Visual speak

There are different ways of telling stories.

Greetings,

I have spent a lifetime writing words and so it is my preferred form of communication, even over speaking. When email and text were created, it felt like they were created for me because I find it easier to send those than a phone call. I hate cold-calling.

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1

The emoji is the modern hieroglyph. The explosion of emojis is such that we’re getting to the point where we could have full-on conversations using emojis. My nine-year old daughter is a master of the emoji.

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2

An interesting perspective from British filmmaker Steve McQueen: We need ‘crappy’ Black films too. He is quoted as saying “film-makers of colour are still held to higher standards than their white counterparts.”

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3

I am currently reading Nick Mason’s Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, with Pink Floyd as the soundtrack. Other than the song Another Brick in The Wall and the album Dark Side of the Moon, I haven’t really explored their discography and now feel silly for having denied myself. Their experimentation with both sound and light is very much the kind of stuff that appeals to me.

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4

I collected hip hop and music magazines religiously growing up and fell in love with the writing of people who were eventually labelled ‘hip-hop writers’. One such writer was Michael A. Gonzales. He shares his journey poignantly in this Longreads essay - It’s Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer.

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5

Last year was my ‘productivity’ year. I went through a bunch of books on how to be more productive, including Nir Eyal’s Indistractable. I have been running an ongoing to-do list for some years now, scratching stuff off and adding more stuff on a weekly basis. Initially, I tried to prioritise but when your to-do list has over 100 items from work to personal, it becomes very confusing. Eyal recommends being a schedule builder, not a to-do list maker. Going to give it a shot.

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6

The revolution will be live…..

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7

I was fortunate enough to watch Linkin Park perform in Johannesburg some years back. And was saddened by Chester Bennington’s suicide in 2017. His voice was amazing; he could go from soft and gentle to primal scream in an instant. It’s already been 20 years since they released their debut album Hybrid Theory and, to celebrate that milestone, Mike Shinoda speaks on 20 years of Linkin Park and Hybrid Theory.

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That’s it for this week. Thank you to those who have commented, sent me emails, shared and subscribed. Have a great one.

Easy

Kojo