It’s newsletter time again & today I decided to start a new series on this publication where I share my top 10 ideas of the week. This comprises everything from quotes to books, articles, movies, music & whatever cool stuff I come across each week, staying true to this publication & its tagline — ideas that shape the universe.
My inner physics geek was very intrigued by this story on AEON of what the late great theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking called his ‘most surprising discovery’. The piece was about his equation that could “predict correctly that all black holes… continually emit radiation”. It’s the equation written on Hawking’s tombstone & his discovery of what’s known as ‘Hawking Radiation’ & the entire story behind it from Newton & Einstein to Oppenheimer, Heisenberg, Penrose & Wheeler & how it could “reconcile quantum mechanics and gravity”, the two most pervading 20th-century breakthroughs in physics.
Perhaps one of the coolest things about this week was finding out that there’s a new film on Bob Dylan in the works. Timothee Chalamet who in an interview with his Dune co-star Zendaya said, “You could be the master of your fate, you could be the captain of your soul.” “But you have to realize that life is coming from you and not at you, and that takes time.” plays Bob Dylan. I read the post on Vulture, where it claimed that the actor was hoarding unreleased outtakes of rare Bob Dylan recordings; it also claimed that he’s actually singing in the movie as opposed to dubbed voiceovers. You can read the rundown on The Guardian as well. The trailer looks cool too. The film is called ‘A Complete Unknown’ from the lyrics of Dylan’s song ‘Like A Rolling Stone’. A movie to watch out for when it releases.
Sticking to film & a bit of science & culture, AEON also shared a brilliant short film by a filmmaker named Yuge Zhou called ‘Moon Drawings’. As they’ve written in the post it’s an ‘autobiographical piece, which Zhou, who was born in China and is now based in Chicago, conceived while being unable to visit her family in Beijing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic” & that it “is very much rooted in human connection; in particular, the longing its absence can create.”
This thought-provoking excerpt from a book by Glennon Doyle, called Untamed an old friend posted on Facebook was a necessary reminder as we get older. She is an old friend from my junior college days who I haven’t caught up with in a very long time, but she keeps sharing some interesting anecdotes online. The book by Doyle has earned rave reviews online from a lot of women particularly considering the book’s topic. But this popped up on my feed & was a thoughtful reflective piece on life, parenthood & mortality. As the author puts it, the ‘ache’ that tells us, “This ends: so stay”.
I’m not someone for vigorous self-promotion because I find it rather exhausting. I prefer subtle posts, not too regular & I’d much rather share knowledge & art as a way of expressing myself but I recently concluded a film score for an international film composing competition called the IFMC or Indie Film Music Contest. The film I scored was a short animation called Shopping Trip directed by Barry Wilkinson. It was again, like Moon Drawings, envisioned during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can find my score for the clip in the YouTube video below. You can follow my channel if you’d like — it’s where I post all my film scores.
One of my favourite experimental jazz bands Bad Bad Not Good have dropped their latest LP which is after a few years. I’ve written about BBNG in an old post on my main Medium blog, much before I branched out to Substack. They’re a definitive jazz outfit in the experimental jazz scene. I’m only halfway through the album called “Mid Spiral” which has 18 tracks on 3 disks. Some tracks I like from it are “Sunday Afternoon’s Dream”, “Your Soul & Mine”, and “Playgroup” & they’ve got some guitars on the tracks now as well; I don’t know who’s on lead guitar. But this album is an interesting effort & the latest evolution in the band’s sound.
Sticking a bit to the jazz theme. This video essay about legendary jazz saxophone player John Coltrane was pretty interesting. I’ve bookmarked it for a separate article as well but it essentially explains the intersection of Western & Eastern music & explores the influence they had on each other including the profound impact it had on Coltrane & his own spiritual journey. The intersection of Hindustani classical music & jazz was particularly compelling while the video’s author also talks about the philosophical & spiritual underpinnings & influences it had on Coltrane & several musicians from the ‘50s and ‘60s.
I dabble in economics from time to time for an informed economic worldview. Economists are a breed of their own, just ask Greece’s Minister of Economics Yanis Varoufakis who proposed ‘techno-feudalism’. That was a bold prediction but it did reflect on how capitalism has morphed into the spooky techno-feudalism. But this article in The Economist suggests easing relations & ties between India & China. The article outlines easing tensions between both countries on the Indo-China border & stats like “India’s imports from China increased to $102bn (about 56% more than in 2020) out of a total $118bn in bilateral trade. India’s trade deficit with China has risen by around 75% since 2020.”
And “Commercial ties look set to expand further in the coming years, as Indian and Chinese companies form joint manufacturing ventures in India, which will probably import machinery and components from China. Many of these ventures involve big and influential Indian companies. They are also in industries such as electrical vehicles and mobile-phone assembly that the government is subsidising to boost manufacturing.”Narendra Modi has been slightly indifferent to relations with China as per the report above, but interdependency for business is driving the easing relations between both countries. But anyway, I thought I’d add a meme to this post. Someone cheekily made this hilarious gif/video of Narendra Modi playing the guitar. I had to share it!
Finally concluding, a few of my college batchmates & I kicked off our very own podcast on football called The Famous Banter FC Football Podcast. It’s just three of us ex-teammates from the MIT, Manipal football team laughing, joking & talking about all things football with a lot of banter. If you’re into football or know someone who is, do check out our podcast & give it a follow on Spotify.
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for this series called ‘Ideas Of The Week’ every week, only on my publication Light Years!
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