Paging Tanya Donelly
If you do something nice for someone else and no one is there to see it and you don’t tell anyone about it later, is it just as nice? Probably nicer. Yeah, it’s the old if a tree falls in a forest brain tickler. We hope your brain is tickled. And if not, consider this, is Mac DeMarco just John Mayer for hipsters? Both of them are pretty nice. They’ve just taken different paths through the forest to get there. John Mayer gained self-awareness of what a dick he could be at times (or he heard that Taylor Swift song about him) and worked to be better. We could all learn a lesson from that no matter how we feel about that one song he wrote that still is probably in constant rotation at Sephoras around the world, or him filling in for Jerry Garcia or releasing an album that sounds like Dire Straights covering Gerry Rafferty. Point is, he’s trying to be nicer. And Mac DeMarco is Canadian.
And if you have been waiting for us to make a reference to an obscure pop song from the ’90s that likely most of you won’t get, well you might have a long wait. (Then again, you might not.) The rest of this email may be green the way REM’s Green was orange.
First some Super Nice Green Stuff
Keep Walking
>> Walking is Super Nice, as we’ve learned from everyone from Thich Nhat Hahn to indie rocker and Appalachian Trail trekker JW Francis (on Nice Work!). And we’ve all heard the magic number of 10,000 steps. Turns out it’s not so magic, but actually sort of arbitrary. Here’s the real number according to science.
Speaking for the Trees
>> Mixing science and a healthy sprinkling of Celtic wisdom a 77-year-old biochemist, botanist, organic chemist, poet and author is growing a living forest lab in Canada and fighting to preserve North America’s vast and vanishing boreal wilderness. Science is coming around to some witchy ways with recent studies showing the healing power of trees on everything from stress to Covid-19. Yes.
Super Nice Department of Unauthorized Forestry
>> It might be just about freezing in most of the west coast and snow and hail and ice covering much of the rest, but it’s time to start planning your native gardens, authorized or not. Nice Work! guest Joey Santore (aka Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t) has some thoughts on that.
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
John Muir
Hitting the Books
Super Nice Book Club Chapters are turning the page(s)
Chapter Leaders are busy picking books and you can still get involved if you want to read along or start your own chapter. Here’s what some of our west coast clubs are reading:
>> LA Chapter is reading… Sum by David Eagleton
>> Santa Rosa Chapter is reading… The Food Lab by j Kenji Lopez-alt — a cookbook, which is a fun idea and we’ll even share photos of the meals they create
This is a modified version of our weekly Super Nice Newsletter. Get on the list.
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