Take That Step #29

Ultra-friendly and multicolored little bird I saw on the coast of São Paulo

1) I'm usually more curious about trees and plants than about animals. But since I installed the Merlin app on my phone I've been completely obsessed with birds. Wherever you live, you’ll be able to identify some of you are very attentive. You can find them on the app through photos or sounds - learn about them and, if you want, catalog the ones you’ve spotted. My crush of the week is the Saíra-Sete-Cores in the image above. He seems to be wearing a tailor-made outfit made by Belgian designer Dries Van Noten.

And the iconic Tiê-sangue, a very tropical bird.

2) The other day, two friends and I talked about a curious topic: "snap out". One of the friends said she wanted to stick a post-it on the fridge saying "snap out", to try to get rid of some fixed idea. The other quoted a teacher of hers: "being healthy is not not getting sick or sad. Being healthy is the speed with which you can recover." I also remembered the speech Roger Federer made to the Dartmouth graduates a year ago. Then I also read on The Atlantic: "forget the idea of being a good loser. Work on your recovery: that's my advice. No matted we are, we humans have an incredible ability to self-renew ourselves. We bounced back!"

Roy Lichtenstein Girl with Ball, 1961

3) It's nothing new, obviously, but I loved reading the Greek poem Ode I, 11, also known as Carpe Diem, by Horace — English version, by Thomas McEvilley:

Leuconoe, why try to know
The future, which cannot be known?
Or what the Assyrian numbers say
Of your fate and my own?
Put it away, don't waste your time,
Winter will come on
And break the lower sea on the rocks
While we drink summer's wine.
See, in the white of the winter air
The day hangs like a rose.
It droops down to the reaching hand
Take it before it goes.

4) Obsessed with the house — and garden — of stylist, designer and former director of English Vogue Lucinda Chambers who was featured in the Financial Times. I want a room like that in my life with 4 chairs to chat with friends... Full article here.

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