Momentary Recommends: Resources from Lieven Bertels
Looking for indulging content during quarantine? Momentary Recommends is a bi-weekly round-up of content, selected by a Momentary staff member. This week, enjoy a list of recommendations from Momentary Director Lieven Bertels, including books, kitchen stuff, art resources for kids, and much more.
For a device-free couch
Real-world books for when it feels you have found the end of the internet, and it’s time to give those screen eyes some rest:
Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will by Judith Schalansky
The ideal lounge travel companion for us landlocked lot. Drift away to distant atolls and lonely beaches without having to pack your cabin trunk.
The Day After Tomorrow: How to Survive in Times of Radical Innovation by Peter Hinssen
This is a story of adaptability as a recipe for survival in business and in life, from a leading business consultant and academic who regularly visits Bentonville.
Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights by Bill Ivey
A provocative and passionate plea for the importance of art as a public issue, and of basic cultural rights for all.
Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson
The much-anticipated autobiography from rapper-turned-business exec 50 Cent will come out later this month. Order now if your housemates claim they really have read every book in your collection already.
For a happy kitchen
Admit it. If ever there was a time to try your best at making your own version of those delicious Momentary Breakroom jars, it’s now. Here are a few things that make your kitchen even happier:
A Dutch Oven
Everything from delicious but easy bread to stews, soups, roasts, and rice dishes, it all tastes better in a Dutch oven. Nothing better for slow cooking, and if there was ever a time we had a lot of time, it was certainly now!
A Jam Jar…or Two…or More
No need to go to the recycling plant with your old glass jam jars! Keep the jars and the lids, and use them to serve mini salads, TV snacks, and liquid libations. Our Momentary Tower Bar team even has a jam jar cocktail recipe for you! In case you wondered about our oven-proof Momentary jars, you can find them here.
SuperCook app
For all of us who have collected a few random items in our fridge or pantry, and wish they had a recipe that combined sesame tahini, a can of tuna and fresh endives (pick your own example!) there is an app for that!
Download SuperCook, read all ingredients you see around you, et voilà, SuperCook will give you a list of recipes that use exactly what you happen to have.
Online resources For families with kids
ArtsMia
Our friends at the Minneapolis Institute of Art put these fun artmaking ideas together for families with kids: Home Art Making (ArtsMia)
They also have a set of art coloring pages including a Nick Cave Soundsuit and even a Tiger Pillow (for all you cool cats and kittens out there): ArtsMia Coloring Pages
DSO Make Your Own Instruments
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has this site with ideas for making your own instruments. Use at your own peril!
Online Resources For all of us
Art UK
We will admit it, we had quietly started planning for a Momentary member trip to the UK which we had to postpone because of COVID-19, sadly. If while waiting, you wanted to brush off your knowledge of UK art in public collections, the non-profit Art UK has made it easy to browse and explore over 250,000 artworks already digitized, and is offering a special online COVID-19 selection.
Even more exciting, they will launch a tool in May that will allow online visitors (that’s you!) to curate their own virtual exhibition. Soon you can give it a go without having to worry about art crates, loan agreements, or insurance policies.
Global Performance Series – A Virtual Venue
Plenty of film and tv streamed to our quarantine quarters, but we miss the feeling of live performing arts, that sense of now or never, the art in the moment. A few theater companies set up Zoom video conference style theater readings already, and actor and video editor Travis Coe compiled a very diverse overview of theater and dance performances from around the world that are free to enjoy.
A Sound Education: 100 Exercises in Listening
Here’s an old-school moment of learning, from the guy that invented the word soundscape. In A Sound Education, Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer offers 100 lessons in deep listening. Take a few every day, and you will start discovering a much more profound relationship to the sounds that surround us. At times zen, at times hilarious, A Sound Education is the ideal journey to undertake in these quarantine days.
The whole book is available as a free pdf here.
DeepArt.io
Always wanted to make a portrait of your dog in the style of Van Gogh, but have no painting talent? Try this online artificial intelligence painting website – DeepArt.io! Many of the examples uploaded on the site are more cheesy than a brick of Velveeta.
Upload your most successful creation on Instagram with #MOfromHome and tag @theMomentary for us to see your creations!
WatchOut4Snakes
If you wanted to give your auction-ready artwork you just created a museum-ready title, but lady inspiration is somehow socially distanced from you, you could consider this random sentence generator. My latest artwork is called On top of the plate disappears the rose handbook – that is, according to watchout4snakes.
Audio Tool
For music kids ages 7 to 77, here’s a cool online music production studio that you can use to create your own music tracks (registration is free), and you can even collaborate with friends on a joint project.
Momentary Spotify Playlists
And lastly, discover our Momentary playlists here, curated by our own Head of Music & Festivals Stuart Rogers. Check back for new playlists each week!