I will mix 2 cups of soft, full fat ice cream with 1.5 cups of all purpose flour and 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder. I will spread it in a greased loaf pan and bake it at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Sourdough, it is not. And I cannot wait! I have Daughter to thank for this adventure, among others.
She found B Dylan Holis online last year, and we are both big fans. He has a music degree and lives, I think, in Wyoming. He posts brief, hilarious, informative, and educational baking videos on TikTok, and cross posts on YouTube. Recipes come from vintage periodical cookbooks and community compilations, many from the early 20th Century. Sometimes he records extended versions of his most popular videos, with deeper explanations of recipe origins and historical food culture. I love BDH because he is at once respectful and irreverent, knowledgeable and curious. And he’s fun. All of his videos are experiments. Some recipes turn out as gross as we anticipate, and some surprise us. Check him out, I bet you’ll like his work.
Daughter also loves Overly Sarcastic Productions, or OSP. ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ are friends and the primary narrators and animators. “We make videos about myths, literature, and history — because learning can, in fact, actually be enjoyable, despite what prior experiences might have shown you.” Daughter plays the videos in the car, the kitchen, the living room. Once again, respectful irreverence rules, as well as sharp wit and lightning fast history and literature lessons. Their Pope Fights series especially fascinated Daughter, and provided rich context when we watched TheBorgias on Netflix this past summer.
We also admire Hank Green, who posts videos on all things biology, science, and history. He aims his YouTube content at both teachers and students, but it’s his TikToks that we love–little diatribes about random things, and almost always funny and informative. It’s just wonderful that creative, smart, and effectively communicative people now, in the 21st Century, have easy access to expansive platforms to educate and entertain. We just have to be discerning about our consumption.
Finally, check out Cinema Therapy! Alan and Jonathan, a filmmaker and licensed therapist, respectively, are also old college friends who love watching and talking about movies. Their videos parse out stereotypes, tropes, relationship dynamics, communication skills, and overall filmmaking wonderness, all with laughter and pragmatism for application in real life. They elevate our awareness of things we take for granted in entertainment, making us more thoughtful and conscious consumers of our movies.
It’s harder every year to put down our devices. Media abounds, and it’s too easy to let FoMO drive our lives, getting stuck scrolling through meaningless, valueless drivel. I think Daughter has found some worthwhile programs, though. We do our best to moderate. She has expanded my world, and I am grateful.
I get one almost every morning, a song that starts playing in my head, repeating lightly in the transom between conscious thoughts and brushing teeth. How fascinating! Apparently for some people it’s annoying, even distressing, but I like it, especially when it inspires me to dance a little. Music makes me happy.
And remember Band Aid? I still love their single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” In sixth grade we learned “We Are the World” in sign language and performed it for our parents. Many of you likely recall these songs. What you may not know is that pop singers in Taiwan also did a similar project, “明天會更好”, “Tomorrow will be even better.” This one makes me especially emotional because Ma and Ba had always played the individual artists’ songs in our house. Tsai Chin‘s voice is especially distinctive and recognizable, and thus nostalgic for our whole family. All of these collaborative songs, but the Chinese one in particular, evoked a sense of being part of something bigger–something global–decades before the internet led us to take that feeling for granted. They still do this for me, in a deeper way.
Thanks to my kids, I also discover new (to me) music every week. Daughter has introduced me to K-pop, so my playlist now includes BTS and Blackpink. She and I are big fans of Oscar Isaac; did you know he sings, too? I added at least 5 songs from theTo All the Boys soundtrack, and I liked the movie, too. I discovered One Voice Children’s Choir’s version of “Memories”, then Son/Daughter showed me the original by Maroon 5; they’re both great!
*sigh* I so love my playlist. It’s eclectic, personal, and joyful. I play it shuffled, so I never know what’s coming next, and it always makes me happy. Other drivers may often see me bopping along Lake Shore Drive…
Music. Such a phenomenal thing. Thanks to iheart11 over at Passion…Unbridled, once again, for inspiring another of my 30 posts for November. I hope you have clicked on some of the artists/songs above and found uplift today. Life is too short to not hear something good every day, whenever possible.
Healing Through Connection 