Friday Fixations + Day 5 of the New Year's Meditation Challenge
Let It Be
Hey hey. This week, I’m doing my regular Friday Fixations (recommending movies, books, and viral videos I dig), and I’m shoehorning in a link to the guided meditation for day five of the New Year’s Meditation Challenge. Enjoy…
Beatles ‘64, on Disney+. As loyal readers know, I will watch pretty much any rock doc, especially if it involves the Beatles. This one does not disappoint. It captures the band on the cusp of mega-stardom. They’re so young and funny, not yet jaded and drug-addled. Just a group of friends from Liverpool enjoying themselves in NYC, right on the lip of full-blown Beatlemania. It's loaded with unscripted moments, in which the boys keep up a kind of good-natured, nonsensical patter—clowning, quipping, and mugging. But the movie is not just about the band, it’s about the fans. The film takes you inside the throngs of Beatlemaniacs and then follows up with current-day interviews.
Speaking of the Beatles… the phrase “Let it be” is the theme of today’s meditation. It’s day five of the New Year’s Meditation Challenge, and our teacher is my great friend, Sebene Selassie.
Night Boat to Tangier, by Kevin Barry. The author successfully walks the line between nonsense and beauty. He uses words that shouldn’t go together, but end up transcendent and meaningful, instead of what they would be in the hands of a lesser writer: palaver. His main characters are washed-up criminal Irishmen who have clearly kissed the Blarney Stone. Like the members of the Beatles in the documentary I referenced above, these men maintain a nonstop patter throughout the book—although it is way, way darker. I could read their dialogue all day long. Plus there’s a Pixies easter egg that will tickle the pleasure centers of 80s indie rock heads.
The best part of friendship is messing with your friends.
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I am in tears about the theme of today’s meditation. Yesterday (no pun intended), as a friend reached out about Garth Brooks singing ‘Imagine’ at President Carter’s funeral, he shared with me how his genuine cynicism was melted by that moment. Instantly, the song ‘Let It Be’ came to my mind as a theme of where I need to be. Along with a link to Lucinda Williams new version of the song, I shared back with him the following: These are times, not unlike the past, when it is tough to not be cynical. The challenge is if we can let it be so that we can simply BE. ✌️
This was great. I love the thought of let it be to help me stop resisting what is but had not thought about it as a way to also visualize your intentions and hopes.
Anyone else find that the Beatles song let it be was playing in their mind through this meditation? 🤣