036 - bear season 2 and ear worms 🪱
when all else fails just light a match
Hello friends! Its August, and the best month ever IMO (not at all because its my birthday month), but the summer feeling seems to get into its real groove in this month. As it was my dad’s birthday this past week, I found this playlist that makes me think of him and home, so here are some old malaysian songs (fr) for you to listen to for this week’s issue. ⚡️
The Bear SEASON 2 Is beautiful (spoiler free) 🐻 😻
Oh I know I’m “late” to this party, but I just got The Bear on my Disney Plus, and i binged it in its entirety this past week. it was amazing. I felt a bit apprehensive watching it after a hectic weekend because last season was full of intensity, and anxiety. But I was pleasantly surprised. It was full of all types of emotion, good, bad, typical anxiety of the bear, but also truly wholesome and calm moments you get when you watch cooking shows with your aunt or mum, or by yourself. It left me wanting more, but also reflecting on how we commit ourselves to work and passion. It made me feel I was watching Ted Lasso, but how The Bear would do Ted Lasso.
It made me think about how sometimes we get stuck on what to do, what to make, that the problem isn’t in looking into the problem further but looking outside of the problem. So many moments of the Bear forced me to just relax, and made me feel that I was in the conversation with them. I was just a friend watching other friends talk about what really matters to them. And it wasn’t just me, apparently everyone wanted to be on the show.
Episode highlights: Episode 4 Honeydew, which was a work of art, and “ a beautiful palate cleanser”, that was also directed by Ramy Youssef (Ramy)! Episode 7 Forks was truly “a beautiful mind-fork”.
FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVEN’T WATCHED BEAR S2 DO NOT CLICK ON THIS: Will Poulter’s speech on getting better at things 🎤
Ear worms or Involuntary Music Imagery (INMI) 🪱
A friend and I were humming an annoying song that we would never admit to people that we actually liked. But it made me think about how people add things to their songs like MSG, to make everyone chant along, and hum them, even if we would never tell people. Also I feel like most people already know about this all, but I wanted to look it up anyways.
Earworms rely on brain networks that are involved in perception, emotion, memory and spontaneous. And whats happening is that after your brain has heard a song, the same area that has heard it is still processing it. its like your brain is still listening to the song, but you’re just not actually hearing it. “It doesn’t matter what the music is as long as repetition is part of the music structure”, and recency and familiarity with the music is also a factor. But, to be able to activate an earworm, you’ve got to be in a low attentional state. And apparently chewing gum can help stop get that song from being stuck because it interferes with your articulatory motor programming related to music cognition. More: Debunking the myths of earworms
And ending off with a thought starter this Friday: The Race to Innocence 😇
This is a wonderful video about this an academic article: “The race to innocence”
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thoughts?
field notes 🏑
For those who have watched The BEAR S2, here are some more hilarious tweets, that take you through the emotions that you went through, and probably I went through as well. Also on a different issue, I’d love to unpack how we view different cuisines through a eurocentric lens, but for now here is the science behind how Fufu (this West African dish) is made,
Billie, the shaving brand launched a boardgame which looks at the real life challenges of being a woman,
For the last eight years, Singaporean Youths in Balaclava have been making their mark in the fashion world. They've carved out a niche with their emphasis on grungy electropop streetwear and made a notable debut at Paris Fashion week last year. They are so subculture that, this year, when filming a faux heist for their most recent collection in Paris, people thought they were actually robbing the store and the actual police turned up. I mean Balenciaga could never…
How movie theaters are Essential and why we need to treasure them,
I know I talked about barbie, but everyone’s commentary on barbie is really giving this “Nothing can just be anymore” . But of course consider it in the wider narrative of what it means to have a story written from the female perspective etc etc. But does everything have to have purpose nowadays? or are we so devoid of purpose? “Barbie wasn’t a great symbol, but she’s a great mirror”,
What is Europhobia for us?
And on that note, an old op-ed about the strange history of California Surfers…
Prada just launched into the beauty space, and if you’re wondering why so many luxury brands are coming into the beauty brand, here’s a quick why,
Girl Dinner move aside, its time for girl maths…This podcast has a whole segment dedicated to it, so listen to this version where they bring in a (not girl) economist to talk about #girlmaths,
Josh Akapo (Co-founder of archtype) on that Mayor of London’s #Maaate campaign,
How anticipation has become culture,
Sandy Liang’s new Baggu collaboration and its commentary on immigrants,
Also, the only brawl that people are talking about this week and The Black History of the Montgomery Brawl Folding Chair.