Weekly Digest #75

Hi! 

How do you feel today?

I can’t help but quote the Beatles to tell you about the way I feel: I've got to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time. 
 

The other day, as I was talking to a fellow writer, he told me that he writes about life when he sees, or feels, its beauty and I found it funny to see that my creative process goes the exact opposite way: I write about life to find its beauty and see it clearly, as a self reminder that, despite what MCR said in this song I love, the world is not so ugly after all.

The reason behind my writing, filming, singing and drawing is the fact that I need these resources in order to not feel so lost in this ginormous life. It’s because I learned from Tyler Kent White that “if you keep searching for everything beautiful in this world you will eventually become it”, and this search has been helping me find myself ever since I can remember.  

This week, besides caring for the garden, I dedicated myself to editing all the videos I shot during the month of May; now that I have a decent cell phone with a great camera, I’m exploring the possibilities that come with it. I’ve always loved and kept diaries and the idea of having a visual one has for a long time been appealing to me. 

So after a month of slow living and a week of editing I can finally tell you that I’m starting a Youtube channel (in English!) to share with you my first try on keeping a visual diary.   

I hope you can enjoy joining me in this visual journey towards a gentler life. Click here to check it out.

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The seeds I planted with Luna at the beginning of the month have already started sprouting and we are very impressed by the Snow pea’s growth rate. We planted its seeds on May 24th and here is how they looked on the following days:

May 28th

May 29th

Today

We’ll probably be seeing some pods soon. I'll let you know when they come!

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I don’t remember exactly when I read Animal Farm, by George Orwell, for the first time; but it was only this week that I discovered that A Revolução dos Bichos (Animal Revolution) and Animal Farm are actually the same book. The question that crossed my mind after this silly and accidental discovery was why didn’t the translator keep Orwell’s original title? 

Sandra Pina and Eduardo Bueno were the ones to provide me the answer in the preface of a new translation of the book, this time properly called A Fazenda dos Animais and published by Melhoramentos in 2021. 

According to them, although Orwell doesn’t use the word revolution even once during his narrative, the word was chosen in Portuguese for political reasons. 

In the USA, Orwell’s satirical fable was strongly adopted by the anticomunist circles and in Brazil, it was first published in April, 1964 - a few days after the military coup. It’s no coincidence that its translation was done without much consideration to the original language; throughout history it has been used by institutions which Orwell would strongly disapprove of in the fight against communism. 

That’s why it is so nice to be able to read books in their original language: we get to understand a lot more about the writer’s original intent without getting lost in translation. 

Read if you’re into: talking animals, utopias, rebellions, politics
 

If you’d like to read the original book, here’s a complete pdf.

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Scrolling through Instagram I came across a quick and easy recipe for a fry pan lemon cake and decided to try it out. It sure was a good decision:

All you need is 

• 1 egg

• 2 cups of rice flour (I used wheat flour instead)

• 1 lemon

• sweetener to taste (I used honey)

• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

To prepare it, you mix the egg with the flour, sweetener and the juice of half the lemon. If the dough feels too consistent, add a little bit of water. 

Finally, add the baking powder to the mixture and pour it into a frying pan. 

If you'd like some frosting, you can mix a little bit of Greek yogurt with the lemon juice you have left and spread it over your cake, adding lemon peels on top of it. 

*The original recipe is by @nutri.milenasilvana.

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The prospect of more police at schools is no comfort for Black parents

“But the implications of more police, or even the possibility of armed teachers, resonate differently for marginalized communities that already feel disproportionately targeted by law enforcement and school officials. Black and Latino students are suspended or expelled from school at inordinate rates compared with their White peers, and are also less likely to be placed in advanced classes or programs for gifted children.” - from Washington Post. Read here. 

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Have a nice one!