#12 Thick Books

Book cravings, visual pairings, the HAIM sisters & Paul Thomas Anderson and finding a new routine.

I’ve been craving for a thick book lately, like 1000+ pages, and last Saturday I finally walked into a bookstore and bought one — the combined edition of Murakami’s 1Q84. This is the eight book of his that I have and there is something very soothing about the way he writes and builds his worlds, which are all kind of the same but different. I personally love the long and elaborate ways he describes mundane things, but I do see how this drives some people crazy.

I specifically wanted a brick of a book. Don’t know exactly why, but I missed that feeling of handling a book like that. It’s a bit hard to hold and you have to manoeuvre it consciously to be able to flip the pages. Especially the first fifty or so spreads of an opus like this is a bit of a struggle, you are getting familiar with the story but also with the physical volume of the book. But as you progress the spine starts to loosen up and the spreads become easier to balance, the book starts to fold in a more comfortable way in your hands, same as you’ve been entering the world of the book and being able to lean back more.

I love this feeling and I’m happy that I still have some 800 pages left of this ride. What I don’t like about this specific edition is the pure white of the pages. I much rather prefer a softer tone of white. But I’m starting to forget about it the further I advance.

Visual pairings

My brain has been wired to see interesting visual pairings recently as I’ve been slowly working and sequencing my own photos for this book project that I have planned. Sharing two of the most pleasing pairings I collected from the internet last week.

HAIM

I remember seeing an article some years ago about Paul Thomas Anderson directing and shooting a music video ⤵︎ for HAIM—a band consisting of three sisters Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim.

Now, there is nothing surprising in Oscar nominated directors working on music videos for big artists, but I found the backstory fascinating. Apparently PTA had been very into HAIM’s music and when he got in touch with them, it turned out that the HAIM sisters’ mom had been his art teacher in graduate school – with whom he had had a very close and important relationship. Since the first dinner together, they have made nine music videos together and most recently Alana Haim starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest feature Licorice Pizza (2021), which he wrote with Alana in his mind. I love the feeling of being pulled into a sub-universe which keeps on expanding across multiple domains!

New routine

I’ve managed to introduce, and more importantly maintain, a new morning routine of doing a workout every weekday. In the past, I’ve struggled to keep up with a consistent plan and I’ve gone from a bolt of inspiration to long breaks in between. The key now has been me lowering the bar and just focusing on showing up. Doing short workouts, but doing them every day. This has introduced a soothing peacefulness to my day-to-day activities and I’m really happy on how it has made me feel. Next I’ll try to apply this method to working on my creative passion projects 🤞

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Bubbling under

🗽 New York City — feeling a pull that will hopefully materialise in me going there again soon.

🖲️ 3D printing — I’ve had a Bambu Lab P1S hovering in my shopping cart for a while now. Looking for the final push to ordering it and start experimenting.

Thanks for reading!

Juho

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