Weekend Reading #68

Photo by Morgan Harris on Unsplash

This is the sixty-eighth weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 16th May 2020. To receive a copy each week directly into your inbox, sign up here.

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What we're doing.

From a fund perspective we are watching the titanic struggle unfold between the bulls and the bears in cyclical stocks. As the perceived timeline around the “normalisation” of various economies ebbs and flows, so do cyclical stocks in most markets. Banks, retailers, restaurant and entertainment companies and others (everywhere we look) face a similar dynamic. As we pen this newsletter, these stocks are testing their lower bounds once again. As ever we wait and we watch for the price action to guide us in the names we have already researched.

This week we’ve been working on formalising sales processes across the business: identifying sales targets, ramping up our CRM and doing other prosaic – but vitally important – activities. Our existing network has been really supportive over the past 18 or so months, but we don't underestimate the importance of engaging with people we don’t know and finding new supporters for our business. 

Our deals platform, 3BC, is progressing well. We are in consolidation mode, getting our product into the hands of beta users and gathering feedback so we can improve what we’re doing. This applies to the tech but also the processes by which we onboard and re-engage our community. This latter piece is really important. We know from experience that building a tech platform and onboarding users is only half the battle – the real work comes in bringing users back to the product over and over again with a view to doing business together on a consistent basis. With this in mind, we have been putting together a comprehensive re-engagement strategy, leveraging multiple marketing channels (including email, Whatsapp and even social media) to create a multitude of touch points with investors. 

We’ve also been exploring partnerships with other private deal networks and platforms – we don’t see growth in this business as a zero-sum game, and our model allows us to collaborate with other open-minded distributors and originators. If this applies to you, we’d love to hear from you about how we might be able to work together so get in touch. 
 
What we're reading.

What are you missing right now? Family and friends? Sure. A little of life’s variety? Of course. Some simple pleasures, like a meal in a restaurant or a pint in a pub? Absolutely. 

A great piece of writing this week reminded us how this extraordinary time is limiting life’s simple pleasures but also its highlights. In The Atlantic, the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl summed up what live music means to him as a musician and as a fan. It was a strangely emotional read, tinged with sadness about the current state of the world, but packed with hope and optimism about what the world will look and feel like once again in the not-too-distant future. 

In pre-lockdown days, live music wasn’t something we enjoyed every week or even every month. It wasn’t a tentpole of our existence, but it was something we got an immense amount of pleasure from when we were lucky enough (or organised enough!) to book tickets and make the trip. Some of our happiest memories involve live music, be they at intimate classical events, loud warehouse parties or rock concerts in stadiums. 

It’s funny to think that the binding nature of a live music event is the exact opposite of the near-individual experience we’re all enduring right now. The communion of a concert (or a mosh pit), where we worship at the feet of our favourite musician, is an event that only works because you’re in it together. Together, music is heightened. It’s no longer an individual, aural experience – it becomes a more rounded and empowering experience. The collective makes it more. 

Living like we are today couldn’t be more different than the experience of being at a concert – and that’s why it’s more important than ever to look forward to a time when we can do things like go to rock concerts once again. As Grohl writes: 

"In today’s world of fear and unease and social distancing, it's hard to imagine sharing experiences like these ever again. I don’t know when it will be safe to return to singing arm in arm at the top of our lungs, hearts racing, bodies moving, souls bursting with life. But I do know that we will do it again, because we have to. It’s not a choice. We’re human. We need moments that reassure us that we are not alone. That we are understood. That we are imperfect. And, most important, that we need each other."

Amen to that, Dave. We can’t wait to see heroes like you back on stage sometime soon. 

Another extraordinary piece of writing that caught our eye this week came from Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz who wrote a lengthy essay about his experience in lockdown and about the habits that have kept him going through this difficult time, and through troubled periods of his life. 

For example, get this about Saltz’s coffee drinking routine: 

"In normal times, every few nights I buy six large black deli coffees; three caffeinated and three decafs. I put them in the fridge. Each morning, I combine the two into a 7-Eleven Double Gulp cup, add ice, Lactaid, and stevia. I drink two a day, which I tell myself equals one big cup of coffee. We bought a dozen 7-Eleven cups and tops in 2017; we wash and reuse them; ditto four metal straws."

Mad, huh? Or maybe just good sense? 

As Saltz explains, having a daily habit – be it for coffee or diet or exercise or whatever – reduces the amount of brainpower he has to spend thinking about what coffee he wants to make, how he wants to make it, where he wants to buy it from, whether he wants grande, skinny, sugar, froth, syrup, decaf etc ad finitum. 

Like Steve Jobs dressing in the same clothes every day, Satlz’s coffee routine allows him to focus all of his energies on writing about art because that’s what he wants to do. That’s what he wants to become great at. Indeed, this strange ritual is one reason why he has become one of the most celebrated critics on the planet. It seems to have worked. 

That’s just one tidbit from Saltz’s remarkable essay. The rest is written in his beautiful style and is coruscatingly honest and open about his eventful life in the arts. There is much to consider, but have a think about his coffee routine and assess whether simplifying one of your daily habits might lead to outsize returns in another area of your life. It made Jerry Saltz great – maybe it can make us better, too? 
 
What we're watching.

Talking of music and greatness, if you haven’t seen The Defiant Ones on Netflix then you don’t know what you’re missing. In four parts, it tells the story of an unlikely partnership between Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine and their stratospheric success.

Straight outta Compton’s Dr Dre, as we know, is a performer, a rap icon who has been creating some of the world’s most popular music for decades. He’s a star in every sense – he’s brash, bold and it’s likely that everyone on the planet with an iota of interest in music has heard of him. 

In contrast, you might never have heard of Brooklyn-born entrepreneur Iovine, although his influence over the music industry has, arguably, been greater than Dre’s. Working as a producer from the 1970s until today, there is so much music that only exists because of Iovine’s talent and tenacity. John Lennon, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, U2, Gwen Stefani, Lady Gaga are a few of the stars who Iovine, essentially, created. Talk about a back catalogue… 

The Defiant Ones is a documentary that tells the story of Dre and Iovine’s musical and entrepreneurial collaboration that culminated in the sale of the Beats by Dre headphone brand to Apple for $3billion. Their improbable partnership has defined a heck of a lot of all of our music and culture from the last three decades, and how they’ve gone about building their careers and their business is inspiring and highly entertaining. 

The show is beautifully cut together and if you’ve been growing up listening to music through the last three decades, it’s a glorious nostalgia trip down musical memory lane, too. The ‘talking heads’ on the show are the real deal, with input from all of the guys who have been made great by these two titans of the music industry. Look out for Eminem’s introduction in episode 4. It’s worth watching the series for that moment alone. 

A little lighter but no less brilliant is The Thick Of It, a show that has aged tremendously well indeed, gaining even more poignancy in times when spin doctors and soft-power are so obviously being deployed by global governments. 

We use The Thick Of It as a quick, relaxing dose of silliness in the evenings as there’s a significant amount of great exercise to be had laughing out loud to the shenanigans of the comically inept minister, Hugh Abbot, and co. It’s also a show that gets better over time, with season 4 perhaps the pick of the bunch. 

From a creative standpoint, the show is also really interesting as it subverts a simplistic “paint by numbers” approach to writing, the likes of which is seen all too often in TV comedy nowadays. There are no goodies – every character is reprehensible in their own way, and we love them for it – and it is that tension that makes this more than just a laugh out loud comedy. Many of the key themes reflect the workings and mechanisation that drives real-world ministers in power today. Hence, The Thick Of It is a hilarious but sobering watch. 

If in need of a few minutes of escapism then this video from Surfing Magazine has the perfect combination of mesmerising visuals and haunting music to transport you very quickly to French Polynesia. It’s a destination we have always wanted to visit, for the precise reasons that it’s so hard to get to. If any of our readers have had the good fortune to travel there, we’d love to hear all about it. For those of us who have yet to make the trip, the video is a pretty decent lockdown substitute. 

For anyone with children in lockdown, you’re likely beginning to run short of ideas for how to keep them entertained. Do not fear. Help is on the way from an unlikely source… 

Patrick Mavros is a jeweller with a rich African heritage who creates beautiful pieces of jewellery, sculpture and furniture. Their focus is wildlife, and all of their items use the caricature of animals in some way. The company’s founder, Patrick, is a bit of a legend and he’s been holed up during lockdown on his Harare game reserve. From his home, Patrick has taken the time to put out educational and highly entertaining videos every Thursday about Africa, its heritage and its wildlife. As he describes, storytelling is a very important part of life in Africa – it is how histories are recorded and lessons taught, it is also where the great wealth of people is stored and built upon, connecting us to one another and to those that walked before us. 

On the Patrick Mavros website, you can view “Storytime with Patrick’, where Patrick shares his passions, intrigues and wildlife projects with you and your family. Enjoy! And look out for the bushbaby!

And this video of Snoop Dogg listening to the Frozen soundtrack in his parked car will put a smile on your face.
 
What we're listening to.

Calming us this week has been this piano arrangement from Spanish composer Carlos Cipa, which has an ethereal air to it. It will make you look up from your work and stare through a window, or simply into space. It was served up to us by Spotify’s increasingly proficient algorithm, and we liked it so much that we did a bit of research into the composer and the history of the track. It was recently used in a brilliant VW advert providing a great example of storytelling that uses the music to enhance its emotive quality. We wish more advertising was as thoughtful as this.

What do you get if you combine choral music with a saxophone? A complete mess, I hear you cry! Well, funnily enough, you’d be wrong and you can hear proof for yourself by listening to Norwegian jazz saxophonist, Jan Garbarek, and his 1994 release, Oficium, which has been providing the soundtrack to our working week. 

Garbarek is a musician who likes to take risks, and he often combines his jazz sax in musical partnerships that, on paper, sound torturous. One of life’s great pleasures is when a combination you thought to be madness turns out to be beautifully harmonised. Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine. A jeweller and children’s stories. Choral music and a saxophone
 
What we're laughing at.

Two hunters stalking in a forest come across a hole.
 
“Deep hole,” Bill says with a soft whistle, staring into the abyss.
 
“Sure looks it,” Ted replies, mopping his brow. “I’m wonderin’ how deep?”
 
“Let’s throw down this here rusty old anvil and find out,” Bill says, heaving a discarded nearby anvil over to the hole’s lip.
 
With a mighty shove, they push the heavy anvil over the edge.
 
They wait. They peer into the blackness. They listen to hear when it hits.
 
But they hear nothing but silence.
 
“Say, that’s one deep hole,” Bill says shaking his head.
 
The furious sound of fast-approaching hooves makes the two hunters look up just in time to see a goat hurtling towards them. They dive out of the way as the goat whistles past and launches itself down into the dark, deep hole.
 
With a bemused shrug, the two hunters continue on their way.
 
“Becky! Where are you, Becky? Becky!” a voice shout from the trees. 
 
An old farmer hurries out of a thicket. He sees Bill and Ted.
 
“Say, fellas,” he cries. “Seen a goat 'round here? Her name’s Becky, see.”
 
“Surely, sir, we have,” Ted replies. “Goat just ran by us and flew into that deep, dark hole right over there.”
 
“No, no. That simply cannot be my Becky,” the farmer says. “That’d be impossible.”
 
“Impossible? Why?” 
 
“‘cos my Becky was tied to an anvil.”