Tell Me You Love Me 💌
Tell Me You Love Me 💌
Shuffle Sundays #7 • Feb 14, 2021
Hello and welcome to Shuffle Sundays!
When I realized that this week’s issue was going to coincide with Valentine’s Day, I spent the whole week thinking about the idea of dedicating it to celebrating “Love” in different mediums, shapes, and forms, but I wasn’t sure how to do that without falling into all the usual cliches.
I started thinking about what were some of my favorite music and movies surrounding the theme and noticed that they all had heavy doses of melancholy (or even sadness) applied to them, which got me thinking that even the so-called romantic movies, always takes us through a journey of lots of suffering before we can see the characters finally enjoying happier times. And if you look at LGBTQ+ movies, most of the time not even the ending is happy, but that’s a discussion for another time.
🎧 • soundtrack while writing this issue: Sofía Valdés - Ventura
🎶 Hayley Williams - FLOWERS for VASES / descansos
{something to listen to • album, 42 min}
“All I ever had to say about love is a sad song” — sings Hayley at the beginning of “Trigger”, one of my favorite songs of her new album that I can’t stop listening to. When I heard those words, I knew that I was on the right path associating sadness to love, even though we normally tend to think about happiness when we talk about love in the real world. “FLOWERS for VASES / descansos” is a much different album from her debut “Petals for Armor”, released less than a year ago as her first effort detached from being the frontwoman of Paramore. Both records are incredibly good in their own different ways, but there’s something about this recent one that just touched me differently. Maybe it’s the more minimal, stripped-down arrangements, maybe it’s the general theme of the lyrics, maybe its the intimacy and honesty we can feel through the whole recording, which was done at her home, where she wrote and played every single instrument we hear.
🎬 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, by Michel Gondry
{something to watch • movie, 108 min}
Also known as one of my favorite movies of all time, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is far from being a happy story about love. We follow the journey of a young couple going for a medical procedure that promises to erase each other from their memories. With an Oscar-winning screenplay by Charlie Kaufman and brilliantly directed by Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine has Jim Carrey in one of the best performances of his career, accompanied by an equally amazing performance by Kate Winslet as his pair. If you’ve never watched this movie, by any chance, please do yourself a favor and fix that right now, even if you happen not to like Jim Carrey, which is the biggest reason for some people to have skipped this when it first came out. It’s an incredible and (lots of time) inventive ride!
watch the trailer on YouTube
👨🏻🎤📺 Sufjan Stevens - Tell Me You Love Me
{something to watch/listen to • music video, 4:23 min}
Sufjan Stevens reunited with director Luca Guadagnino for the music video of “Tell Me You Love Me”, from his 2020 album The Ascension. “My love, I've lost my faith in everything. Tell me you love me anyway.” — sings Sufjan right at the beginning. It’s a beautiful ballad that, instead of a usual acoustic guitar melody, is accompanied by lots of electronic layers and textures of different sounds. It may sound uncomfortable unless you’re already familiar with his style, but very rewarding if you let yourself get lost through the music, especially if you’re listening through a good pair of headphones.
⚡️ Something to Inspire
Brooklyn-based photographer Erica Reade is finally turning her beautiful project “Beach Lovers” into a book! This has been years in the making and I can’t wait to see this series beautifully sequenced and displayed in the way she’s been envisioning for a long time. She’ll be announcing a Kickstarter campaign soon, that I’ll be sharing here again when is ready. Until then, click here to see more photos from the series. Here are some of my favorites:
🗣 On a different note:
Any Film and Notion lovers out there? After being inspired by so many creators I've decided to take the leap and make one of my own templates available to the world. Click here for a free template to track all the nominees for the 2021 Golden Globes!
Last Monday I hosted an event at Ness Labs focused on tips and tricks to Building Good Habits, as part of the Creator Spark accelerator. Click here to read a write-up with the main ideas I presented.
RIP Christopher Plummer, who won an Oscar for his role in the beautiful movie Beginners, speaking of sad movies about love…
💽 Some new music released this past week
{new music releases}
Soooooooo many albums released this week! I’m particularly interested in checking the new ones from Young Lights, Claud, BaianaSystem, Gal Costa, Mod Sun, slowthai, and the deluxe version of Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia. Also, great new tracks from Ólafur Arnalds, Biffy Clyro, P!nk, X Ambassadors, and many more. If you’re curious to hear some of these songs and more, make sure to follow my 2021 playlist on Spotify, updated weekly with new releases:
Say Hi! 👋🏼
If you found anything inspiring in this Newsletter, have something to share with me, or just feel like saying hello, reply to this email and let's start a conversation! Know someone who would enjoy something from this issue? Have a friend or two who is looking for some inspiration? Please forward it to a friend:
Thank you for reading! 🙌🏼
My name is Leo Mascaro and you are receiving this email because you signed up for Shuffle Sundays, a weekly curated list of content I thought was worth sharing with more people. If this email was forwarded to you, subscribe using the box below: