answers the question that every frustrated artist has asked for decades: “How the fuck do I do what I want to do WITHOUT Adobe’s software!!!??” I don’t know any artist who hasn’t felt extorted by Adobe as they continually raise prices on their already expensive subscription based products. Adobe feels justified in doing this because their software is the industry standard. Simply put, if you wanted to make videos, edit sound and create pictures on your computer, Adobe was the only place you could go to do it. For a long time, they were right. Not anymore. Getting off Adobe can be like escaping an addiction, though many have tried, none are as helpful as James Lee’s. The video is informative as it is entertaining but what makes it powerful is that Lee’s work is and has always been something singular in style. To make his videos, Lee combines so much software at such a high level that the astute observer asks: “how can this guy not use adobe?”  Not only does the content of “How I Broke Up with Adobe” document just how any digital artist can do it for themselves but the quality of the video is an argument against Adobe and for independent software itself. Even if you’re not a digital artist, you can learn something about artistry today and the state of content creation that we are all implicated in.

3. Interactive Map of World History https://www.oldmapsonline.org/en/history/people#position=4/41.55/-120.51&year=1941

Old Maps Online is the most fun I’ve had while learning on the internet- And the best part is, its not an app that you need to download and sign into to use! The experience is organized in three ways. First, you have the world map, which you can explore by dragging and clicking just as you can with any other map app. Then you selected categories which act as layers that are divided by Regions, Rulers, People and Battles, then you spin a dial to select the year from -4000 to 2025. The experience is so effortless that you can easily spend hours circumnavigating the globe learning everything about it. For fans of history who also love youtube or wikipedia rabbit holes.

4. White Man Sleeps (Original) & The Krono Quartet Traveler Series

Kevin Volans writes, “I wrote White Man Sleeps in 1982 in Durban. It is the third in a series of pieces in which I hoped, perhaps somewhat naively, to reconcile African and European aesthetics.”  This song is a fascinating blend of styles that tells a unique story. I learned of this song through The Kronos Quartet’s Explorer series of albums, where the group traveled the world in search of regional folks songs, to then reinterpret them. The two are different enough to feel distinct from each other but both versions have a feeling of narrative to them. The Kronos Quartet version shows off what a string quartet can do: Cinema of the mind, deep shadows, melodramatic movement. While the original has a rawness to it that sparks wonder and curiosity. It has a sense of place: fields of tall grass, mystery and openness. 

5. Super Man (2025) Trailer

Since the Christopher Reeve era no one has been able to pull off a Superman movie. Unfortunately he stands obscured in the shadow of Batman’s gritty realism and the human level drama of Spiderman. If the feeling that comes across in this trailer is any indication, 2025’s Superman seems to get that its hero is above its more successful peers and (hopefully) into mythic symbolism, aspiration and optimism. I could so easily be wrong, but there is something sincere about the goofy parts of this trailer and hopeful about how colorful it is.