Today is a delicious mix of sweet and spicy content for your mind. This a good story about the next generation of art lovers and why it's not Gen X!. Next, a discussion about time with Ryan Holiday (Daily Stoic), Rick Rubin, and yours truly, although I'm inserting myself into the conversation. After a challenging discussion on time, we give you a recipe for a summer martini that will make you want to start day drinking! Mr. Rogers gives us a little advice we don't think you can argue with before Sonic Youth leaves us with Dirty Boots.

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In an article about how commercial art has gone corporate, we made several conclusions about the generations and how each thinks about economics and art. The article in Axios talks about art shows, auctions, and who is collecting big art these days. Art is about status, but as the Millennials come into money, they prefer big art brands over individual artists. The Axios article says the Boomer generation may have the largest art collections; but they are more interested in where it will go (bequeathed to) than buying more. Millennials who were raised during the era of the NFT think Bored Ape and meme stocks are moving up to art and branded art collections.

Felix Salmon, who writes Axios Markets, described Gen X as small and jaded. Salmon himself is a Gen Xer, encapsulates why purchasing something as speculative as commercial art interests us as much as investing in a digital picture of, let's face it… anything. Gen X is fascinated by the next-gen with money and what they are willing to do with it. As a (self-proclaimed) powerful next generation of wisdom, in the age of robots and AI that will be able to do our manual labor bidding, we'd like nothing more than the Boomers to bequeath art collections to the Bored Ape collectors. Gen X can't wait for you to knock on our (reinforced) doors to barter food and water for your pretty pictures! What can we say? Salmon said it for us, we are small and jaded 😉

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Ryan Holiday briefly writes up an idea he discussed with music producer Rick Rubin on a recent Daily Stoic Podcast. They discuss time, and Rubin comments that he likes music outside of time. A piano today sounds like a piano from a hundred years ago. Holiday follows up with a comparison with the Stoics and Marcus Aurelius, who discussed pulling from other writers and philosophers. Stepping out of time is a great way to give thought to the legacy of your creation, whether it's writing, music, or art. Recognizing when someone did not think about time can also be helpful. When my wife and I were married in the mid-90s, we thought about the wedding colors and went with black and white for the Bride's Maids and Groomsmen. We did this after growing up and looking at the wedding pictures from the 70s. Mint-colored chiffon might have been hot for the 70s, but it didn't hold up over time.

Giving some thought to time is beneficial, let’s dig a little deeper. A piano from 100 years ago sounds different than a piano from today; similar, yes, but not the same. Even a completely acoustic instrument has been improved over the years. Holiday makes a similar comparison when talking about the Stoics, who wrote philosophy more than 2,000 years ago. In the most general sense, philosophy holds up in contrast to our super-fast modern lives. Similar to religious writing, much of it was also written thousands of years ago. Could we say that time has its place? It is also an excellent way to compare one thing to another. Go back to the discussion on music; most popular music is based on time; beats are on a time pattern, a song structure is based on time, and rhythm is based on time. Every once in a while, a sound can gain traction based on a unique time pattern; jazz has many examples. Many of us gravitate to familiar time patterns, for better or worse.

After thought-provoking talk of time and art collections, it's time to settle the mind and grab a cocktail. Our favorite food and drink pub, The Spruce Eats, has the perfect recipe for a summer take on a vesper Martini. Described as a "high-proof booze bomb made with gin, vodka, and Lillet Blanc (with a lemon twist to garnish)," add in a couple adjustments, and you have a lower-proof and colder version of this martini, better suited to an afternoon at the pool.

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Hard edge.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

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Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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