Those mossy rocks really do look like a pleasant place to have a climactic swordfight.
Theresa O’Reilly is an illustrator from New York. She sells things and has an Instagram.
Roisin Donahoe is a Cambridge historian who recently shared (on Twitter) these images of a 17th century scroll (“BL Add MS 25311”) in the collection of the British Library. There’s more in this 2019 blog entry.
The scroll contains 63 seals, each for a distinct magical purpose, and also this protection charm that folds out. (There was some more modern work along these lines in Newsletter 26.)
Here are some landscapes from “Massive” Wei, an artist out of Shang Hai.
New music: Lonely Cactus by Dami Im. (SoundCloud or Spotify or YouTube). A light little bass-driven pop groove; it hit #5 in Australia. I know people like the one lovingly described in this song, and you might too.
New music: NiNe GriNd [dunkelbunt remix] by Balkan Bump, [dunkelbunt]. (Bandcamp or Spotify or YouTube). Both of these DJs, from Oakland and Vienna respectively, make music of a particular genre. It would be easier to call the music “electronic” if it didn’t have so many live instruments.
Balkan Bump did a remix of the Chali 2na track featured in Newsletter 27, and it’s at least my third favorite of the different mixes of that song.
Old music: Nothing but the Radio by Maia Sharp (2015). (Spotify or YouTube). “Singer-songwriter” is reductive, I guess, but there’s a lot of artists who live in the space in the record industry carved out by James Taylor and Carole King. Anyway, this is a lively single designed to sell an album of more thoughtful singer-songwriter stuff.
Here’s a gentler country version with some famous guests; that old fellow on slide guitar is Snuffy Walden, a composer of note.
-Thomas