Read: Water, Wood, and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town by Hannah Kirshner
Kirshner writes with care and warmth about her time in rural Japan apprenticing under a great saké expert, and the unexpected intersections between nature, work, and community. We love the comforting, unplugged feeling that still incites reflection on the learning process and the boundaries between business and leisure. Kirshner’s storytelling is open and unpretentious, letting us into a world that not many get to experience.
From the publisher:
“An immersive journey through the culture and cuisine of one Japanese town, its forest, and its watershed–where ducks are hunted by net, saké is brewed from the purest mountain water, and charcoal is fired in stone kilns–by an American writer and food stylist who spent years working alongside artisans.”
“Taking readers deep into evergreen forests, terraced rice fields, and smoke-filled workshops, Kirshner captures the centuries-old traditions still alive in Yamanaka. Water, Wood, and Wild Things invites readers to see what goes into making a fine bowl, a cup of tea, or a harvest of rice and introduces the masters who dedicate their lives to this work. Part travelogue, part meditation on the meaning of work, and full of her own beautiful drawings and recipes, Kirshner’s refreshing book is an ode to a place and its people, as well as a profound examination of what it means to sustain traditions and find purpose in cultivation and craft.”
Watch: Future Library: A Century Unfolds
The Future Library Project was started by artist Katie Paterson and centers around the idea that we are not only making the world a better place for ourselves and our children to live in but for generations to come. For the next century, starting in 2014, the project chooses one author per year to contribute a work that will not be read until the year 2114. These books will be published on paper made from a thousand trees currently growing in a Norwegian forest. Visitors to the Oslo Public Library can currently view the manuscripts, but not their contents, in the Silent Room on the library’s top floor.
Listen to: All of This Will End | Indigo De Souza
Ever since going viral with her song “Boys,” in 2016, Brazilian-American singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza has been creating music that is both soft and angsty, with punchy, heartfelt lyrics. The singer’s third album has a more mature edge than her first two, even as it admits that she still doesn’t know everything about everything and that “I’m a growing girl my ups and downs are natural.” The first song, “Time Back,” feels like waking up from a deep slumber, energized but still tired and slightly disoriented. We go through ups and downs along with De Souza before a shift arrives mid-album with the affirmation, “Who gives a fuck? All of this will end.” This yields to a certain emotional freedom and the finale, “Younger and Dumber” recognizes both how far she’s come and how far she still has to go.
Listen on Apple Music and Spotify
–Emma Kendall
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