Welcome to the sixteenth edition of Ephemerata, a weekly-ish digest of links, ideas, learnings, and sounds that I think are worth sharing.

I’m doing this to stimulate discussion around what I find interesting, and also to share things before they disappear into the void of my journal.

BULIDING SOCIAL BRIDGES

On Saturday, September 18th, I’m hosting my second Interintellect salon, Building Social Bridges and Healing a Divided World, which will be a group discussion about cultivating connection across divides. I think it’s useful to discuss this at the moment and would like to learn from other people’s experiences. If you can’t make it and have tips, learning materials, good examples, please share. Let’s learn together :).

By coincidence, I recently heard Buster Benson talking about his book, The Art of Productive Disagreement:

[Being civil or skirting around hard topics isn’t enough.]

[Disagreement is usually more about values than facts.]

[Make predictions and see what happens. Now there’s nothing to argue about, everyone learns something, and it creates a ritual to reconnect.]

THOUGHTS WHILE DANCING DURING TURMOIL

Converse with the music.

All music teaches.

Even without controlling externalities, you can be absorbed in your experience of being alive, you can take care of yourself, you can connect with your body. In that world, we are free.

❤️

If you’re enjoying this, consider contributing to my Open Collective. Virtually everything I create is public, accessible for free, and open-source. Your support helps me keep adding to the commons and making it available for everyone.

STARTING NEW APPS

I recently recorded Scaffold an app from scratch: a live coding video where an existing app is used as the basis for a new one. You can see the steps I go through each time I have a new project and get an idea of the different aspects involved. This is hopefully the last ‘long video’ and followed by small live coding videos on specific topics.

REMOTESTORAGE HANGOUT

If you’re curious about the remoteStorage technology used in all of my apps, come to the monthly hangout this Tuesday. Basti will share an upcoming ‘read later’ feature in his bookmarking app Webmarks.

SEPTEMBER MEANS BACK TO… THE OFFICE?

Enjoy this cute and funny role reversal between kids and parents during ‘back to work’ season. (via Jessica)

MUSIC

All the following items can be accessed as a one-click playlist via Joybox without accounts or sign up—just open and play.

Ethereal space jazz

Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes’ Music for Saxofone and Bass Guitar (2018) is full of strange and wonderfully creative sounds, beatboxing, and melody-less improvising, all of which were recorded live with something like loop pedals. I really dug the mouth percussion and head-banging stank face grooves on THEEM AND VARIATIONS; as well as the beat from dental fricatives on GREETINGS TO IDRIS. The inconspicuously-named TRACK ONE has this remarkable throat falsetto riff and manages to build a movement-inducing rhythm that simultaneously feels sparse and full-bodied, drizzled with a solo of quartal explorations on thirteenth chords.

Albums

Jorge Ben’s Força Bruta (1970) mixes complex harmonies with Brazilian dance rhythms, orchestra with folk instruments, and is generally a good time. (via we fucking love music)

This compilation of music sung by Mildred Bailey (1930s) features some lovely stride jazz piano. My first time hearing this singer. (via Brian Ginsburg)

Tracks

Hania Rani recorded a live set of music which makes me want to play the piano again. At various points she plays while touching the strings to create percussive sounds. The set merges electronic and acoustic, and she also sings on some tracks. It’s always special to see people pushing the boundaries of live music-making. (via @ghostlevel@merveilles.town)

More

Check out last week’s edition for more music.

(I heart music)

I always love receiving music. Send me recommendations anytime, anywhere!

That’s all folks!

Feel free to reply and share any reflections you might have, or just say hello. Have a great week 🙂

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