Had a bit of a minor reset this week: new glasses, new shirts, new pants on the way. Reinvention by acquisition!

I managed to unblock myself a bit at work recently. Brain feeling too bottled up, fragmented, sludgy. I think it happened because – I'm mildly ashamed to say – I made myself focus more and also let go of knowing about other things. Always pride myself on having my finger on the pulse but, if I get more of what I want done, it's probably worth learning about things a few hours later.

This morning I had the house to myself for a few hours. I didn't do anything that different. Coffee, chores, breakfast, music. But I felt myself expanding and unshriveling a bit, easing into a larger container. It makes a difference.

Art

Embroidered hanging of wool on linen depicting a pomegranate tree, roses and other flowers, foliage and birds by May Morris. A crib and another crib by Keith Haring. Tres figuras danzando, gouache on cardstock by Victor Brauner. Celebration of el dia de los muertos in Xalitla, Guerrero, acrylic painting by Cleofas Ramirez Celestino.

Books

Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors. I knew generally about all the viking incursions into England in the early middle ages, but don't think I appreciated the how deep and lasting the impact has been.

Running

Back into my rhythm for now. Took a while to get revved up again on my morning runs. Also pushed it a bit too much on the weekend long run after my down week last week, but no regrets, just a little creaky.

Around the Web

"There are a lot of instances on the internet where people are telling their story, but the audience is hearing a roadmap. And the gap between those two things is where the mud happens."

American mushroom farming is on the decline.

American fatherhood on the rise.

Are movies getting darker? and Why movies don't feel real anymore.

What goes into designing art exhibitions.

What makes art great?

Disappearing book reviews and disappearing paperback nonfiction.

Vacation brain.

Music

Several with James McVinnie on the organ...

• Bach, Clavier-Übung III. I love all the layers in "Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der von uns den Zorn Gottes wandt", BWV 688, just incredible. (And I didn't know that Martin Luther wrote hymns!)
• Dreamcatcher. "The Unquestioned Answer" is a favorite here, shout-out Charles Ives.
• Samuel Sebastian Wesley: Organ Works

Kacey Musgraves, Middle of Nowhere. I think I'll say "Rhinestoned" is my favorite for now.

Movies

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Deeply uncomfortably nihilistic and grisly, and then pleasantly unhinged. Iron Maiden! Fiennes is a gem.

The Town. Third time I've seen it (first, second). Noticing more slice-of-life Boston this time around.

Bone Lake. This was just okay. Props for at least one jaw-dropping moment I've never seen on film before. Learning that I prefer horror with more supernatural menace, and less of the sadistic/zany human sort.

TV

The X-Files, s6e7 "Terms of Endearment". Some episodes can be intense, but they don't usually get into material this dark/traumatic. Interesting!

Hannibal, s3e8.

Big Little Lies, s1e4.

Last week I traveled to the Bay Area, adding layers a place I know pretty well (4-5 trips?) but not deeply. Time in Palo Alto, and San Ramón, and Oakland, and SF. Managed to visit five museums visits and two public libraries while we were out there. Libraries in particular are a good way to get a sense of the community. (Oakland is not happy with ICE right now!)

I also got sick a few days after we arrived, and it all came crashing down. I was hoping to work from one of our SF offices, but ended up holed up in the hotel for several days, working from a blanket mere blocks away so as not to infect everyone.

Speaking of hotels, a soapbox: by and large, today's "nice" hotels have have overly-soft beds! It's one thing to have a squishy mattress, but then also the extra padded top, and then putting a padded bedsheet on top of that? People, come on. I'm over 40! I need more support! And then covering it with floofy down comforter? It's a recipe for overheating. Gotta rethink this whole thing from the ground up.

Art

Preserve Your Peace, acrylic on canvas over wood panel by Greg Ito. Foothill Cabin, oil on canvas by Pacita Abad. Where Dreams Flow, handmade pigments on linen by Rupy C. Tut. Coup de Chapeau II, painted and patinated bronze by Roy Lichtenstein. Textile Fresco, linen, silk, cotton, and synthetic fiber by Sheila Hicks

Books

The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom. Finished. Very detailed and meticulous. Gave me new appreciation for: how much cultural blending was taking place at the time and how big that world was, even though travel was atrocious; how much organization / bureaucracy there was even in the olden days... but also how power on paper ≠ power on the ground. Also fun: historians using basically meeting agendas/roll call to identify social climbers vs. who was falling out of favor among the elite. Interesting for the historical period, but also a good view into how history gets done. There is cleverness in every job done well.

Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors. Just begun. Seems like the breezy counterpart to the previous.

Running

Had a nice run in Palo Alto, but then too sick to do any others while I was in the Bay. Alas! Saw some new streets in East Flatbush on a long run this weekend.

Around the Web

"God created you with 3 Claude skill files and you're supposed to figure out when to call consequentialism, deontology, & virtue ethics. Make no mistakes".

Who shows at the Whitney Biennial. (Thanks, Jara.)

Jazz based on the flow of NYC subway cars.

A stroll through the Mall of America.

Eames kit house.

"When you decide what to consume, you ask: 'What do I want?'. When you decide what to produce, you ask: 'What do other people want me to do?'. The former is a lot more individuating than the latter."

The people do not yearn for automation.

Music

Kali Malone, The Sacrificial Code

Sam Gendel, Josiah Steinbrick, Mouthfeel / Serene

Tristan Perich, Infinity Gradient perf. James McVinnie.

Following on the promise of week 14... Mathieu David Gagnon, Flore Laurentienne, Volume III. I like "Navigation VII" and "(À travers les) Chablis"

Movies Ratatouille. It's fine? This might be a victim of hearing so many good things about it for so long before I got to it. Didn't land at all. Also too much swirly moving camera.

Frybread Face and Me. Some stilted acting but a good heart.

Love, Brooklyn. Maybe some home court bias, and I love pointing at the screen like Leo when I recognize local places, but I really liked it. Several views on several key relationships, and we get to see them sympathetically from each side. Benefits from the compression in a shorter film. "Don't say it." Bittersweet, hopeful. Andrê Holland reliable as always, but Nicole Beharie especially stood out. Perhaps pair with Past Lives?

X-Men: Days of Future Past. Better than expected! I like how we have several ~villains to work with here.

The Outfit. Still good but lost some of the zip the first time had. Narration like The Prestige now that I think of it.

TV

The X-Files, s6e6 "How the Ghost Stole Christmas". This was fun! I like this kinda silliness. Lean into the cliches and heightened storytelling and you get someting special.

Hannibal, s3e7. So glad the Verger arc is winding down.

Big Little Lies, s1e3.

CSI: Miami, s4e16.

I've gotten back into coding more recently. Well, vibe-coding. Maybe that's the right speed for me. I coooooooouuuuuuld learn more, and incrementally I do, sniffing around the edges. But lately a more mercenary approach from zero to one. Did some work to update a browser extension and other tools for work stuff, updating my white noise app from late last year, and moving this blog to 11ty for no particular reason. It's fun!

Last week I went to the A's–Yankees game. It felt weird being at that stadium, enemy territory for a kid who went through a period of staunch Braves loyalty. But a lovely night out. I think that's my fifth or sixth MLB stadium – two in Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, and San Francisco, and a handful in the minor leagues.

I also went to the dentist. I miss my old one, even if she did try to sell me whitening treatments all the time. At least I could count on some gospel music.

Not much can top a sunny Sunday morning stroll in the city with a little coffee in your system.

Books

On the Calculation of Volume, Book II. Finished up. The container theory of time is right there out in the open huh. What about all the Roman stuff though?

The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom So far, so good.

Running

More consistent than previous, and by Friday morning, I could feel it all adding up. Fun long run into new-to-me parts of Queens.

Around the Web

Portraits of father and sons holding hands. (via)

How 'Zombie Flow' Took Over Culture.

Touring the mannequin storage room at FIT.

A catalog of AI writing tropes.

I didn't know Café du Monde has been open since 1862.

A Bay Area travelogue.

Music

Julianna Barwick, Mary Lattimore, Tragic Magic. Including a cover from the Blade Runner soundtrack.

Jeremiah Chiu, Marta Sofia Honer, Recordings from the Åland Islands.

Blake Clawson, Renova New Music Ensemble, Aric Vyhmeister, Peyton Magalhaes, Myrkvun. There's a melody in "Haust" that I can't quite place. It sounds so similar to something, just can't put my finger on it. Maybe a tune from Holst, Grainger, Delius, Vaughan Williams?

Dianna Lopez, Earth Expressions. Nature + kora, guitar, etc.

Mozart: Piano Concertos No. 20 in D minor K.466 & No. 27 in B-flat Major, K.595 perf. Mitsuko Uchida with The Cleveland Orchestra.

Movies

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. I like how reality bends and blends. Good to see Rose Byrne's comedic talent used for something much darker, but often still funny.

Boiling Point. Stressful little ensemble piece with a lot of empathy. Really growing to appreciate Stephen Graham.

TV

The X-Files, s6e5 "Dreamland II".

Hannibal, s3e6. The reunion scene! "If I saw you everyday, forever, Will, I would remember this time." The romance you don't want to see (but kinda do?).

Big Little Lies, s1e1–2. Let's see where this leads...

I went to the eye doctor and faced mortality. I don't right now, but someday in the next year or two or three, I will need bifocals.

Art
Wild Beast Wood, painting by Sidney Sime. Basketball (Convention Hall, Philadelphia), 1935 watercolor by Michael Leone. Monuments at G., gypsum and watercolor on canvas by Paul Klee. Moomin and the Mymble paint an Easter egg by Tove Jansson. Collages made from ecurity envelope patterns by Amber Williams (via, via).

Books
War and Peace. Done! Finished in a hot sprint before March came to a close. I think the latter parts of the book dragged. Much more focus on the warfront, troop movements, and theory-of-history essays. I was itching for closure on the characters we started the story with. I'd read it again, in abridged form.

On the Calculation of Volume, Book II.

Running
Dialing back just a tad on the mileage. First proper warm-ish run in the city this year on Saturday morning, t-shirt and shorts. It's going to take some adjustment.

Around the Web
Title Scream, graphics from 80s–90s videogames.

Akira Kurosawa's painted storyboards. And here are more side-by-side Kurosawa paintings and stills.

The visual language and fashion in Sailor Moon.

A family genealogy project turns into a personal encyclopedia.

Those frogs that hang out in trees and chirp are called pinkletinks in some regions, spring peepers in others. "Their Latin name, pseudacris crucifer, can reveal a lot, […]. Pseudo means false in Latin, and cris denotes cricket or locust."

The Ozempicization of the Economy and Body Futurism

Stop trying to make me buy a house.

"We are all made smaller by the pursuit of unproven and unprovable purity."

"Strong works of art exceed any single paraphrase of their meaning. They remain open enough to support serious disagreement."

Black Bart was a stagecoach robber with a grudge against Wells Fargo.

Music
Highlight from my listening week was an almost-trio of albums from Mathieu David Gagnon:

• Volume I. I love the toothy strings in "Fleuve I" and the way the anxiety ratchets up and up and up in "1991".
• Volume II. "Voiles" is a nice little romance and "Navigation IV" maybe even more so.
• Volume III (soon!)

Nilam, Ganavya. I like "Land".

Atabasca, Atabasca. It has some Hermanos Gutiérrez flavor, but a bit more variety in sonic palette.

Tomaga, Intimate Immensity.

Fazer, "Khanda".

Movies
Crime 101. Ah, such fun! Mashes up a bunch of things I love but a bit more than a simple reheat, pun intended. I love seeing Hemsworth so bottled up and socially awkward. I will watch again some day.

TV
The X-Files, s6e4 "Dreamland". Not sure these early-season two-parters work for me. I do like the switcheroo, though!

Hannibal, s3e5.

Some highs, some lows, forward we go.

Art
This weekend: various Keith Haring artworks at the Brant Foundation. Bank of the IJssel near Hattem, painting by Jan Voerman.

Books
War and Peace. 87% through. So close.

Around the Web
I should build a Superchair.

On expanding awareness around emotions.

For the love of God, learn to paragraph and Why LLMs are good editors but bad writers.

Music
Suzy Sheer, Euphoriphilia and The One. Echoes of Crystal Castles (compliment).

GoGo Penguin, Between Two Waves

Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, Andreas Werliin:

• Ghosted
• Ghosted II
• Ghosted III

Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, Robbie Avenaim, Placelessness.

Movies
The Naked Spur. Really liked this western, sort of a moving chamber piece. James Stewart as greedy bounty hunter, Robert Ryan's sly intellectual villain needling him along, like we later see in 3:10 to Yuma. Protagonist sort of crumbles rather than triumphs into a better state. We hope.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. It doesn't work for me, but it's fine. I have no attachment to the TV show, so I'm not the audience anyway. At least I know what a toff is now.

TV
The X-Files, s6e3 "Triangle". The will-they-or-won't-they has been answered… sort of.

Hannibal, s3e3–4. Everyone using each other to sharpen their motivations.

DuckTales (1987), s1e1. "Uhhhh yes and no, Uncle Donald".

One of the highlights of the last week is "hobby night", where we took a couple hours just to scratch a creative itch. I pulled out my new loom and weaved a couple inches of progress. Then pulled out my old guitar, basically the first time in several years.

One thing that struck me was just more awareness of my body, in a different way than the everyday stuff I can do on auto-pilot – laptop work, cooking, running, chores. When weaving, so often something would feel difficult and I'd realize it's because my shoulders had gotten all scrunched up, or posture was wacky, or fingers too tense. (It also felt difficult because I'm new and bad at it.) Ditto when playing guitar. I know enough to get too far ahead of myself, so I had to stop, rewind, force myself back to basics: focus on simple finger placement, just enough tension, making clean transitions, staying relaxed, etc..

The creative outlet felt really good. Keep your hobbies available to you!

Books
War and Peace. Down to the last 30%.

Running
Trying to find my morning flow again. Still not adjusted to the time change, and it's been hard to get through everything efficiently. For the weekend long run, more exploration in Bushwick/Ridgewood.

Around the Web
A glimpse of my future, I hope: "Years may wrinkle skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul."

Middlemarch is a novel about sympathising with everyone and The Moral Beauty of Middlemarch. (Thanks James!)

The Best Guide to the AI Revolution May Be Victorian Fiction.

What do Americans consider immoral?

It seems that youth sports promote zero-sum thinking in parents.

"Humans tend to over-index on this presumed precision of language, as if it were like a laser pointer aimed at a Rembrandt. It’s more like lobbing water balloons at cave shadows."

American Diner Gothic.

Music
Ivo Jannsen, Mallet Collective Amsterdam, Canto Ostinato: Live at the Concertgebouw.

Oren Ambarchi, Shebang. The momentum in "III" makes me want to get stuff done.

Biosphere, The Way of Time. I like the bass pulsing in "Like the End of the World".

Little John, Sly & Robbie, Give Thanks and Praise.

Three works by Anton Bruckner, from Orchestre de la Suisse Romande cond. Marek Janowski. Bruckner remains an unsolved puzzle...

• Symphony No. 1 in C minor, WAB 101
• Symphony No. 2 in C minor, WAB 102
• Mass No. 3 in F minor, WAB 28. The fifth movement Benedictus may be the only thing that stuck with me.

Three from Scott Tennant and his classical guitar...

• The Segovia Sessions
• Mysterious Barricades
• Wild Mountain Thyme – Celtic Music for Guitar. When the title track came on I thought, "Hey I know that from somewhere…"

Movies
Best in Show. DNF. Couldn't hang with it. The quirky characters semd to trend in the same direction, maybe the tone flattening them. Too unmotivated to reel me in this time.

Sorry, Wrong Number. Loved this one! Suspense and intrigue, and an immobile protagonist like Rear Window a few years later. NYC movies hit different when you've lived here a while.

After Hours. Fun little film. Scorsese! A weird-as-dreams or sharper-than-life Oz-/Odyssey-like attempt to get back home over the course of a long night, thwarted again and again.

The Pelican Brief. Solid thriller. Roberts and Denzel just leap off the screen in ways that few others do.

TV
The X-Files, s6e2 "Drive". Really fun episode, great pace.

Hannibal, s3e1–2

Last week I went back home. Visited old friends, bopped around Atlanta, got my Waffle House fix, sat for an impromptu photoshoot, walked by a lake, walked in the woods, worked for a few days from my parents' house, ate too much, slept too late, went on gentle hikes, and explored some parts of the state I'd never been to before.

Hadn't had a proper museum visit this year, so we fixed that thrice over at the Museum of Papermaking at Georgia Tech, Emory's Carlos Museum, and the Etowah Archaeological Museum at Etowah Indian Mounds. Also paid a visit to the New Echota historic site. The mounds were the coolest of the set – just about every place on Earth has the echoes of a previous civilization…

Coming back home with a full heart, and very pleasantly tired.

Art
Seated male figure in basalt from the Cartago-La Cabaña cultures.

Books
War and Peace.

Running
Very glad I took my running shoes with me on my trip. Didn't run as much as I initially thought I would, but there's no outlet like it, and came back home in better shape than I usually do after week-long trips.

Around the Web
There is nothing about being a parent that isn’t a cliché.

Reviving Atlanta's south downtown neighborhood.

"You can’t have craft without being at peace with pride and embarrassment existing."

"Have Oscar voters’ tastes improved since I was a teenager, or have I become a boring, middle-aged establishmentarian who likes boring, competent movies?"

UTF-8, Explained Simply.

How to end your extremely-online era. "Most of a good life is simply refusing to do what is bad."

2026 is 20% complete.

Music
Catrin FInch, Seckou Kaita, SOAR. The kora is such a good instrument. "Listen to the Grass Grow".

Ishmael Ensemble, A State of Flow.

A few from Erik Hall…

• Simeon ten Holt's Canto Ostinato. Really sings in
  "Sections 31–40".
• Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. One of the best from one of the best.
• Solo Three

Movies
Peter Rabbit. Pleasantly charming, good for a couple laughs.

TV
The X-Files, s6e1 "The Beginning".

Dark, s2e4-8. Second season complete.

Pokémon: Indigo League, s1e2. The plot didn't do much for me but at least the theme song rips.

Last week was Sunday afternoon reggae into Sunday evening blizzard. It's nice to feel cozy inside while outside is chaos. But you have to take care to get back out again.

Last year I went to a weaving workshop. This year I got a loom. Just a small one to scratch the itch. Now the question is figuring out where this thing fits in my life. I feel like it'll be a great evening time-passer.

My latest lifehack – from lazy accident – is doing (some of) my chores on weekdays. It's a great way to wind down productively – engaged, but not stressed – and helps the weekends feel more spacious.

Art
Far Echo, Red Rock Variation: Lake Superior Landscape, acrylic on canvas on board by George Morrison. There's some really, really cool stuff in the QuiltCon 2026 Winners Gallery.

Books
War and Peace.

Running
I've now run every street in Red Hook. ✔️

Around the Web
Redefining makeovers.

"Phoniness wasn’t a sign I was fundamentally, intrinsically unworthy of my aspirations. Phoniness was, in fact, an essential part of any aspirational project."

How to get into something new.

How to make use of books you don't read. "You do not always know where to find what you are looking for."

Research as leisure activity.

A British explorer’s quest to reach all the middles of nowhere.

The nine lives of the Franklin Avenue Shuttle.

Saturday Storm, poem by Phyllis McGinley.

I love the format for Jennifer Mills' weekly updates.

Why Are So Many Teen Girls Still Tearing Their A.C.L.s?

"At this point, how many more leggings can we buy?"

Music
Listened to a few from Sly & Robbie, after learning of Sly Dunbar's death. It all sort of blurs together for me, but it's a good vibe.

• Hordcore Dub
• The Unmetered Taxi
• Crucial Reggae
• Raiders of the Lost Dub
• The Sting

Biosphere, Shenzhou. Good one! Moody and floaty and slow. Listen: "Ancient Campfire" and "Houses on the Hill".

Terry Riley, A Rainbow in Curved Air. A certified classic, and a great companion to…

Laurie Spiegel, The Expanding Universe.

The Tallis Scholars, Renaissance Radio. Solid compilation. "If Ye Love Me".

Elori Saxi, Henry Solomon, Seeing Is Forgetting. Electronics + sax/woodwinds. "Reno Silver".

Apparat, The Devil's Walk. "Goodbye".

Jamie xx, In Waves.

Absolutely, Cerebrum.

Movies
Ghostwatch. Maybe a progenitor of the found footage horror genre. Interesting more for historical reasons. Maybe would have landed more if I'd watched it at nighttime!

Juror No. 2. This one had been lingering on my watchlist forever. Glad I made time for it. Need to keep going with legal thrillers.

TV
Dark, s2e1–3.

CSI: Miami, s4e23.

It's amazing how much difference a solid chunk of time can make. A couple days I had frustratingly chopped up calendar – doctor appointment, mid-day transit, meetings on and off every 30 minutes. And on another day: early morning, empty office, nothing on the calendar 'til after lunch. Blank slate for complete thoughts.

Each draining in their own way. Last week I found myself returning home completely flatlined. Enough energy to get out a few sentences but after that: …………. What a weird feeling.

It's now the Year of the Fire Horse. Fun to read up on my own year's animal and element. It's not for me, but like horoscopes or fortune-telling or other divination, it still scratches that itch where it's inherently compelling to recognize yourself in a description.

We're set for another blizzard in a few hours, and I find myself wishing for a good ol' fashioned snow day.

A great Saturday morning: coffee, pastry, and a date at the library.

Art
Fish and Mushrooms, woodcut on paper by Luigi Rist. Oiwa (Oiwa-san), from the series "One Hundred Ghost Tales (Hyaku monogatari)", color woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai – "The title refers to a game in which people would gather at night to tell scary stories, putting out a candle after each tale until the room was completely dark." Large Mowing Machine with Horses, oil on canvas by Jacques Villon. Avatar Reef Teapot, semi porcelain by Delfina Emmanuel. Monkeys on a Fruit Tree, ink and colors on silk hanging scroll by Mori Sosen.

Books
War and Peace. You spend 1000 pages with fictional characters and then Napoleon bursts into the room.

Running
Settling in nicely, somehow my biggest weekly mileage since September. Reminding myself that the short little runs as a daily dose still have huge positive spillover into the rest of my days. Note-to-self, treat exercise like brushing your teeth.

Around the Web
Don't Call It Art!. Pre-ordered! Get on board.

"The other notion of playfulness that I find really useful is from Maria Lugones, the great feminist philosopher, in this beautiful paper called 'Playfulness, World-Traveling, and the Loving Gaze.' She says that playfulness is the ability to move lightly between worlds."

"It's not so much that we need to teach them these things, as much as we need to encourage them to keep believing these things."

Resilient Children, Struggling Parents: Mapping American Parenting. "Using a composite score that measures the extent to which children have independent, playful, socially-diverse, and technology-lite childhoods, we find that kids in the Great Plains, Mountain states, and New England have the highest scores, while a cluster of states around Southern Appalachia are where children have the least independent, least socially-diverse, most technologically-dependent childhoods."

"But needing and being needed—the bottomless empathy and vulnerability they require—are exquisite not because the feeling of love is so special but because the person you love is, to you."

"Science fiction is often called upon to cast a line into the future to plumb the possible consequences of our modern ironies."

"When I’m on set or thinking about a story, making sure that the audience is engaged and that I’m also excited, I have to fight through the sensation of, 'Oh my god, another fucking over-the-shoulder shot.' I have to push through that and go, 'You’re building a sentence. Getting upset when you have to shoot an over-the-shoulder shot is like getting upset at using the word ‘and’ or ‘the’ in a sentence. It has to be done. It’s part of the grammar.'"

A color memory game. I got 44.07/50 on first and only attempt, happy with that. (via)

Women's clothing sizes are a mess.

The Taxonomy of Merch. "Why does wearing merch in real time, in the place it belongs to, feel so icky?" (via)

Cut Gems. The art of retouching photographs of museum gem collections.

I turned my website into my feed reader. Very cool idea. 🤔

The argument for free buses.

"The 'America is behind Europe on trains' narrative compares visibly mediocre service for passengers but ignores invisibly great service for cargo. Instead of asking why America lags Europe on passenger rail, we should be asking ourselves whether America can have better passenger rail and whether it should want to."

Music
A few more from Weval this week (I really enjoyed their self-titled a few weeks ago) a few weeks ago…

• The Weight. Favorite tracks are "The Weight" and "Someday".
• Remember. "Everything Went Well" is a little Washed Out-y, in a good way.
• Chorophobia. I like "Better", especially the bassline.

Monteverdi, Madrigali e lamenti; Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi.

Eric Whitacre, Light & Gold. Some really nice choral music. I remember playing one of his pieces back in college (which I did not like very much).

Various Artists, WaJazz: Japanese Jazz Spectacle Vol. I and Vol. II. "Summer Wind" is cool.

Movies
The Rainmaker. Apparently I've seen this before but I didn't remember a thing. Not bad, but not sure it will stick.

Sisu. Second viewing (the first). Holds up! Great warm-up to double-feature with the new sequel…

Sisu: Road to Revenge. Buster Keaton x Fury Road. So fun. For me, the best chases involve some degree of watching and waiting and sneaking around. This delivers.

TV
Dark, s1e7–10. The story has been scifi for a while, but this is the first time we the mechanics rendered on-screen. Loses a bit of mystery and magic that way, and maybe some of the weight?

I love surfing the web. On a long holiday weekend, a perfect way to slosh around and almost-but-not-quite totally waste a few hours. Over the last couple weeks, I've seen more and more posts referencing nostalgia for the Old Web™. If you're over 30 years old, you have a better sense of it. Before the big social platforms, when all the sites were personal or academic, or even the corporate ones that were moderately inept (like the rest of us) and/or experimental. Such a great feeling then, when you caught a good wave. Slipping into the flow and hopping from site to site, finding all the warp portals between the good spaces where you see the best of our collective weirdness. Captured that again for a little while today.

Books
War and Peace. Almost halfway! Some of these people are super messy.

Running
Trying to find a rhythm again.

Around the Web
Why holidays are on Mondays!

"Here’s an idea: Appoint yourself the weekly columnist of whatever your subject is." And the self-appointed artist residency.

"The meta-skill is this: learning to spot what becomes possible when a constraint disappears."

The Origins of One of the Most Beloved Video Games of All Time.

A game(?) that rewards patience.

A Year in Drawings.

Searching for Birds.

Where do parents find the time?. Basically, less sleep and less screen time.

Parents and affordability in New York City.

The World Is Forever Ending.

Music
Choir of New College, Oxford dir. Robert Quinney, Like as the Hart: Music for The Templar's Garden. What a great, great album, all choral interpretations of Psalm 42. Came across it when looking for recordings of Palestrina's "Sicut cervus", itself beautifully done. The real show-stopper for me is Buxtehude's. "Quemadmodum desiederat cervus", BuxWV92. I keep coming back over and over.

Ninajirachi, I Love My Computer.

A couple from Yosi Horikawa, good electronic stuff often with nature sounds, city sounds, field recordings. On Spaces, I like "Crossing". And on Impulse. "Soil" is the winner.

El Jazaah, El Jazaah.

Sabri Brothers, Ya Habib.

Movies
The X-Files. The "will they or won't they" is so agonizing and fun.

Runaway Jury. Legal thriller is an under-rated genre. Seems like we're just not making them as much?

TV
The X-Files, s5e19 "Folie a Deux" and s5e20 "The End". Weird season, on to number six.

Dark, s1e6.

Hmmm. No deep thoughts? Too many long days leading to too many short nights.

Art
Exquisite corpse paintings by Kerry James Marshall. (via). Paper flowers from the Tang dynasty era. Mende artist helmet mask (ndoli jowei). Abdullahi Mohammaed with Mainasara, photo by Pieter Hugo. Face Holding a Leaf, oil on canvas by Léopold Survage. Untitled Donut Drawing, colored pencil with graphite by Judy Chicago.

Books
War and Peace. The wolf hunt is a major highlight so far, tragedy and thrill both in the mix. I love these little interludes / transition moments.

Running
Minimal!

Around the Web
Your free time is for you and How to stop being boring.

Learn about yourself by making something you’ll throw out right away. "It won’t be anything you can’t handle, because you’ve been handling it this whole time."

"The most important change made by an artistic endeavor is the change it makes in you." (via)

"All of these sports make the process of improvement a central point in all of them. And I think that is what makes them cool."

"Athletes possess large quantities of high-value, portable items,” said Nikos Passas, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University, making them appetizing targets for burglars. And because their work schedules are publicly available ahead of time, everyone knows when they won’t be home".

Immigrants have a tremendous net-positive effect.

"One of the arguments for religion is just there’s a place you can stuff your dogmatism into beliefs about the Trinity, and then the rest of you is free to be open minded, because you’ve taken care of your dogmatism. You’ve sent it somewhere where it doesn’t really matter that much for a lot of decisions."

"Motivation is a hired trait. The only place where managers motivate people is in management books."

Music
M. Sage, Tender / Waiting. Reminds me a bit of the Tindersticks soundtrack for Stars at Noon.

Antonio Caldara, Complete Cello Sonatas.

Eberhard Weber, The Colours of Chloë.

Sam Gendel, Nate Mercereau, digi-squires.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Best Urdu Qawwalies. Bangers.

Sunleif Rasumussen: Songs of Solitude perf. Michala Petri, Theatre of Voices, Concerto Copenhagen.

Movies
The Eiger Sanction. A rare DNF. I really like most Clint Eastwood movies I've seen, but this one seemed slow and sophomoric.

Jaws. Masterpiece. "You lose one, you rig one."

OBEX. Reminds me of Mandy a little bit in overall vibe – dreamy hallucinatory reality-blurring. But a lighter, kinder form. But also of Hundreds of Beavers, in black-and-white creativity and constraint.

TV
The X-Files, s5e18 "The Pine Bluff Variant". Mulder undercover!

Dark, s1e3–5. It's growing on me a bit, took a few to get on the wavelength. (And also because I wasn't really paying attention.)

Line of Duty, s6e6–7. This show is over and I'm sad. Favorite all-time? It's up there.

His & Hers, s1e1. Dahlonega mentioned!

We have a whiteboard on our fridge. Most weeks, we update the whiteboard with what's happening that week, along with doodles, quotes, competitive nonsense, bragging rights, etc.. My wife is great about photographing it before we erase and start the new one, and had built a nice historical archive. So I made a photobook of the whiteboards from the last few years.

I'm growing to love digital-to-print projects like this. A while back I made my old Day One iphone journals into a printed book. I've got some ideas for more…

Had another Friday morning coffee & coworking with some friends. What a treat.

Felt like a rough work-week even though nothing notably bad happened. I gotta work on ending each day crisply before I crash! It's often better to step away and circle back rather than power through.

Art
A Qing dynasty-era cape embroidered to look like peacock feathers. Broken and Restored Multiplication, oil and silver paper on canvas by Suzanne Duchamp. Outside the Box, quilt by Jenny Voss. Double Still Life, sculptures by Katy Cowan.

Books
War and Peace.

Running
Nursing a minor injury, so I'm using that and the lingering piles of snow as an excuse to recupe.

Around the Web
Isometric NYC.

"Upload an architectural render. Get back what it'll actually look like on a random Tuesday in November."

Map of home values by ZIP code.

Pretty Images Are Dead. Long Live Documentary Photography. "Documentary photography survives because it possesses something AI fundamentally cannot: intent born from witness."

Found cassette tapes.

"Politics is a repeated interaction. If you want politicians to keep doing the useful things, you have to show that useful things earn support."

Five paragraph order.

An archive of mouse pointers. I dislike the latest macOS version rounded off the tip of my mouse pointer. I like it sharp.

The story of the macOS poof animation.

"Stamina is a core bottleneck to work and with LLMs in hand it has been dramatically increased."

"Here’s what using Claude Code initially felt like: cooking with ingredients from a stranger’s fridge."

Everyone is getting syntax highlighting wrong.

Latent space engineering and management as an AI superpower.

Music
Amina Claudine Myers, Song for Mother E. Gospel organ/piano. Love the extended organ opening in "Have Mercy Upon Us".

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 18; Franck: Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra perf. Alexis Weissenberg, Berliner Philharmoniker cond. Herbert von Karajan. The Rachmaninov is probably a candidate for top-3 or top-5 most-listened-to classical works, always pays dividends. The Franck was in one ear and out the other.

Remscéla, Milkweed. Fuzzy, distorted lofi folk songs based on the Táin saga. See "How Conchobor was Begotten".

Ø, Mika Vainio, Sysivalo. Largely rhythm-less, dark, vaguely-ombinous ambient. I like it! "Etude 4".

Purelink, Faith.

Movies
This Is Not a Film. I respect Panahi's work, and the drive/obsession/risk to put this together but as a viewer, you're mostly watching a guy talk on the phone in his kitchen and it's not the most interesting thing to watch.

Things Will Be Different. Good scifi time travel thriller. Great little world they've invented here. Wonderful sound, too. More movies about siblings!

The Meg. A re-watch. Humor falls flat, and repetitive in the way of many monster movies, but overall decent.

TV
The X-Files, s5e17 "All Souls". I like these religious episodes, and how the writers blend and remix historical materials.

Line of Duty, s6e5. Only two more episodes left of this show, and it's making me sad.

Law & Order, s1e2.

I read (kinda sorta, mostly, sometimes DNF'ed) 31 books in 2025. A drop in total count but I leaned into longer ones a bit more. I think this was a good change overall. Not my best reading year, but the highs were high, and very British!

My top two, call it a tie:

Middlemarch (Eliot). Fictional story of a town in rural England, early 1800s, and its various inhabitants – sons, daughters, doctor, lawyer, mayor, etc. – pursuing their life. Rich and lively, couldn't put it down.

The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV (Castor). Two kings, two cousins. One who wanted all the trappings and ceremony and none of the responsibility of governing. Another who wanted the burden (and power), and took it, and learned the costs. It's a cliché but some books really do make the figures "come alive".

Other great ones from the year:

• Rainbows End (Vinge). Scifi thriller with augmented reality and wearable tech and dementia cures.
• Extinction (Preston). Jurassic Park, but detectives and Neanderthals.
• On the Calculation of Volume, Book 1 (Balle). Novel of philosophical Groundhog Day time repetition.
• Sense and Sensibility (Austen). Two daughters find their way to love!
• The English and Their History (Tombs). Exactly what it says on the tin, but just the right balance of momentum and detail.

Interesting moment to the visit the doctor this week. A routine visit, fill out forms, take some blood, quiet typing and clicking, off you go. But ambient stress from a frustrated patient, at wit's end, nearby at the reception desk seeped in for a few moments. It's such a vulnerable space.

On Friday, we had friends over for coffee and breakfast and early morning chit-chat. And since we all have cushy tech-worker jobs, transitioned into a communal work-from-home session for an hour or so before parting ways. I'm patting myself on the back for the novelty. We (bozos with no children or other practical obstacles) should do this more often. It's good to prioritize something wholesome and rewarding early in your day. (Having guests was also a helpful nudge to tidy up after moving a bunch of furniture around.)

Yesterday evening we spent some time doing some artwork, making collage masks from paper cutouts. It felt so refreshing to do something instinctual, following reflexes, running with the first idea that seemed good enough. Such a change from my usual day-to-day work, which usually requires thoughtful precision every single time. Safe spaces+++.

Books
War and Peace, cont.. Mildly regretting my choice to go with the completely-unabridged version. Humbling to be at page 640-something and only ~33% done. I enjoy the companionship of this book, though.

Running
A down week in mileage, but lucky to have two snowy trail runs in the mix. Tied my coldest run ever, out at 12° as today's winter storm laid down its first couple inches. This week's weights session was a good reminder that I should lift more often.

Around the Web
Playful children’s drawings become colorful handmade chairs. (via)

Moss and Mondrian, a nice snippet on mutual influence and how history gets simplified.

"If by any chance you are wondering how to make yourself smarter, learn how to appreciate almost everybody, and keep on cultivating that skill."

"A much more reliable way to stay offline is just to be doing things so engaging that it wouldn’t occur to you to drift online in the first place." (via)

Cover your 25 miles, then rest up.

The best way to read the internet. Amen. You'll have to take my RSS feeds from my cold, dead hands.

"You're building an anxiety management system that happens to look like productivity."

The Etymology of English Colours and How 'guacamole' is related to 'avocado' and 'mole'.

Japanese death poems.

Now that my storehouse
has burned down, nothing
conceals the moon.

Don't waste your back pressure.

"Design and planning becomes the bottleneck when agents write all the code".

Music
The South Hill Experiment, MOONSHOTS. There's some fuzzy psychedelic folk rock but also some groovy stuff. Had a lot of fun with this one. See "Gabo's Last Resort".

Weval, Weval. A theory: electronic duos are consistently better than solo acts. I like "Square People" and
"Days".

Claudio Monteverdi – Madrigali e lamenti, Montserrat Figueras and La Capella Reial de Catalunya dir. Jordi Savall. "Lamento della ninfa" is a standout. Also realizing that I've gotten much more into "early music" in the last year or so. Mostly at random/opportunistically, but I think there's room for a more serious, intentional dive.

(Usually a good sign when I keep albums around for another week, like these first three.)

Seun Kuti, Egypt 80, Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head). Afrobeat will never die.

Lee "Scratch" Perry, Bob Riddim, Destiny. Dub/ska/reggae. Such a beautiful voice! "Ring Pon My Finger" and "Infinity (Dub)".

Brittney Carter, As I Am. Rap. Don't lvoe it, don't hate it. The interludes kill me, but I like the drum work in "Running".

Charles LLoyd, Zakir Hussain, Eric Harland, Sangam. Indian/jazz fusion jam session meanderings. I couldn't get into it.

Movies
The Da Vinci Code. Second view (the first). After a long day I needed some smooth-brain entertainment and it delivered. Two+ hours of non-stop conspiracy theory. I wonder if there's any good writing about this movie/franchise paving the way for 21c social distrust.

The Mastermind. A dope robs a museum, reaps the consequences. Filed under Kelly Reichardt, one of the most consistently excellent directors today.

Finding 'Ohana. Light family-forward adventure in the spirit of The Goonies. Owes a debt, mostly pays it.

TV
The X-Files, s5e16 "Mind's Eye". This season is getting confusing now. I'm not sure where anyone stands, and I'm not sure that's intentional.

Law & Order: UK, s1e1. Everything instantly recognizable and slightly "off". It delivers.

Dark, s1e1–2.

Line of Duty, s6e3–4. Is this my all-time favorite show?

I watched 127 movies in 2025, on par with last year. Of the first-time viewings, these are the ones I'd be most happy to watch again. Just like my write-up of movie favorites from 2024, I'll excerpt previous posts for the best of the best. Listed chronologically, in both the tippy-top-tier and the contenders. What I see in common for the top four is a compassionate, affirming spirit – whether that in new friendships, on the job, in love, in family and community.

Tampopo.

A stranger rides into town and helps a woman with her struggling noodle shop. The feeling may fade a bit with time, but right now I’m in love with this movie. Such a big heart. And expansive enough that the main plot is interspersed with vignettes with unrelated characters, snapshots of a world beyond, full of concerns and worries and dreams just like our own.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

Now this is a movie! Dudes being dudes.

Compensation.

Told in silent-film style, a story of two deaf Black women, in two different eras, finding love. Love the borrowing from pan-the-photograph documentary style, and vivid captions that let you imagine and dream along with the stories.

Little Women (1994).

Heart: warmed!

Honorable mentions, really can't go wrong:

• Rebel Ridge
• Nosferatu (2024)
• Love & Basketball
• Da 5 Bloods
• Sisu
• Speak No Evil (2022)
• Elevation
• The Clock (1945)
• Sinners
• Practical Magic
• The Order
• Timecrimes
• The Princess Diaries
• 28 Years Later
• Tron
• Woman of the Hour
• Black Bag
• Train Dreams
• Silent Night (2023)

Started my long weekend with a bit of journaling, now I sit by the big window watching the snow fall. Life is good.

Art
La Cadie Diaspora, mixed media textiles, stencil, collage, embroidery, stiching by Merill Comeau. Embers, quilt by Barbara Danzi. Thar, sculpture in porcelain, earthenware, glaze by Kathy Butterly. The Boating Party, oil on Canvas by Mary Cassatt. Paysans Sortant et Allant au Marché (Villagers Going to the Market), oil on board by Philomé Obin. Trains and Bridges, lithograph in black on wove paper by Jolán Gross-Bettelheim.

Books
War and Peace, continued.

Running
Running trails in the earliest morning light, just before dawn, is such a perfect gift before starting the workday. Red Hook again this weekend, will take one more run to complete the map. Maybe next weekend, though I don't love the idea of hitting the same area three weekends in a row. We'll see.

Around the Web
This weekend I learned the phrase "haud yer weesht ", via Line of Duty. (Who else but Hastings?)

"The most virtuous thing is usually to make an up-front investment in making things easier, so that going forward, you are not making high day-to-day expenditures of your patience, energy or happiness."

How the Brooklyn Bridge has changed over time. I had no idea the bridge had trolley cars at one point.

The real reason New Yorkers' groceries cost so much. Zoning strikes again! Expensive elevators strike again!

Where Americans Choose to Move and Where They Leave. Interesting to see some family trajectories mapped out here. "From 2020 to 2024, 1.47 million more people moved from California to elsewhere in the United States than from a different state into California. That outflow is equal to 3.7% of the state’s 2020 population." Time to buy low?

A finding that "Living next door to someone as a child increases the probability of having the same occupation as them 30 years later by about 10 percent." (via)

The United States needs fewer bus stops …and better (faster) service as a result.

Oops, You Wrote a Database.

Music
Yosi Horikawa, Vapor. Had this album on repeat throughout the week. I love all the nature sounds mixed into bouncy, juicy, lush electronic stuff. Two faves: "Maki" and "Summer in 1987".

Tako Tiki, Hirsutes Farfelus. Oddball winds + percussion.

The Platters, The Flying Platters Around the World. I really like "Twilight Time".

Titanic, Vidrio and HAGEN. How to summarize these – Latin experimental chamber pop?

Philip Glass, Etude No. 1 → No. 8 perf. Vanessa Wagner. What you'd expect!

Donnacha Dennehy: Land of Winter perf. Alarm Will Sound cond. Alan Pierson. Months of the year in chamber form. I liked this recording. "November" is the best, of course!

Movies
Girls Town. Close friends, soon to leave high school, navigate shared tragedies. It's very sweet and sad and funny. Two thumbs up.

Wolf Man (2025). Got exactly what I signed up for. Fun movie. Love that we see the early hints of transformation in the heigtened senses – smell, hearing. The sound design is especially good, as we take on the perspective of the protagonist. Early tragedy in the simple distancing from inability to communicate what he's going through. Appreciate the novelty of the precarious greenhouse sheeting – take full advantage of your setting!

The Fate of the Furious. I've seen a lot of individual scenes before, but for the life of me I cannot tell you how or when. The spectacle is dialed in. The writing is bad. I don't think I'd intentionally rewatch again. Vin Diesel wears the mythologizing well, but the Statham scenes easy eclipse everyone else in the cast.

TV
The X-Files, s5e15 "Travelers". Body horror!

The Abandons, s1e1.

Hannibal, s2e12–13. Such a perfect and devastating season wrap-up. "In the pantry!".

Line of Duty, s6e1–2. I care about one thing and one thing only!

Last week was my first full week back to work, post-holidays. I was surprisingly at peace on Sunday night, ready and accepting that it was time to get back to reality. Sometimes vacations can feel too short; sometimes, too long. Felt like this one was dialed-in.

Lately I feel like I have more space in my weekends somehow. Something has shifted. It's like there's just 2–4 hours that weren't there before. I'm not sure how it appeared.

Took my first ride on the NYC Ferry this weekend, up the East River from Brooklyn to Queens and over to Manhattan. So pleasant!

Late last year I spent way too much time window-shopping for a new keyboard. It was an intense relief to finally buy one. Shopping can be a thrill and a vast emptiness.

Art
Pink Honey, acrylic, pencil and ink on burned paper by Modupeola Fadugba. The Waterfall, oil on canvas by Henri Rousseau. Fireflies, woodblock print by Tsukioka Kōgyo. Garland of Fruit surrounding a Depiction of Cybele Receiving Gifts from Personifications of the Four Seasons, oil on panel by Hendrick van Balen the Elder and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Cleaning Jesus, gelatin silver print by Walter Martin

Books
War and Peace, cont.. Hit a bit of a rut this week. Whether chicken or egg, it coincided with losing my earlier consistency.

Running
Just a few more miles and I can add the Red Hook neighborhood to my ran-every-street list. Got back to a longer run this weekend, aided by warmer weather. Above 35–40º, it gets much, much easier to manage a run over a longer period of time. Fewer garments to manage, lower downside risk if you mismanage ventilation or layering, etc.. And drinks stay warm.

Around the Web
The life of a fangirl. "Fandoms create environments where participation happens almost always naturally and almost always horizontally."

The Case for Blogging in the Ruins. "The blog, at its best (a best I aspire one day to reach) is Montaigne's direct descendant. It's a form that allows for intellectual exploration without demanding premature certainty. You can write a post working through an idea, acknowledge in the post itself that you're not sure where you'll end up, and invite readers to think alongside you."

Against access. "Our environment has endless potential for life. For centuries, however, much of our vitality was forbidden. We were forced to stick with the effects of the hearing and sighted world. Now, though, we are all in varying stages of flight." How accessibility (in a common understanding of an "us" making the world easier for a "them") falls short, with particular focus on ASL interpreters. Very interesting!

DeafBlind people are creating a new language. An PBS intro to ProTactile, which I learned about from the article above. It looks beautiful and fun!

The loneliness crisis isn't just male. "What our polling reveals, though, is that it’s a youth loneliness crisis, rather than a male loneliness crisis. Age, not gender, shows far greater correlation with antisocial attitudes and beliefs. Younger voters — both male and female — are increasingly paralyzed by anxiety and fear, and they are finding it harder and harder to socialize. In fact, when you look at the data, the 'antisocial crisis,' as I like to call it, is actually most pronounced among young women, who experience the highest rates of social isolation."

"One of the most underappreciated things about the recent past washow common boredom was."

The philosophy of Solvej Balle.

It's hard to justify Tahoe icons.

How Markdown took over the world.

What an unprocessed photo looks like.

Are You Enjoying Our Linguine?: How American tourists took over everything. "They feel challenged. They feel alive. They are Americans. They are frontier people. They love a cultural mystery."

Notes on Afghanistan.

Mamdani moderating – high hopes!

Music
Netherwalker, Odyssey of Respair. Guttural screamy metal with some classical grandiosity.

Beethoven: Sonatas 18, 27, 28, 31 (The Lost Tapes / Live) perf. Sviatoslav Richter.

Funkadelic, Maggot Brain. I really like the title track. Interesting to hear this transition in music history – borrowing from blues, gospel, psychedelic rock, blending it all up and leaving nothing out.

Charlie Hunter, Ella Feingold, Different Strokes for Different Folks. Bluesy, funky guitar + bass + percussion. "Nasty, Ain't it!?".

Bill Evans Trio, Haunted Heart: The Legendary Riverside Studio Recordings. Just really good start to finish. A favorite moment this week was a pre-dawn run in Prospect Park with this album playing. Magical.

Charles Lloyd, Figure in Blue.

SML, How You Been.

Movies
45365. Documentary of people in a place (Sidney, Ohio). If you like this sort of "snapshots of everyday life around town" documentary – I really do – check out Hale County This Morning, This Evening.

City of Gold (2015). Follows along with food critic Jonathan Gold as he explores LA food, and with other talking heads about his impact on food writing, etc.. At its best when its attention is on the city.

Fragments for Venus (short). Straightforward description and juxtaposition – sometimes the basic ingredients are the most potent.

Tron: Ares. Gorgeous to look at, and I think a larger screen would shift my opinion a bit, but all the dazzle in the world cannot save a leaden script, delivered flatly. Interesting to see Minecraft-life voxel cube material when techno-things disintegrate – very similar presentation in Superman (2025) with the reality rift thing.

TV
The X-Files, s5e14 "The Red and the Black". I dunno, is this going anywhere?

Hannibal, s2e9–11. This is going somewhere!

Lost LA, s1e1–3. PBS!

And so the last chunk of holiday break comes to a close. A few highlights: Sunday morning walk to a cafe to read, and then to a diner. A brief return to the office for a couple of days, and blasting country music all afternoon on Tuesday. Making red beans & rice on New Year's Eve. Re-arranging the furniture and refreshing the apartment for another year. Playing Breath of the Wild for too long. Visiting a new coffee shop. Date night dancing to music videos. The usual early wake-ups feeling even earlier in a quieter city.

Art
Openings, Red Rock Variation: Lake Superior Landscape, acrylic on canvas on board by George Morrison. Man and Newspapers in Grass, Central Park, gelatin silver print by Tod Papageorge. Vokeo Island Lewa mask in wood and varnish.

Books
War and Peace. I feel a bit of wind going out of my sails during the battle scenes. They are beautifully written and fresh, but right now I'd like to get back to salon drama.

Running
I really like running in the snow. Such fun. There's often the nervousness the night before when the temps hit a new low, the shock of the cold on the first steps out the door, the sluggish pulse and shortness of breath, but then on warming up: bliss.

Around the Web
2026: "We’ve officially landed in the “made up years” era, where the years don’t feel real, rather, opening lines for a YA doomsday sci-fi book." Let's try that again. This year is our year. Only 12 months until the late 2020's.

"When there's no meaningful resistance, is there any real transformation?"

"A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it. A thin desire is one that doesn't." (via)

"Luckily because of the way I began, I’m the cockroach of this industry. I can survive any version of it."

It's cool how many different cultures have some form of psychopomp in their stories of the afterlife.

"A question no writer wants to raise in a reader’s mind is ‘why are you telling me this?’"

"It is more important to see the stories in ourselves than to see ourselves in the stories."

"Everyone's house looks like a dentists office now" and Merchandising the Void.

"Doomerism assumes you can opt out and hold your position. That refusal is neutral. That the world will wait while you decide. It won’t."

53 Directors Pick Their Favorite Films of 2025.

Paper Jewels: Postcards from the Raj.

On the creativity of videogame pixel art made for CRT displays.

"You can take a barbell strategy to travel. Either go for a year, or two, or ten, however long you need to go to open a bank account. Or, stay no longer than a few days in the same place, and come back often. The world is changing, and […] there will be combinations of place and time lost to us forever."

"Why aren’t there more intermediate options between eating in a sit-down restaurant, and cooking your own meals? […] There is a magical place with plentiful such options, and it’s called Taiwan."

Music
Le grand embrasement: Music for a Mad King perf. Into the Winds. Bouncy, festive olde musicke. I really liked it.

Chopin: The Complete Nocturnes perf. Tom Hicks. They're all lovely but I have trouble staying inside the music. Attention drifts.

Shostakovich: The Piano Concertos; Solo Works perf. Yuja Wang, Boston Symphony Orchestra cond. Andris Nelsons. The Andante from the second concerto is brilliant. The rest, familiar and didn't capture me.

Freddie Roulette, Spirit of Steel. Slide guitar, mostly bluesy, sometimes Hawaiian-tinged. I liked "Song for My Father".

LTJ Bukem presents Earth, Vol. 1, good compilation of various drum & bass. This music used to grate but I think I'm better at hearing past the drum chatter now. "Faith" makes me think of Pilotwings 64 (complimentary).

Movies
Hercules (1997). I don't love it, but I think we can all relate to Hades' mood swings. Read up on the first 15 minutes.

Tenet. Third time I've seen it? Steadily growing on me. Each time I watch I find something new.

Presence. First movie of 2026. A ghost moves through an empty house as we see through its eyes, and a family moves in, and they learn about each other. Director Steven Soderbergh: "The beauty of projects at this scale is I can just do them without having to talk to anybody." Another quality Soderbergh I saw recently is Black Bag.

Grand Theft Hamlet. Actors out of work during the pandemic decide to stage a play in the videogame world of Grand Theft Auto. It's funny, crazy ambitious, and has a few touching moments. Quality documentary!

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Extended Edition. "Forth, and fear no darkness!"

TV
The X-Files, s5e13 "Patient X". Back on the season arc. Fox Mulder has lost his mojo!

Hannibal, s2e4–8. Will Graham has regained his mojo!

Land of Sin, s1e1. Every country has its rednecks.

Two-day work week last week, and another one coming this week. Highlights of the time off so far: reading breaks, catching up with family, coffee every morning, playing Switch again, morning runs, movies and TV, walks in the neighborhood, "study hall" to learn more coding stuff, making end-of-year charitable donations, and making gumbo for Christmas dinner.

I vibe-coded a white noise app this weekend. Functionally it's a copy of the most-used features from my previous go-to noise website. But now I can do the same in a dedicated app outside the browser, more finely tailored for how I use it.

The coding itself was very pleasant and absorbing, just me and Codex in the terminal ripping for a couple hours, testing ideas, whittling things down, circling back for a bit of polish. Reached ~1000 lines of good-enough-for-me code, called it a day, started thinking about other problems to solve. Nothing like home cooking.

I like this idea of "Ins and Outs" to set the tone for the new year. Now pondering what my 2026 should hold, after the examples from Chris Martin and Carl Barenbrug. I think I'll keep these weekly posts on the "In" list.

Art
Really cool online exhibition of Tom Lloyd's work at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Books
War and Peace. So it begins. I'm 150 or so pages into it and while nothing monumental has happened so far, it's been a ton of fun. I think I misconceived the book based on 1) the title and 2) Russian setting and 3) the author, and assumed it would be something more heavy and dour and serious. But it's has a lightness and liveliness that's been really fun to read so far.

Running
Challenging but fun weather this last week: running in sleet one morning, and in a few inches of snow yesterday, with random skids and slides and postholes demanding extra effort and attention. So fun. A great time to insist on regularity, to the extent that I can.

Around the Web
"Capitalism (and now AI) increases the number of trade-offs we face, and therefore increases the importance of meta-preferences—the stories we choose to live inside."

"A book is, we know, an unrivaled technology for living more life."

Does it help to know history? "The real sin that the absence of a historical sense encourages is presentism, in the sense of exaggerating our present problems out of all proportion to those that have previously existed."

"All art galleries are a bit weird eh. Each time you visit, there are a hundred paintings scattered in rooms and you walk through like uh-huh, uh-huh, ok, that’s nice, uh-huh, ok. Then at random one of them skewers you through your soul and you’re transfixed by the image for life."

"So many want the fruit without the root. The glow without the gutting. The revelation without the reverence."

It was only a matter of time: HighAgency.com.

Stimulation Clicker is, sadly, very amusing.

The Story Behind Isamu Noguchi’s Playscapes in Atlanta and Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green. (Thanks, Jara.)

Orson Welles on Christmas.

How the White Savior Became This Year’s Cinematic Punchline.

Music
J.S. Bach: The Art of Fugue, perf. Cuarteto Casals. I've never clicked with this work, but yet I persist. String quartet version is novel, at least.

Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, perf. Chris Thile. Mandolin transcriptions are very nice.

Bach: Weihnachtsoratorium / Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248), Thomanerchor Leipzig, Gewandhausorchester cond. George Christoph Biller.

Bach: there's no one better!

Movies
Superman (2025). It's fine. The dog is annoying.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Extended Edition. Better than I remembered. I think the extra footage helped stitch things together better, a bit more heft where we previously skimmed along.

Little Women (1994). Heart: warmed! Loved this movie.

TV
The X-Files, s5e12 "Bad Blood". Vampire shenanigans! Great to see them locked into a silly register, and in a Rashomon-like multiple-perspectives narrative.

Line of Duty, s5e5–6. What a great series. Each is only a handful of episodes each, but hard to think of many that hold the quality bar this high through multiple seasons.

Hannibal, s2e1–2.

At some point I decided to stop being depressed. That might not be scientifically or clinically valid, and it took longer to see it through, but that's about roughly how I experienced it, or at least remember it. I remember immiserating in bed one Saturday morning, spiraling darkly, stagnant. And then a mental sigh, and: "I'm tired of this." I got up. I got dressed. I went for a walk. I felt better when I got back, though not the whole day. The next day I got up and made myself go walk again. I felt better.

It probably wasn't just the walking. Therapy and experience and maturity chipped in, but the walking gave them fresh soil to grow in. Every day, every day, every day: outside.

And then one day earlier this week I realized, "…I... didn't go outside yesterday!". No special reason, just distractedly busy with other things. It had been least 1742 days, along with several years of habit before I started logging it. Annoying to forget, but also: I didn't need it. It's not the life-raft it used to be. Today I'm a different person with different needs, and it's time to give those attention in different ways, new streaks yet to start.

(A nice bookend for how I started the year: remembering when I need to ignore myself.)

I hate when there's standing water around the house. I always squeegee the shower before I leave. And I hate when pools linger under the dish rack, or on countertops. We have a robo-coffee machine at work and I always dump the drip tray first thing every morning. Then I had a realization where it might come from. This might be a just-so story but I think it makes sense: mosquitos. Life-long nemesis, largely disappeared from daily life, but still shaping my behavior.

Art
Landscape, oil on canvas by Rufino Tamayo. The Shortest Day, book illustrations by Carson Ellis. Cutting the Stone (The Extraction of the Stone of Madness), oil on board by Hieronymus Bosch.

Books
The English and Their History. Still a great read. When we get to newer periods, I'll probably drop and switch to other books. I'm really curious about the ~300–1300CE time period.

Running
Running early before sunrise is a pretty decent replacement for running late at night, which I don't do much anymore. Similar quiet, calm, place-to-your-self feeling. Looks like I'll end the year with around ~950 miles, much less than last year and annoying short of a nice round number.

Around the Web
Growth matters and The only number that really matters.

"When I finish a book, I immediately read the first 10 pages of a new one so I am
never between books."

Why we love Jane Austen more than ever after 250 years. "It was Austen who gave us the perfect art of a socially realistic novel about people having to overcome their inner problems—rather than having to overcome problems imposed upon them by the world."

On Reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Maybe a 2026 project?

Terence Malick's disciples. Always read Bilge Ebiri!

Teenagers need to be free.

Cold cases in the AI era. "The cold case genre delivers a kind of satisfaction more appropriate to the AI era than the cozy mystery genre, first because of the forensic software tech, the genealogy databases, document analysis systems, etc., and second, because audiences want stories about human judgment, about deciding what matters and what does not."

Bad policy leads to ghost apartments.

Music
The Acid, Liminal. There's a bit of kinship here with Thom Yorke's The Eraser in this particular flavor of vocals + electronics mix. "Tumbling Lights", "Ghost", "Red" – all great.

Folk Physics, Parallels.

Bach, Six Sonatas for Organ, BWV 525–530 perf. Aart Bergwerff. I really like this organ, very warm.

Bach: The Toccatas perf. Jonathan Ferrucci.

Movies
The Commuter. Good clean fun. Very happy with how they shot the close-quarters fighting.

The Shop Around the Corner. Takes a while to get momentum but it's a good one. Saw this at Metrograph and remembered that I really really need to go there more often.

TV
The X-Files, s5e1x "Kill Switch". Rogue AI!

Line of Duty, s5e3–4. This show will wind you up and break your heart.