Cultish Creative Weekly Recap (1/25/2025)

I like when a smart person admits to doing something silly.

My friends and I used to pretend pinecones were hand grenades, and that sticks were guns, and we’d just, “ahhhhhhhhh” - letting our kid energy out into the air between the trees.

Life goes on, and your coin flips take you down your unique path. Such is life. But we’re all just a few coinflips off from each other, you know?

Corey Hoffstein is well known now for his quantitative research, his successful suite of investment products, and his deep-thinker demeanor. He’s really good at breaking complicated ideas down into actionable steps. But, where’s it really come from?

Playing in the woods, programming video games, trading Pokemon cards that got thrown away and were later worth 6-figures… not to mention the goodwill and serendipity of who you run into on the way, even when life hands you a dumpster full of lemons (in the form of an SEC investigation).

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and definitely share this with any younger person frustrated on their journey - life just doesn’t move in straight lines - it’s Corey Hoffstein on The Intentional Investor via Epsilon Theory:

Jack Forehand and I had a great time talking about our favorite takeaways from the Cliff Asness conversation we had. We get into everything from Cliff’s (hysterical) morning routine, to how he handled being asked a question about a paper he’d never heard of before. Cliff’s a legend for a reason, we did our best to take a moment to reflect:

I’m glad to know I’m not the only person unsettled by that “Take Me Home Country Roads” knock-off song. Finnerty’s got me. I’ve got alternate versions for the rest of us.

David Lynch made some weird stuff, but man - did he make you feel things. I saw this quote after his passing and had to capture and reflect on it.

Every city looks the same, and despite us all kind of knowing why, it takes people like Roger Mitchell and Jason Buck to really break it down and connect it back to our entire modern culture.

My re-reading of the Miles Davis autobiography has been more emotional than I was expecting. I wanted to revisit what he wrote about my favorite era of his music, and this all just hits differently in my 40s than in my 20s. This week I wrote about lessons learned from his boxing training after going sober, and the alchemy of collaboration in the Kind of Blue sessions (which is an incredible creative/critical lesson too). More of these to come!