Winter is Coming — Games of Thrones to the Soul Tunes of Christmas Music [Ice Cream Sundae]
I’ve been listening to wintery Christmas music mixes for the past week or so. My flat in the South of France is lacking decorations so I’m listening to the music instead. I found these cool soul music and eighties Christmas mixes you could check out if you’d like to read this with a musical background atmosphere.
While I’m getting ready to celebrate Christmas with the family here in Perpignan I’m also figuring out my move from the South of France. Barring any last minute changes (you never know) I’m moving back to London in the New Year.
It has been great to spend more time with my parents, siblings, nieces and nephew this year. I’ve also been able to spend more time writing (this newsletter included), redesign my website (with help from my friend James), get back into tabletop roleplaying games, contribute to a friend’s podcast and create my own, make new friends and catch up with old ones, explore the qualities of child-like play in the Wisdom course, learn more about my sister’s winemaking, talk about new business plans with my brothers, learn to drive (and fail my driving test twice), lead workshops with clients in London and Kuala Lumpur, speak at a conference in Prague, enjoy the Mediterranean weather and the views of the Pyrénées mountains from my roof terrace. It has been a year of starting new things that I’m committed to pursuing.
All that said I’m missing living in a large city and while splitting my time between here and London sounded like an good idea and a worthwhile challenge, I’m finding it pretty complicated in practice. My brother Morgan reminded me of a French saying this week: “Etre assis le cul entre deux chaises” which translates as sitting your ass between two chairs. It can get uncomfortable after a while. I’m moving my ass over to one chair and choosing the one called London.
I left London five years ago with a plan to go away on a long trip, something I’d wanted to do for a very long time. In a way I’m coming back. It is one of the cities I’ve lived in long enough to consider home, one of my brothers lives there as well as many of my very best friends.
Paul Theroux is one of my favourite authors. He said, “Winter is a season of recovery and preparation”. I found the quote online; I think it might be coming from The Pillars of Hercules, in which he travels all around the Mediterranean in the winter.
It’s the second winter in a row I’m moving, I’m not sure about the recovery part but there’s certainly preparation involved. I followed my instinct and opportunities. I didn’t feel ready to move to a big city a year ago. I wasn’t exactly sure where I wanted to be until I visited this flat in Perpignan. I walked up to the roof terrace, saw the snowy mountains in the distance against a bright blue sky and it felt right. I took the flat immediately. It’s given me a home base to get all the stuff I listed earlier started.
The winter solstice is the day after tomorrow. You may already know this, but as a quick reminder the Earth doesn’t spin in a parallel axis around the Sun. It’s slightly off kilter, which is why we have winter in the first place when one side of the planet is furthest away from the Sun. It’s a time to sleep things over and regenerate for plant life, and some animals too, like bears and groundhogs. Birds migrate, as do I apparently.
The solstice marks the day that sun is the lowest in the sky for the Northern hemisphere, making it the shortest day and the longest night of the year. It is something I missed while I lived in Singapore. The Lion City is so close to the Equator the day and night cycle is pretty much always the same, as is the temperature. The only thing changing slightly more over there is the level of humidity. Ironically, sometimes it felt like Groundhog Day — as in the movie — minus the snowy winter.
In Persian culture, the solstice marks a celebration called Yalda, where friends and family gather to spend time during the long night, eating fruit and reading poetry. In pre-Islamic Zoroastrian times, the longest night of the year was considered inauspicious. They believed it was the time of year when the forces of evil were at their peak. People were advised to stay up all night and gather with close ones for protection. They would share the fruits left from the summer season and find ways to spend a good time together by telling stories or reading poetry. Fruits form an important part of the celebration: nuts, watermelon and pomegranate in particular.
On the topic of appreciating pomegranate, I highly recommend listening to Tim Ferriss’ interview with Alain de Botton. Alain makes an unexpected and heartfelt case for the fruit towards the end of the interview.
I was originally planning on writing some more about Game of Thrones as you might have suspected from the title, though I didn’t finish watching this year’s season. They significantly distanced themselves from the main storyline in the novels this year, and much has already been written about both the book and the TV show. I recommend trying out the novels if you haven’t read them.
I am particularly interested in the fact the TV show seems to be contributing to making fantasy and other genre literature mainstream rather than something reserved “for geeks”. This article from a few years ago points out a few interesting trends, such as a Reddit Fantasy thread doubling in size to over 12,000 subscribers after the Game of Thrones TV show. Three years on that thread now boasts over 86,000 Fantasy Fans. Another article in Adweek talks about the many other options being taken to adapt other popular fantasy and science fiction novels in TV series and movies. Lastly, this article in The Guardian about the triumph of fantasy fiction is a great read if you’d like to find out more.
If you’d rather skip the theory articles and jump straight into a good read, my favourite series of the past few years is Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastards Sequence. It starts with The Lies of Locke Lamora. Imagine something between The Sting and Ocean’s Eleven set in a fantasy Renaissance Venice-like city and you’ll be in the right ballpark. It’s heaps of fun, the characters and dialogues are excellent and the plot is brilliant. The fourth volume is coming out in a few months and I’m looking forward to it.
If you’d rather listen than read you’re in luck: I published two podcast episodes this week: one with the talk I gave at the European Planning Conference in Prague this year about tabletop games, and another in which I interviewed my brother Björn and his business partner Omar Romero about their careers and their new food and beverage concepts. I’ve just received confirmation that the podcast is now listed on the iTunes directory, so you can subscribe there as well as leave a rating and review if you enjoy the show!
Enjoy the rest of the weekend and merry Christmas!
Cheers
Willem
This newsletter was originally published via email on the 20th December 2015. You can also sign up to receive Ice Cream Sundae on the Ice Cream for Everyone website.
