Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. On the 3rd June, the rock climber Alex Honnold became the first person to climb El Capitan (3,000 ft!) without a rope. It's an insane and remarkable achievement, and surely one of the greatest human accomplishments of all time.
    
2. Not your average cover, Orkestra Obsolete perform New Order's Blue Monday using 1930s instruments.
    
3. Get 5% Better. A great read from the Farnam Street blog (one of my favourites) on the power of incremental progress — "[I]f I can get 5% wiser and better every year, then I will be about twice as wise as I am now in less than 15 years." 
    
4. Changing Time, a documentary on the legendary drummer Jojo Mayer and his band Nerve is currently streaming for free on Youtube. He's a fascinating and inspiring guy, and the documentary gives a good insight into what it takes to be a performer at his level. Recommended viewing for musicians and music fans.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Tame Impala's Let It Happen. It's in essence a pop song, but unlike the vast majority of pop songs, it clocks in at just under 8 minutes long! 

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I'm a big fan of Jojo Mayer (as I wrote here), so when I stumbled across this documentary on him on YouTube I watched it immediately! 

He's a really inspiring guy and musician. If you get a spare 50 minutes and want to learn about one of the greatest drummers to ever live, this would be an excellent place to start.

Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. Fun fact: zebra jumping spiders have a "thing" for green laser pointers and can see the moon.
    
2. The School Of Life asks "are you getting enough sleep?"
    
3. Beethoven and the difference between genius and talent: "Genius has to be founded on major talent, but it adds a freshness and wildness of imagination, a raging ambition, an unusual gift for learning and growing, a depth and breadth of thought and spirit, an ability to make use of not only your strengths but also your weaknesses, an ability to astonish not only your audience but yourself."
    
4. Bill Gates ponders "What If People Run Out of Things to Do?" in his review of Yuval Noah Harari's new book Homo Deus. His last book Sapiens is excellent so I'm looking forward to reading his newest one.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Gaunt by Kiasmos. I just booked tickets to see them play Erased Tapes' ten year anniversary show later in the year and I can't wait!

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Kind Of Blue

Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. What happens in the brain when someone improvises? Musician and researcher Charles Limb put jazz musicians and rappers into an fMRI to find out.
    
2. Last week, NASA's Juno spacecraft completed its first close flyby of Jupiter. The data it's sent back to earth has revealed Jupiter has a few surprises in store...
    
3. I was very sad to hear the author Denis Johnson died last week. His collection of short stories, Jesus's Son, is one of my favourites: Denis Johnson’s Perfect Short Story.
    
4. Billy Collins on finding your voice.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is The Look by Metronomy. It's from their excellent album The English Riviera. I'm a big fan of the music video and that keyboard sound!

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The Basilica of Saints Justus and Pastor

Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. Channel 4 has a new series called The Trial. The idea behind the show is rather clever: "In a pioneering series that reveals the inner workings of the legal system, a fictional murder case is tried in a real court, by eminent legal professionals and a jury of 12 members of the public". I really liked the first episode so will most probably watch the rest of the series.
    
2. Drummer's have their quirks, and so it appears do drum books. Drumset = You is an entertaining look at the eccentricities contained within the pages of drum method books. This quote was the highlight for me: "A tree has an organic shape, and I can play that shape on the drums. I can play like a bear moving, like a bird flying, or like children rolling in the grass " — erm what?!
    
3. This is pretty cool: "The Autocanonizer ... takes any song and tries to make a canon out of it". Some songs work better than others, but my favourite is the autocanonized version of Over The Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. 
    
4. I'm currently reading Creating Freedom by Raoul Martinez. It's a powerful, thought provoking book that explores the notion of freedom and how "We are far less free than we like to think." It's currently free on Kindle, I recommend you download a copy.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Disparate Youth by Santigold and it's a teensy bit different from previous week's picks. I'm not really sure how best to describe the song, except that it has a great drum beat and that it's a good song to listen to now the sun is out! Have a listen and see what you think.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.