I’m having a super busy weekend at Wavelength Music’s 16th birthday festival. Last night I saw Foxtrott, Calvin Love, Keita Juma, Blunt Chunks and Organ Mood at The Garrison. Read my review and see more photos over on Ride the Tempo!
Entertainment
The Opposite of Loneliness
I recently finished The Opposite of Loneliness, a collection of essays and stories from a budding writer who died of a tragic car crash after graduation.
There are profound essays from Keegan herself as a student of Yale, critical and hopeful that all her fellow students pursue things that ring true to themselves instead of taking the easier paths. There are also many short stories through the eyes of different people, an exterminator, a strange old lady who takes off her clothes, teens in love or indifferent of love.
There’s one common theme in all these stories is that the characters themselves experience loneliness in their own way. An emptiness that never quite seems to fulfill. In this way the book is kind of depressing, but I enjoyed Keegan’s easy to digest style of writing that never comes off as pretentious or older than she seems. She writes in the voices and visions of each of her characters in a way that puts the reader in their shoes.
It’s a shame that we will never truly know what the things Keegan could have wrote as she grew older. It will be a literary world we’ll never know.
The Internet & Public Shaming
I’ve been reading Jon Ronson’s book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed which tells the stories of people who’s lives have been ruined over various levels of mistakes.
You can read a few of these examples in an article published by Ronson for the New York Times last year. One of these tales is of Justin Sacco who made an inappropriate AIDS joke on Twitter right before a plane ride. Her life was subsequently ruined: lost job, was shunned by her family and received numerous death threats. Her personal brand (or more commonly known as Google Search results) now is forever associated with that stupid tweet.
What this book made me realize is that I’m also quick to judge people on social media and the mob mentality can be very addicting and controlling. People on the internet seem to live on the mistakes people have made, not knowing the lives they may affect through shaming.
I know I personally make mistakes on a daily basis but this “Big Brother” thing where people are always watching is scary. For now on, I’m going to be more considerate before jumping on the internet hate wagon.
In Ronson’s book the shamers often quote themselves saying they “did the right thing” but should the right thing be ruining someone’s life or wishing them dead? I think no, and we need to learn to empathize and educate people instead of taking them down.
Simpsons Meme Takeover
The internet has stumbled on the best thing ever. Frankiac, the Simpsons meme generating machine. You can literally search any quote and it will find it. Now I don’t need to type real sentences ever again.
What is your favourite Simpsons scene of all time?
Got a Replacement Kobo!
After a lot of pointless back and forth with Kobo, I finally received a replacement device for my broken one. It’s not something they usually do but they were nice enough to consider it after how upset I was that mine couldn’t be fixed (even for money!).
Took a sick day today so this came with perfect timing so that I can continue staying in bed.
I Went To A Show At A Mall
On Saturday I went to a show at a mall. It was awesome. Here are some of my favourite photos. You can view my review and complete post here.
This Month’s Vinyl Me Please Package!
This month’s Vinyl Me Please package is an exclusive pressing of Nada Surf’s album high/low in 150g orange vinyl. It also contains an 8-page books with lyrics and photos, poster and of course a cocktail pairing.
Excited to see what is in store for February! I love this monthly gift of music.
Happiness and the Importance of Relaxation
I’m a crazy anxious person who usually can’t sit still without thinking of what productive-seeming thing I should be doing. Writing, creating, reading, cooking, cleaning etc. It’s super hard for me to just sit down to watch Netflix and nothing else. Even then, I’m checking my e-mails on my iPad or editing photos at the same time.
However, lately we’ve been hooked on Making a Murderer and now I’m glued to the screen and have to concentrate on every little detail. I guess the trick to relaxing is finding the perfect distraction.
Drop The Needle
Lately, one of my favourite ways to relax on my free time is to spin a record. To curate a record at a time has a romantic aspect to it. It’s like picking a storybook from a shelf, only you can listen to someone else tell it.
Lego Simpsons Kwik-E-Mart
Recently, I finished building the Lego Simpsons Kwik-E-Mart.
This set was more detailed and fun to build than the Lego Simpsons House. There were so many tiny parts and fun features including a frozen Jasper in the fridge. Here are some photos as I was building it:
Tiana Feng 
