Will Ross' Home Truths
Everyone, this is Will. Why ask him for his Home Truths? Cos he founded a great startup called Tendo which helps frontline workers, is one of my oldest school friends, and always offers a broad array of interesting recommendations (as you’ll read below).
1. The song to put a smile on your face…
re:remember - Ólafur Arnalds. An efficient piece of music - including slower strings for those calmer moments, a methodical resurgence for coming to resolutions, and the quickening pace for when your mood improves. This one song can be used to wallow to, problem solve, and even throw your shoes off and enjoy a hallway dance on the weekend.
2. You can only watch one film for the next three months… What is it?
Django Unchained. One of the better switches to an alternative reality which breaks the monotony of an extended domestic stay.
3. The TV series you want everyone to watch:
The Defiant Ones. I’m terrible on TV so my limited perspective inclines me to recommend something short. This documentary is a helpful consolidation of hip-hop in four one-hour episodes with Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre as the two main players.
4. The book you most recommend to people:
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. For a picture of mid-century California and a handful of diverse characters, this book offers plenty of perspective. It contains highs and lows, humour, philosophy and beautiful prose, compiled into a chunky volume that you probably wouldn’t want to travel with.
5. The subject you’ve put off exploring that’s now top of your to-do list
Reading Donald Judd’s collected works in Donald Judd: Complete Writings (2016). This book was pulled together from 1959-1975 through the tireless work of researchers identifying his expansive contributions as an art critic and artist. He reviewed work from over 500 artists including Jackson Pollock, Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain, providing a useful inventory of the early boom in contemporary art. Judd was also a wordsmith, so this will be an interesting one for style alone.
6. The wild card you wish more people knew about…
Running shorter intervals. I feel that most people continue to run continuously at a consistent pace on a route they know. For lazy days when you just want to get out, running between a series of lamp posts for 80-120 metres can be remarkably stress-relieving without loading your body with fatigue. Kids do this well.
7. We’re allowed dinner parties again… What are you cooking?
Vegetarian lasagne. I messed one up earlier in the year so have wrongs to right with three friends.
8. Everything’s back open. What’s the first coffee shop, restaurant or pub you’re visiting?
Benk + Bo on Gravel Lane in London. I made it there for most Friday mornings for over a year. It has been hard to re-engineer the week without it.
P.S. What you know now, that you wish you knew then…
You can lose your voice through the overuse of video chat.
C’est fini... Now what?
Read some more Home Truths from family, friends, or Founders. Not sure what’s going on here? Head to Home Truths to find out more.