Sights & Sounds: Andrea Martinez
Common Discourse is a project designed to help others (and ourselves) think through creativity, focus, and intentional work—from Alex Tan & Alice Otieno.
Every Tuesday we share words from a few ideas, a quote from somebody else, and links worth sharing. On Fridays we invite a guest to share images from their camera roll and a sound that resonates with them. Words from the journal will come at least twice a month.
As the days get gradually warmer and longer, I find myself craving simplicity more than usual. I want to savour everything. What I would normally consider mundane feels heightened and I’m growing in appreciation of such moments. Quiet defaults over noise. Decluttering (the mind and routine) is now a necessity.
For this week’s sights and sounds, I reached out to Andrea Martinez who writes The Net newsletter. With 400 words and 2 songs to accompany, Andrea’s pieces guide you through an intimate experience that engages both the mind and heart, thinking and feeling.
As I was going through her contribution I thought of how apt her images and captions were to this time of year. This idea of romance, a growing expectation for what is possible or what is to come, is something that feels central to summer’s near arrival.
It was a real treat sitting with her observations this past week.
— Alice
Sights —
Romance is what I'm trying to think about lately, pursue with conscious command. I so admire people who feel gutted by what they could have seen coming from a mile away; oh to not think before I do! Lately I feel inert and unconvinced. I told a friend the other day I’m generally disposed to look back on my actions with embarrassment, and romance is nothing if not allergic to self-awareness (a critical skill), so looking over my photos I grabbed some chest-puffing examples of what I’m going for.
What would be so bad about wanting gentle—is not every electric conduction due its own shape? Can’t it count? Am I spending too much time looking at a frazzled wire?
Right now I happen to be visiting home, in the same cross-legged position, on the same Harry Potter blanket from when I was 6, back turned, facing what I don’t remember…but so often savor and name as defining. I wrote a poem here once, and mistook a reference I used in it as only legible one way—the other and more immediate one being also, inconveniently, the more serious. I sent it to an answer not so much immediate as never-ending. Unceasing: oh that goop might visit me again, and soon! “I want to believe.” — Andrea



Sounds —
This was in the mess of my voice notes, it’s a mashup of “BYE ME FUI” and “Annie Laurie” (Benito, The Corries) I made last June toying with very rudimentary online turntables…I’m interested always in projects that force sense out of surprise, but these songs are also pretty close to the loving home for me in their own ways. Both channels of the tv on: nope, can’t do much about it.
Thanks for consuming!
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