They call it parading
In the latest episode of the podcast (number 174 but who’s counting? We are! We are counting!) Ted and Adam get caught up in the world’s complexity. Reflecting on something refreshingly simple, Ted wrote a little bit about a stalwart staple: the Nalgene water bottle. | Nalgene Therapy
Katherine May has written the book Enchantment about how to fill your life with wonder and awe. The New York Times asked her for some tips and the first one is "Commit to noticing the world around you."
I didn't know just how much joy there was in this notebook habit when we started the podcast, but I think we've learned it along the way. Just as I was writing these sentences, I jotted down a man's order in the coffeeshop: "Coffee with a few ice cubes in it so I can drink it right away. And room for cream." And when you write it down, there's a lot of joy in a horrible coffee order.
The director Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure, The Square, and The Triangle of Sadness) scrounges up details for his dark and hilarious films anywhere he can. He is "vigilant at all times to find dialogue and characters to include." Östlund focuses on making scenes that can stand on their own and compete with the compelling images on YouTube, which he feels often amazes audiences more often than cinema. Collecting the embarrassing and awkward moments from real life and building these scenes must be a kind of enchantment as well. I'd like to see his notebook.
Recently, I've committed to paying more attention to the weather in my notebook. I remember years ago reading David McCullough's 1776 and being very frustrated by how much of the book and American patriot's success seem tied to the weather. While reading Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise recently, I ridiculed the idea of Arnold Schoenberg creating a weather diary because he believed cloud formations could indicate future German success in World War I. Of course, as a notebook obsessive, I was tempted by a new reason to use my notebook and the realization that I don't pay any attention to what many of the numbers on a standard weather app mean. So for the time being, I'm going to jot down the barometric pressure, humidity, and wind speed in my notebook. I know this habit is unlikely to stick. But in the meantime, I always like an excuse to open my notebook.
Ted and I plan to discuss The Rest is Noise in a future episode – and I expect the conversation will focus on our marginalia. I was reminded of how I've been interacting with that book when I saw Austin Kleon write about "Books as Toys" last week.