🔥Hot Planet? Coldplay♻️

+ Trump indicted again, & do you need ‘smile lessons’ ʘ‿ʘ

Jun 11, 2023

Mess GIF by Noah Kahan - Find & Share on GIPHY — noah kahan today, sorry harry

My besties!! It’s Sunday night and I’m sitting in Wellington airport after a gorg weekend in Martinborough (which I documented here), drinking wine, hanging out with my little brother, and seeing a part of New Zealand I’ve never been to before (so nice to see a frost for the first time in a while!) Now I’m en route to my hometown (Blenheim) because I’m doing a super full circle thing where I’m home to speak at an event here for all the young ones in the region!!! Coming homing for work is such an odd and cool and weird feeling (remember when you were in high school and said you’d never be back here Luce???)

Anyway, it’s only a 20-minute flight home from Welly and I anticipate that I’ll spend it all listening to Noah Kahan’s new music (the bridge to Dial Drunk is the best thing ever written imo) and relating to every lyric he’s written about growing up and getting out (and then returning to) his hometown. Couldn’t have dropped at better time Noah xxxx

Students in Japan are getting ‘smile lessons’ ʘ‿ʘ
🔥Hot Planet? Coldplay♻️
Trump has been indicted again
Four kids rescued weeks after their plane crashed in a Colombian jungle
Our book club is book clubbing
Do you spell it marshmellow or marshmallow?

Students in Japan are getting ‘smile lessons’ ʘ‿ʘ

After getting hella used to wearing masks, students in Japan are getting legit ‘smile lessons’ from legit ‘smile instructors.’

An hour-long lesson is the equivalent of $55USD (seems reasonable) and starts with an instructor ‘checking your current smile’ before showing you a ‘Hollywood smile’ and helping you mimic it.

As someone who has been told I have a ‘resting smile face’ rather than a ‘resting bitch face’ I think I would be qualified to become a smile teacher - so if this newsletter thing doesn’t work out…

🔥Hot Planet? Coldplay♻️

I saw a post on *shivers* Linkedin the other day, about how Coldplay put on their concerts in the most sustainable way they can, and I wanted to look into it a lil bit more and share it with you (duh - my whole job!!) The band put out a report the other day, outlining how the sustainability initiatives in their “Music of the Spheres” World Tour have been going, and:

each show has averaged 15kWh in power generated by in-venue solar installations, kinetic dance floors and power bikes – enough to power the C-stage performance each night and provide the crew with phone, laptop and tool-charging stations;
it has so far produced 47% less CO2e emissions than their previous stadium tour in 2016-17;
66% of all tour waste has been diverted from landfills;
5 million trees have been planted (one for each concertgoer). The trees will be supported to maturity via One Tree Planted;
power for the show’s production (audio, lighting, lasers etc.) is provided from an electric battery system that uses 100% renewable energy;
an average of 86% of the reusable, plant-based LED wristbands used by the audience during the show have been returned;
3,770 meals + 73 kg of toiletries has been donated from tour catering to the unhoused and unsheltered;
1 solar-powered River Interceptor, deployed in March 2021 in Malaysia via the Ocean Cleanup, has removed 158 tons of waste and 13 tons of ocean-bound plastic from the Klang River;
Financial support has been provided to environmental organisations including ClientEarth,The Ocean Cleanup, Climeworks, Sea Shepherd, Project Seagrass, Sustainable Food Trust, Cleaner Seas Group, Food Forest Project, Knowledge Pele, Conservation Collective and others.

As someone who attends a lot of concerts and hopes they (and our planet) continue to exist, this just made me happy and hopeful, and will maybe even convince me to start listening to Coldplay.

Trump has been indicted again

This time it’s in connection with his handling of classified documents after he left the White House.

Oh, you mean this handling of documents?

Trump toilet photo: Indictment document shows national secrets in bathroom. — in the loo

Politico tells me (not directly, via their website) that the case stems from when Trump allegedly took sensitive docs home to his place in Florida and then allegedly tried to get in the way of authorities’ efforts to go in and grab them.

“The 49-page indictment, containing 37 counts and seven separate charges against the former president and one against his aide, gave the clearest picture yet of the breadth of sensitive materials Mr. Trump removed from the White House, the comically haphazard way he and his staff handled documents — and, most significantly, what prosecutors described as a pattern of obstruction and false statements intended to block the F.B.I. and grand jury.”

There are quite a few embarro allegations in there, but my favourite is: “Mr. Trump suggested his lawyer take a folder of documents and ‘if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out.’”

Much more serious reporting on this here.

Four kids rescued weeks after their plane crashed in a Colombian jungle

A lil bit of good news for you! Four kids who have been missing in the jungle for 40 days had all been found alive - it’s a bloody miracle. The kids, aged 13, nine, four and one, were left stranded after their plane crashed, killing the pilot and their mother, and there were fears for the worst.

But, rescuers didn’t give up because they continued to find footprints, partially eatern fruit, and other clues to give them hope.

“Over the next six weeks the children battled the elements - and the odds - in what Colombia's President Gustavo Petro called "an example of total survival which will remain in history".”

The kids - who survived by building shelters and eating flour that they found in the wreckage - were kinda prepared (well as prepped as you could be for something as traumatic as this):

“Speaking to Colombian media the children's aunt, Damarys Mucutuy, said the family would regularly play a "survival game" together growing up.
"When we played, we set up like little camps," she recalled. Thirteen-year-old Lesly, she added, "knew what fruits she can't eat because there are many poisonous fruits in the forest. And she knew how to take care of a baby".”

Just an incred story, which there’s more on here!

Our book club is book clubbing

Just a little flex for how cute Shit You Should Read About is, and in our latest substack chat we talked about who would play the leading characters if the book (Romantic Comedy) was to be made into a film and omg it was SO fun (and y’all are on point??)