🥄✨The Nexialist #0264
moon tree | carnaval | bad bunny’s historical show | why make art atm | creative generalists | des mythos | cook | perils of hyper-literacy | the truth about lie detectors | fart-pride or fart-shame?
welcome to your weekly scroll’n’read zine, the nexialist
hey, you! i hope this message finds you well. i’m back in são paulo for a couple of weeks until my beautiful boyfriend comes to visit and we go together to buenos aires. i’m feeling so recharged to spend time with my parents and sister, eating delicious homemade food and getting some sun and swimming. what else do we need… now i’ll mindfully (i hope) enjoy some carnaval this weekend to get my soul fully recharged. now, i’ll leave you to it. enjoy 🫀✨
⏮️ time-machine: best brainsparks on this day over the past years:
the beating heart, escape economy, capitalists killed the internet, the new rules of youth culture, limitarianism, mono no aware, (tn#212), riding cupids, theriocephaly, carnaval’s highlights, pornhub’s 2023 year in review (tn#160), like our parents, crossing the chasm, the MAYA principle, futures garden, idiolect, echolalia (tn#107), Multiamory RADAR, Love Languages, Naked Chills, Eroticism and Self-care (tn#57), Saudade, Monogamy, Explained, (Non)Monogamy, Relationship Anarchy, Social Serendipity, Culture of Proximity, BDSM Test (tn#6)
🌕 moon trees
the synchronicity/coincidence this week was that one of my favorite podcasts Rádio Novelo Apresenta, which i listen to religiously, featured the exact city i’ve been in for the past few weeks visiting my parents: santa rosa, in the rio grande do sul state. (for the portuguese speakers, the episode is called desbravadores).
the small city is known for xuxa (our 80s/90s queen of the children), taffarel (one of brazil’s goalkeepers) and now, vilson cembranel, the paisagist who helped rescue a languishing tree. in 1971, many seeds were taken to orbit around the moon by apollo 14 and they wanted to see if there was any impact on the seed growth. they distributed the seeds, and one of them, a sequoia, ended up in santa rosa. they call them moon trees.
brainsparks: dark sky zoo (tn#252), brazil’s barbie (tn#252)
✨carnaval
it’s that time of the year and i’m so happy to be in brazil for this carnaval. while these days i’ve been in a small city in the south of brazil where carnaval is not celebrated, the coverage on tv (which i’m also not used to having on like my parents do) is so grandiose, playful, and important.
i don’t know if it’s my algorithm and my current geolocation, but i feel like every year the world is discovering and desiring carnaval more and more. people sharing tips and experiences in other languages, and telling how it is: chaotic, cathartic, fun AND we need to be safe and attentive. wishing all of us who will “jump” this carnaval a delicious celebration.
brainsparks: brazilian kissing culture (tn#262), collectivity as a technology (tn#260), stay horny (tn#260), the right to party (tn#7), jumping carnaval (tn#109)
🇵🇷bad bunny’s historical show
i got chill after chill watching bad bunny’s presentation at the superbowl halftime show. it was filled with references, symbolism, storytelling (c’mon, the kid sleeping at a makeshift bed in the corner), and a geography lesson/reminder. more than that, it was filled with collectivity, love and meaning, and a simple but timely message: the only thing more powerful than hate is love. bad bunny (and his huge crew) twerked the zeitgeist.
there are several analyses on the internet, for the right reasons, and that’s what happens when artists know what they’re doing. remember residente’s this is not america (tn#63). i just hope people understand the weight of his show at this moment. this kind of depth and intention is what makes an artist.
Bad Bunny isn’t staging a demonstration. He is taking the most American stage on earth and turning it into a baile, a party that proves you don’t need permission to belong.
And the party is the political act, because what “belongs to but is not part of” does, over 125 years, is deny that the center of the celebration is yours. You can work here, serve here, pay here. But the main event? That’s not for you.
brainsparks: this is not america (tn#63), collectivity as a technology (tn#260), scenius aka communal genius (tn#31), the right to party (tn#7), bad bunny: tiny desk (tn#220), world music (tn#252), beat diaspora (tn#125), gregarious (tn#16), social and cultural infrastructure (tn#225), rice hypothesis (tn#259), artistry + world building (tn#192)
🎨why make art atm
writer amie mcnee’s ted talk is quite a necessary one. why make art when the world is on fire? when ai is making “art” cheaper, quicker, “better”? and she has so many great points. my favorite is this one:
Another beautiful reason to create is because it reclaims your most valuable resource which has been robbed of us. And that’s our attention. In a society that profits from you being stuck on your phone, giving your attention to art is a rebellious act.
she has also great reminders: we are all artists. we don’t need to become a world-famous artist. and art is not only playing the piano or painting a canvas, it takes so many shapes. let’s make our projects happen, it’s important.
brainsparks: thick imagination (tn#223), craft is rebellion (tn#223), craftivist manifesto (tn#178), play-full future (tn#121), culture is not an industry (tn#203)
🧠 creative generalists
Maria Clara Villas shared this post by michelle higa fox for it’s nice that: “The future belongs to the creative generalists: The more AI can do, the more creatives need to develop a generalist mindset towards building skills.” fox writes such a great piece of advice, for us to stay open to learn new skills, even not related to our craft. while there’s a fatalist mindset for art with the dominance of ai, this brought some peace and reassurance.
This is because AI gives us infinite options at a speed and volume that makes the act of creation feel very different. With infinite options at our disposal, far more emphasis is placed on the question of why you picked this one solution, what led you to this one outcome. With AI entering creative workflows, discernment is becoming even more critical, and discernment only comes through understanding your craft and building those foundations.
brainsparks: the vanishing designer (tn#81), hedgehog vs fox approach (tn#130), what is a nexialist, reworking, referencing, releasing (tn#125), randomizing your research (tn#72), the hidden networks of everything (#126), scientist (tn#169), writing with probabilistic machines (tn#255)
👁️ des mythos
if you want to hijack my attention, please do so as beautifully as this. such stunning and creative costumes, colors, imagery, everything. theodora is a french-congolese artist who is new for me (thanks victor, for sharing), and her latest videos are all so good. in this video, the art direction is by melchior leroux.
brainsparks: welcome to namaste (tn#249), most creative time ever (tn#183), sever the blight (tn#187)
🥄cook
sofi tukker is a duo that has appeared here many times. i’ve been to their concert 2-3 times and it’s always a fun party. this new banger features colombian artist j balvin and mixes big drums, indie guitar sounds and the final phrase fits perfectly here:
cooking is the act of transforming raw elements into art
brainsparks: bread (tn#188), cafuné (tn#3), hey homie (tn#183), one on one (tn#151)
👓 the perils of hyper-literacy
sorry, but when i see a hyper-anything term i have to click, and it rarely disappoints. i thought it was going to be a quick read, but alastair benn challenged me with words and references i didn’t know, so it was refreshing. recently, i posted about the post-literate society (tn#260), so this comes as a complement.
To be genuinely literate is also to know that the well-rounded person of culture must be equally at home in the musical and the visual arts, through which the word is reformulated and occasionally perfected. Words are powerful – but they lose force if not harnessed with skill by writers with the imagination to see beyond them.
brainsparks: post-literate society (tn#260), hyperstition (tn#262), hyper-optimization (tn#210), hypernormalization (tn#210), hyperpunditry (tn#224), hyperindustry of the artificial imaginary (tn#118)
🤥the truth about lie detectors
i always wonder how reliable these polygraph machines are (even if i enjoy watching the shows that use them). howtown made a whole piece about it and it’s a great watch. humans are pretty bad at detecting lies (we are more gullible/trusting and think most things are true).
i love how they used lab data and crunched data from the british gameshow ‘would i lie to you’ where celebrities tell stories, and they show the same data. there is even some involvement of wonder woman’s lasso of truth and and in-depth investigation about superman’s david corenswet’s height.
brainsparks: distributed trust (tn#81), naked truth (tn#13), truth windows (tn#165)
💨 fart-pride or fart-shame?
juan shared this with me and it’s been in my mind, especially as i’m back home in family dynamics: did you grow up in a fart-pride or fart-shame household? the tiktok debate became a real compatibility test for couples. jenna ryu goes in the realm of psychoanalyzing flatulence, in case you haven’t done that yourself before. and it turns out to be quite interesting (and a great conversation starter for your next date — or not).
Beyond cultural context and personal sensitivities, however, the unspoken “fart rules” of your childhood home can seemingly shape much more than your sense of bathroom etiquette. According to mental health experts, they can be a bigger representation of how you handle embarrassment, how you express vulnerability, how you get along with potential partners, and even how secure you feel in your most human, “imperfect” moments.
brainsparks: why do we have butts? (tn#27)
see you next week, carnavalescas 🫀✨
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