These things

These Five Things.

watching, testing, reading, wearing, listening

Late last week, I walked by a restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try for some time and said to myself, “Maybe Joe and I can go there for our anniversary this year.” In my head I meant, like, months from now. That’s how our anniversary always feels—something to look forward to, a small speck on the horizon, an event so far in the future that surely we have ample time to plan big romantic gestures and secure dinner reservations at a prime hour, like 7:30. I thought about the menu and what we’d order and would it be the kind of place he would like to eat? All considerations for the future.

And then, minutes after arriving home, Joe asked, “What do you want to do for our anniversary this weekend?”

This weekend.

2019 is going by so fast, I actually forgot it was going to be November.

(Based on the fact that a lot of my clients are scrambling to get their holiday projects in order, I’m guessing everyone feels the same. What happened to this year?!)

Ah, but celebrate our anniversary we did! Seven years of marriage, seventeen years of being us. Talk about years flying by.

Also, we did get into that restaurant—it was a 5:15pm reservation, but meh. True romance is finding that person who enthusiastically agrees to geriatric dinner hour so you can be in bed by 10 and still hit up the hot new place. Two birds, one love.

The above doesn’t have much to do with these five things that I’ve been meaning to write about, yet here we are. See what’s been floating around in my headspace as of late: View more

Image and Design Credits:

Intro Image: by Yang Deng  ·   Graphics by Victoria McGinley

Playlists

Playlist 15

What happens when I don’t publish a playlist for five months? I collect a lot of music. And instead of overloading you with a four hour playlist (srsly), this go-round, I’ve edited Playlist 15 down to my absolute fave tracks from the late spring, summer, and early fall. Dude. I’m so into this playlist. As usual, we’re leaning pop heavy with a lot of electronic sounds. If you’re into that sort of thing, you will love this one. Turn up the bass, and put on your dancing shoes.

Hey, something else I wanted to run by you guys who are into the music. When I was in Korea, I really connected with my family over music. I decided I’d start sending my playlists to one brother in particular via YouTube playlists, so he could stream it easily there. Do folks here use YouTube to listen to music and build playlists? Or are you guys mostly on Spotify? Let me know! If there was enough interest, I could easily start putting playlists on YouTube too.

Any tracks or albums you’ve been loving? I’d love to listen—send me a share link via the comments below.

 

LISTEN TO PLAYLIST 15

ALL 2019 MUSIC  ·   CLASSICAL WORK MUSIC   ·  WORK OUT MIX   ·  Follow me on Spotify

Image:

August 2019. The Embarcadero, San Francisco

Art + Culture

Kintsugi

Put me back together.

Are you familiar with the Japanese art of Kintsugi? Directly translating to “golden joinery” (and sometimes called Kintsukuroi, or “golden repair”), Kintsugi is the method of repairing cracked or broken pottery by fusing together the pieces with liquid metal—often gold. If you Google it, articles refer to it as “embracing damage” or “the art of precious scars.”

How apropos.

I was familiar with the look and feel of this style of pottery, but less familiar with the philosophy behind it, and I kind of love it! As this feature explains, Kintsugi is “a way to not merely fix a broken object, but to transform it into something beautiful.”

Reminders of the art form seem to be popping up in my life a lot lately, most frequently on (get this!) Facebook. I’ve long admired ceramicist Reiko Kaneko (you probably remember her popular Lip Tease mugs from a few years back), and recently, she’s been advertising her new mail-in Kintsugi repair service. One day, I clicked through to see examples of her “fixes,” and loved everything I saw. It was almost enough to make me want to shatter one of the blue and white ceramic pieces I collect, just to see how it’d be repaired. Ok, maybe not shatter…but there’s something so beautiful and striking about the shimmery gold veining its way through these pieces, that I’m tempted to at least put a small crack in one of mine!

If you have any broken pieces lying around (of the ceramic variety; the spirit requires a different type of treatment), you can take photos of your item and send it to the Reiko Kaneko team. They’ll provide you with a quote to repair it with Kintsugi, inclusive of options for varying gold alloys (which dramatically impact the price, and food safety of your item). Wanna try and DIY it yourself? I did find this home Kintsugi kit, though the finished seams weren’t nearly as elegant.

Meanwhile, if you love the look and feel of Kintsugi but are short on broken pieces at the moment, you can find examples of it for sale on places like Etsy, Chairish, and 1st Dibs (but $$$$$). Some retailers even sell full sets of Kintsugi-inspired dinner sets, but something about that feels like it maybe defeats the purpose? If you’re in the market, I’ve linked some pretty examples of it below! Don’t forget—prices in the hundreds likely indicate the repair material is real gold, and with any luck, expertly done!

 

(And PS, if you want to listen to a new song while you admire all the Kintsugi, listen to “Kintsugi” by Gabrielle Aplin. On that note—I’ll share a new playlist soon!)

* Also gotta make note that while the origins of Kintsugi are typically attributed to the Japanese, the art form has been practiced in China and Korea, too. And in modern times, there are artists pushing the boundaries with it and presenting fresh, new takes altogether!

Shop Kintsugi Finds:

Images via Reiko Kaneko Kintsugi Repair Service (here, and here)

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