No Stone Unturned

October 17, 2018

Listen: Stoney by Saba

In a callback to 2016, here’s a very endearing portrait of Saba on the rise. The perfect flow on this track addresses Saba’s first car, Stoney, a used Civic that he bought after his first few shows, all under a rich blanket of production. It’s a lovely time capsule preceding his wonderful but very sad 2018 album, “Care For Me,” which explores the halls of Saba’s emptiness after his cousin was killed.

Stop stacking rocks

For the latest in the good that instagram is doing the world, please search the hashtag #stonestacking. You will find, as above, a zillion stones in piles, arranged by humans who either wanted something in the foreground of their landscape picture or claim to feel very balanced inside. As you might expect, when too many people do this (and they are), there are consequences. The Scottish coastline is so full of stone stacks that experts are afraid that erosion will intensify where the stones have been displaced, and that stone-living animals will also have to look harder for places to live. Seriously, though, hats off to the photo composition.

What about my shiny rocks?

Crystals? Also bad. See this very fun piece in the New Republic that explains how crystal supply chains are notoriously murky, leaving buyers (that is, retail buyers, the step before you) largely unclear on where their stones come from. Maybe they’re from the DRC, where kids work the mines. Or perhaps they’re byproducts of copper mines in New Mexico that produce constant acid seepage, leaving local water in need of extra treatment. Or, hey, they could be from Myanmar, where they helped to fund ethnic conflict and spark an H.I.V. epidemic among the Kachin people. But before you get too wrapped up in all this, don’t forget crystal healing is about *you*.

In the world of the practical $

A crystal *might* make you feel a certain way (healed? vital? clear?), or it might, uh, be a placebo. If you’re just itching for something with a quantifiable impact, try a coat– go from cold to warm like that! On that note, 32 Degrees is having a 70% off sale on all of their quick-dry, anti-static, anti-odor apparel. Seems like the right time to buy.

Wellness terrain suddenly feeling rocky.

Margot

 

 

$ = sponsored