The First Bite
Weekly Appetizer #1
Happy Monday! If you’re reading this it means you’re one of the first Gringordo supporters. I’m super grateful for your support and participation so far. I’ve been exploring different for content, so here’s a shot at a newsletter.
This will be less about food and more about interesting things I want to share. Of course you can always whet your appetite on Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter.
With that out of the way…
Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon was a movie I didn’t know existed. Turns out, I live under a rock…it was up for Best Animated Feature. I watched with my dad last week. It has amazing graphics and a unique plot. It’s also fun to see some new themes from Southeast Asia on screen - especially when the Kali sticks, which I’ve trained with a bit. I wonder what Dan Inosanto thinks.
Austin Kleon taught me about the “Serendipity of the Stacks”. His newsletter is one of the few I really like and inspired me to make one. In large part because I would be more aware and deliberate of looking for things to share (even if I don’t know what that is). Dig deeper here.*
I recently finished Wind-Up Bird Chronicle** by Haruki Murakami and thought it was one of the best fiction books I’ve read in a long time. I generally don’t read fiction set in modern day Earth but the blend between real and imaginary kept this interesting as the mystery unwound. One quote I highlighted was “You have the right to choose your own life” **. I think this summarizes my mindset lately and is very straightforward. It’s easy to fall into a routine set by circumstance. Make sure to live how you want to. If you don’t now, when will you?
Painting is hard and I’m not good at it. I’ve swam at sunset a few times recently and thought it would be cool to capture the pink/orange/blue mix of the sun through red tinted goggles. Not knowing where to begin, I went to YouTube and stumbled across this video. If YouTube does anything well, it’s keep you humble and show you how many talented people are out there.
You’re not used to hearing from me without food, so before you go, here’s some food porn. It’s about lunch or dinner time if you’re in the States or Europe (about 95%) of you. Stay hungry :)
Extra Details
*This evokes memories of searching liner notes for musical influences. My personal favorite find is The New Transit Direction from the liner notes of The Used Self-Titled Album.
**The title in Japanese is ねじまき鳥クロニクル. I wish I could read this entirely, but I’ve only taken a few lessons of Japanese so my hiragana and katakana are pretty weak.
***Without putting in too much ennui in the first newsletter (I looked at my highlighted quotes from this book and they’re all pretty dark