Good morning from Quito, Ecuador!
Welcome to the 8th issue of the Cultural Reads Newsletter! A bi-weekly book, music, and movie recommendation from different countries all around the world.
In this week’s newsletter: Italy, South Korea, and World Wide Tiny Desks.
This week features a book from an unusual Italian author, Marcus Aurelius.
Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and contemplated his life through journaling. These journals were personal but published post-mortem in the form of a book called Meditations. The emperor, being a stoic, shares his practical life philosophy, which is still relevant to this day.
It is crucial to know, however, that the translation matters as much as the original text. After buying my first copy of the book, I struggled to get through it. That was until I came across Gregory Hays’ translation. Hays did an incredible job transforming these ancient texts into short and powerful messages, making it an irresistibly exciting read. I don’t think anyone would regret buying this book, but if you’re not sure yet, here are two quotes as a teaser:
“Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.”
“Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already or is impossible to see. The span we live in is small—small as the corner of the earth we live in. Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead.”
Horrendous and terrific are not usually words that go together to describe a show, but they do in the case of The Squid Game.
This Netflix series could be described as the Korean Hunger Games, in which a group of heavily indebted people gets invited to compete in a series of children’s games. What they don’t know, however, is that failure means death. Despite the risks, the participants decide to join due to the lack of another way out.
It’s thrilling, gruesome, and reveals an underlying social issue around debt and the inability to discuss these topics with friends and family. The Squid Game is one of my favorite shows of 2021, but bloody and thus not for everyone.
I’m expecting that most of you already know this youtube channel, but if you don’t, you are in for a treat!
Tiny Desk is an initiative from NPR Music (an American radio channel) that invites artists for a 15-20 minute live concert. It’s an acoustic setting with great editing. In my opinion, many of the songs featured here are much better than the official Spotify versions.
During the pandemic, Tiny Desk went virtual, allowing more artists to perform. Some amazing concerts to check out are Anderson Paak (USA), Tangana (Spain), Natalia Lafourcade (Mexico), Burna Boy (Nigeria)
