Friday Five: December 10, 2021
Everybody's twerkin' for the weekend
Welcome to the Friday Five, your weekly roundup of content that will make you laugh, smile, sigh in gratitude, or and/or feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. You deserve it.
Song: This week’s song is “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears. This isn’t my one of typical choices, it’s more intense than my often overtly joyful tunes. The song was written in 1984 as a response to the Cold War and frustrations with global leaders, with one half of the duo saying “the concept is quite serious. It’s about everybody wanting power, about warfare and the misery it causes.” This concept and these lyrics still feel pretty timely thirty-seven years later. The first thirty seconds will always feel cathartic to me, building up to the iconic opening lines: “Welcome to your life / There's no turning back.” Timeless!
Art: IKB 79 by Yves Klein. This is one of almost two hundred blue monochrome paintings Yves Klein made, starting in 1947. Klein felt monochrome painting was an “open window to freedom, as the possibility of being immersed in the immeasurable existence of color.” IKB stands for International Klein Blue, an ultramarine pigment that Klein devised and trademarked (and my favorite color, also known as Yves Klein Blue!). Klein believed this color represented pure space, or cosmic energy that couldn’t be seen or touched, floating freely in the air. This blue will always stop me in my tracks. I feel drawn to it in a way that I can’t explain, maybe because it reminds me of the vastness of the ocean. Just looking at it calms me, I hope it makes you feel something, too.
Historical Moment: This week marks the ninth anniversary of Ikea Monkey — the moment a stylish, but illegal, monkey was found perusing an Ikea in Toronto. It also marks nine years of me thinking about Darwin (the monkey) more often than I’d like to admit. Darwin now safely lives in a Canadian primate sanctuary, who shared that he has “grown up to be a handsome young monkey.” His favorite toy is a Curious George doll. May we all stay curious — and stylish — like Darwin.
Poem: I’m thinking a lot about Langston Hughes’s “Motto” this week. Dig and Be Dug is a simple, perfect motto, to carry you through the rest of this year.
Joyful Internet Content:
Nothing ever lasts forever,
Roya