Every time I saw a movie or Disney movies or heard your voices or saw you, I was like 'oh, magic is from people.' We're the ones who kind of, in a weird way, tell a story or a lie to children so they do stuff that we never thought was possible,” he continued. “My dad used to tell me every day 'you can do anything you want' and I remember thinking as a kid in first grade, 'You're lying to me.' But now I do stuff, and he's like 'I didn't think that was possible.'
Independence doesn’t necessarily mean you have a frictionless channel between author and reader. Independence has its own systems, its own gatekeepers. Instead of working with agents or publicists, you’re working with the sales rep at the printer, or the approval process at Kickstarter, or InDesign or e-pub formatting guidelines set by an international committee. —Jack Cheng
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Burn your fucking name in every moment you touch [gallery size=full ids=‘1270’ columns=1]
—via my friend “Drunken Soberness” whom I’ve met digitally many years ago on Tumblr.
Her Tumblr/blog has continuously been a source of inspiration and reflection to me.
Two weeks ago, I went to watch Tom Ford’s sophomore movie ‘Nocturnal Animals’ at my local arthouse theatre.
It feels like 2016-2017 is a great time to go to the local cinema. Here’s what I wrote on my Letterboxd profile:
The overall story isn't what's impressive here. It's the ambiance, the acting, and Tom Ford's execution, direction and the way in which it all turns out, that haunts you! I haven’t seen Tom Ford’s first movie as a director, a motion picture entitled ‘A Single Man’, but Nocturnal Animals has left kind of a mark on me and I’ve continued to think about this movie for an entire week after watching it.
Happy New Year dear blog readers!
I don’t know about you, but it’s been incredibly busy, over here. Between the end of the year, a big family vacation (have you seen the latest vlogs? If not you should subscribe to my Youtube channel 😉), and new work projects, it’s been hard to find the time to write this blog post.
But we’re back to that time of year, when we’re back and planning for the months ahead.
As you may know, I’ve taken a long winter holiday with my family this year —and took my GoPro with me. Over the coming weeks, I’ll share the vlogs, so let’s get started with the first video (out of 4 or 5 in total).
You’ll notice that they’re all in French, but I’m going to try and improve and add subtitles for y’all where needed.
For this first part, we started our journey over in Cambodia, visiting the iconic temples in the region of Angkor and Siem Reap.
It’s been great to catchup with my friend (and former Realmac colleague) Elliot over the past few weeks. Now, the man himself is back to blogging, and I was especially interested in sharing his thoughts about going independent and working for yourself:
"Going independent isn’t a decision to be taken lightly, even if you already have an income source outside of your day job. If you haven’t, the income-less months before your product ships will take an even heavier toll on your bank account.
It’s a new year.
As I’ve mentioned on the past, last year was a terrible one in the world, and one filled with ups and downs on a personal level. I’m still globally worried for 2017 however on a personal level, I’m aiming to go bigger and better, starting with more travelling.
In fact, if everything goes well, I’ll be travelling to 6 new countries over the span of 8 months.
After a long night of sleep, and a quick breakfast, we went to visit a local market with Colored Hmongs minorities. We also went to the Vietnamese-Chinese border, before heading back to Lao Cai to grab the night train. As a quick aside, I’ve been listening to #RivieraDetente on the way to the first stop this morning.
We’ve arrived in Lao Cai station at 5:30am. In this 8h+ night train ride, I’ve slept for approximately 1.5 of them. It’s gonna be interesting going for a 6h-long hike today.
It was great to hear about these minorities and discover the local rural communities and rice fields!
After the long hike, we explored the touristy town of Sapa, which got really foggy in the early evening!
Exploring Hanoi As I’ve mentioned yesterday, I feel kind of at home/at peace in the ambiant chaos of Hanoi. I kinda wonder what Life in Saigon must be like now. It feels like the generation of millennials who grew up in Vietnam today, with the internet, is reminiscent of the French 1980’s, a period of growth, of choices, and potential. It was great walking in the streets today, eating in local cafes by the St Joseph cathedral.
Woke up after a great/long/restful night of sleep (11pm-9am).
Went to the pool around 11-12 until 2pm and had lunch at the hotel. Then we departed to the local Siem Reap airport.
As I’m writing this, we’re on our way to Hanoi for the rest of our trip. As we landed, I’ve realized that I couldn’t quite remember our arrival at the airport he first time around.
However I noticed that my parents and uncle/aunt who have been here before all marveled at the development of the country.
Visiting a floating village 30mn away from Siem Reap.
For some obscure reason I went to bed at 10.30pm and woke up around 3:50-4am. Impossible to fall back asleep.
The author of one of my favourite novels, on a recent, alcohol-infused trip to Japan:
It was while I was traveling this summer that I first started to appreciate the hangover. There would be nights in Japan when DB and I would go out and, as one does, end up drinking a little too much. But we’d still do things the next day—go see temples and castles and museums. We’d still do more or less what we had planned.
After a long day yesterday, we went to bed at 10pm, woke up around 7am without problems. We spent the whole day visiting the temples in the Siem Reap area, including the infamous Angkor Wat temple! In the evening, we stayed in the touristic center of Siem Reap, explored the city and went to a bar located on Pub Street
As we reach the end of the year, and before I leave to go on holidays tomorrow, there’s a song that I’ve been going back to.
www.youtube.com/watch
I’m not usually one for retrospects but this year has been eventful to say the least. Between the end of a long relationship, having been back here in the south of France for over a year, and preparing my next adventures, it’s been eventful to say the least.
It’s official, my bags & boxes are packed : I’m moving out!
youtu.be/G1_2kiC5A…
Parisian Vlogs: Part I Part II Part III Podcast: Coming soon via: http://Digest.digital
Paris Part III Enjoy the final part of my parisian adventures, with two concerts:
Phantogram live at Le Petit Bain John Carpenter live at Le Grand Rex! youtu.be/dFyn20hi8…
I’ve been a fan of Abel Tesfaye, the Toronto-based artist known as The Weeknd, for the past 4 years or so. With the release of his new album Starboy, I thought I’d take the time to write an article about him, and make a counter point to what I’ve been hearing around me.
Back in 2015, I wrote (in French) about how excited I was about Trevor Noah's Daily Show. I had seen enough episodes of the iconic Jon Steward show to know that it was something I liked, but not enough to be an unconditional fan angered at the new host. And I noticed that some of the people I followed were getting involved.
Fast-forward to 2016, where after a couple of months after the hype, critics have gone against Noah for being too soft, too different, too stale, compared to the previous version of the show.
Today, the entire editorial board at the NYTimes got together to discuss the global issues affected by a Trump presidency, in a very comprehensive manner.
From my friend Lindsey, an American friend who’s my go-to for new food/coffee/drinks places to go to in Paris. She’s a regular NYTimes contributor, and has written this piece for Refinery29. In it, she discusses why now more than ever is the best time to visit Paris, with a nod to last year’s devastating attacks.
Ultimately, the best way for any of us to move on and honor the victims was to keep living out our lives in concert halls, restaurants, bars, and public spaces, and not immure ourselves in our homes in grief.
Ignore the health warnings, the sage advice, the calorie counters, the sleep addicts: Every great bar is a breath of paradise, and the best ones know, in their gleaming surfaces, what Proust meant when he said that the true paradises are the paradises we have lost. [≠]
I’ve had this as a draft for a couple of weeks, but considering certain recent events, I feel we could all use some good vibes right about now…
youtu.be/2AChGszRG…
via Common at Tiny Desk | Matt Mullenweg
One of the best movies I’ve ever seen. There was simply so much heart in this film, and I feel like everyone absolutely should see it at some point!
“It’s a fairly simple plot but Matt Ross’ debut film is so dense with metaphor that you can read it on any of a number of levels.” [Source]
Really grateful that I got to collaborate on this article with Remotive, the community of remote workers that I’ve been a part of for many months, now!
This article is all about how remote workers disconnect or recharge their batteries when working remotely. Some great insights from 9 different people, myself included.
My answer:
I’m lucky enough to be a remote freelancer living in the South of France (insert cliche of the sun, the beach, and a colourful cocktail!