Hello gorgeous email friends. There could be much to be miserable about, so this week I’ve been thinking about simple sources of catharsis.
🎤 The United States of Dolly Parton: A voice for working-class women and an icon for all kinds of women, Parton has maintained her star power throughout life phases and political cycles.
🤖 Virtual Influencers Make More Real Money Than Ever: Longstanding subscribers may remember my slight fascination with virtual influencers. Of course, being computer-generated makes you immune from the challenges of this year.
🎨 Paul Smith’s Foundation offers advice gathered and given by Sir Paul Smith to help you figure out how to progress your ambitions.
🖍 New exhibition showcases genius work made by children during lockdown: Remember when Boris Johnson wrote you that letter urging you to stay home, protect the NHS and… well… y’know. Kids have customised their letter as a way of articulating their feelings about the government’s handling of the crisis.
☕️ How to enjoy coffee: Smooth like chocolate or fruity like a berry, coffee has as many tastes as wine or beer – you just need to know your beans.
😇 How to stop being a perfectionist and become more productive: Parents, particularly mothers with kids at home, are markedly more stressed than non-parents during the pandemic. This article proposes a radical solution to anyone struggling with perfectionism: it’s time to be aggressively imperfect.
👩🎨 Copying is the way design works: In creativity, it isn’t always straightforward or obvious which is the original work and which is a copy, nor is it always important.
Above the fold
Early this year, I was unwell. So by the time the weirdness of March came around, I was already in isolation. To pass the time, I watched a lot of quiz shows and made origami cranes.
Last year while in Japan I spent far too much time and money in stationery stores. I bought more mechanical pencils than I’ll ever need and some packs of beautifully-patterned paper. The only trouble is I didn’t know the first thing about origami but, in this era, not knowing is no obstacle. There are plenty of good YouTube videos to get ham-fisted amateurs like me churning out competent-looking cranes fairly quickly.
As another period of isolation begins, my mind turns again to origami. I’m delighted to have found this origami simulator, an app that simulates how any origami crease pattern would fold simultaneously. But this seems like a good time to reintroduce the catharsis of paper-folding into my day. Try it!
