🚀 improbable dreams.
on the agenda this week: improbable dreams, stephen king’s accident, and ikea’s quarantine forts.
📖 reading time: 4m 30s.
fig. 1.
the reusable falcon 9 landing at sea (2016).
the reusable falcon 9 landing at sea (2016).
🥳 hey, hi, & happy first of june.
can you believe it’s june? time feels so elastic right now — some weeks feel like months, and some months feel like weeks.on the agenda this week:
improbable dreams, stephen king’s accident, and ikea’s quarantine forts.
⚡️ tag me on instagram or follow me on twitter if you enjoy this week's brain drain!
as always, feel free to skip any section that doesn’t interest you or reply directly to this email.
& a special thank you to my paid subscribers — i really appreciate the support.
📝 a note on: improbable dreams.
fig. 2.
the falcon 9 booster launching into space before landing aboard an autonomous drone ship.
the falcon 9 booster launching into space before landing aboard an autonomous drone ship.
last saturday, spacex & elon musk pulled off what few thought possible: human spaceflight aboard a commercially built spacecraft & rocket.
in 2008, the design of the then cargo-only spacecraft that spacex were testing included a window. this gave a clear insight into musk’s real ambitions — to one day fly with humans onboard.
you don't really need windows for cargo.
- elon musk, 2008.
given that spacex’s history has been marred by explosions and a string of failures, many onlookers maintained a pessimistic outlook about their ambitions.
i may not entirely agree with much of what musk says or believes, but i will always back those who believe in their dreams and execute on their crazy ideas. as they say, there is no such thing as a rich pessimist.
it's not that musk's dreams - introducing a mass-market electric car, colonizing space - are ignoble. far from it. it's just that he lacks the means and the mindset to realize them.
- the now defunct gawker[.]com, 2009.
📚 word of the week:
“celestial”.
pertaining to the sky or visible heaven, or to the universe beyond the earth’s atmosphere.
of all the celestial bodies, the moon is closest to the matters of this lower world.
- celestial bodies, jokha alharthi.
🤪 mildly humorous:
outtakes from the twitter-sphere.
🧠 brain candy:
📝
on impact
.
stephen king’s car accident seemed like a violent story from one of the novelist's books. it was so brutal, it almost killed him. here, he recounts learning to write again after it.
i was three-quarters of the way up this hill when the van came over the crest. it wasn’t on the road; it was on the shoulder. my shoulder. i had perhaps three-quarters of a second to register this. it was just time enough to think, my god, i’m going to be hit by a school bus, and to start to turn to my left. then there is a break in my memory. on the other side of it, i’m on the ground, looking at the back of the van, which is now pulled off the road and tilted to one side. this image is clear and sharp, more like a snapshot than like a memory. there is dust around the van’s taillights. the license plate and the back windows are dirty. i register these things with no thought of myself or of my condition. i’m simply not thinking.
there’s another short break in my memory here, and then i am very carefully wiping palmfuls of blood out of my eyes with my left hand. when i can see clearly, i look around and notice a man sitting on a nearby rock. he has a cane resting in his lap. this is bryan smith, the forty-two-year-old man who hit me. smith has got quite the driving record; he has racked up nearly a dozen vehicle-related offenses. he wasn’t watching the road at the moment that our lives collided because his rottweiler had jumped from the very rear of his van onto the back seat, where there was an igloo cooler with some meat stored in it.
👉 read more via the new yorker.
🧀
ikea quarantine forts
.
if you’re quarantining with kids who are becoming increasingly bored, ikea russia has your back. the retailer has just released a new campaign hoping to inspire some childhood adventures indoors.
whether you’re in quarantine with kids who are increasingly desperate for entertainment or you’re simply longing for a time when life was safer and more innocent, ikea russia has you covered.
the retailer’s newest campaign for the quarantine era perfectly captures that yearning sense of nostalgia by bringing old-fashioned childhood adventure into modern home. created by agency instinct, the campaign includes a series of ikea instructions for parents on how to make tents and forts indoors to create a sense of adventure for children cooped up at home as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.
the “easy-to-follow” instructions (though if you’ve ever assembled an ikea product before, your opinion may vary) show how every day items like blankets, bedspreads, chairs and stools can be transformed into a new hideaway.
👉 read more via adweek.
👂 earworm: billy lemos.
“run fast. it's not what it seems
you know i try to make it right
you know i'm waiting for this time
to go fast me by.”
stream now:
as someone who collaborates a lot, what do you see the role of producer being or meaning in 2019?
one of the most important things is that i want to work with artists that i genuinely like and not because they're popping off. i'm not working with people who just have a bunch of instagram followers or a bunch of monthly listeners. it's more about me finding people that i think are underrated, and then trying to a&r and help them. usually the people i work with are pretty small at the time, and then maybe a few months down the road they'll put out singles or something that will help them gain traction. i stay in communication with the artists, too. so i think it's just more interesting to work with artists that aren't fully popped off, yet. it's more satisfying.
- complex.
listen to billy lemos on spotify or on apple music.
fig. 3. art by
stuffgracemade
.
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⛪️ drive-by mass.
👨💻 permanently wfh.
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