We renewed our lease this week, so we’ve got at least another 15 months in Brooklyn. Let’s hope year number three is the best one yet.
I also went to a house party for the first time in ages. It felt so normal and pleasant, just good ol’-fashioned low-stakes positive community. What a nice boost to launch into a new week.
Running
I also got a nice boost from my weekend long run. The Brooklyn Public Library system has a new Browse the Branches program. At every branch, you can collect a unique sticker and put it in a little booklet, like the National Parks. I plotted out a 15-mile loop to 11 branches in my area, and ran to collect them in 4 inches of snow and slush. Perfect Saturday morning action, followed by a perfect equal and opposite reaction: the Saturday afternoon nap.
School
Learning the Java Spring Boot framework and it’s been a pleasant surprise! I had one of those moments of looking back and seeing step-change progress. I didn’t clearly notice it while it was happening, but I have been learning a good bit, and looking back, I can see a clear growth in knowledge from then to now. No substitute for hands-on.
Books
The Sleepless – Enjoying it, but lately I’ve been too sleepy to make much progress at bedtime. Will definitely keep chipping away.
Music
The recent snowfall led me to Ferron’s “Snowin’ in Brooklyn“, which led me to “As Soon As I Find My Shoes I’m Gone“, which led me to the rest of the album. I dig it!
Beyoncé has a couple new country songs. I love “TEXAS HOLD’EM” – but that 2010s-indie-folk whistling in the chorus had me doing a double-take. I like the backing sounds in “16 CARRIAGES“, with a whip cracking, clop-clop horsetread sound at the close, etc.. The density of musical ideas in her recent work is so incredible. You hear similar in “MY HOUSE” recently, another multi-mode single that shifts form two minutes in. I need to take another tour through her discography.
Inspired by that Grammy duet with Tracy Chapman, I took some time to listen to Luke Combs. I have pretty adventurous musical taste, I think. Some genres I don’t prefer, but I’m willing to sample anything. So I was fascinated by the feeling of comfort I had when listening to, say, “One Number Away“. It made me remember back to elementary/middle-school age. My school bus driver had wired up 3-4 speakers from the radio through the length of the bus. So country music was my soundtrack, morning and afternoon, every day from 1st through 8th grade. I wonder how to weight the music (it’s a good song!) vs. my upbringing, but there’s probably something deeply embedded in my psyche that responds to country, even though I rarely listen to it. (Another thing that jumps out is how easy it is to understand the lyrics! I barely pay attention, anyway.)
After hearing of his death, I also listened to a lot of Toby Keith and… well, it’s not for me. “Ain’t It Just Like You” is pretty good, though (despite a relatively weak chorus).
As I mentioned last week, I listened to a lot more of Alice Coltrane. Definitely prefer the later era. Lukewarm overall? Realized I’d listened to Eternity a few times before – “Om Supreme” is still great. The spiritual flavor of her work as heard on Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana is an interesting turn. I like the dreaminess of “Ganesha“, and the intimate devotional of “Prema Muditha” makes me feel like I’m intruding somehow.
EARTH, “Your Song“. I love hearing the familiar – 2000’s pop/R&B – in languages I don’t understand at all.
Yusef Lateef’s Eastern Sounds is perfect soundtrack when it’s the end of the workday and I’m sort of winding down, BUT I’m also sort of still in the groove. You can just glide forever on this.
Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Jerusalem Demsas has a substack, which is an easy subscribe.
Speaking of expertise on housing, I don’t often think about accounting and tax policy, but there’s a good argument that depreciation policy holds back housing construction, and it would be “easy” (relatively speaking) to make it much better.
This episode of Plain English on anxiety got me thinking. One nice bit: the very important distinction between therapy and “therapy content”.
10x – Funding Ideas for Better Public Service. I had no idea a program like this even existed. It is welcome and reassuring to see the government with experimental, improvement-focused programs.
“Most podcasts are boring because the interviewer is asking questions they already know the answer to, faking the role of an ignorant audience member. They’re much better off asking questions they don’t know the answer to, but genuinely want to know the answers to.”
On casual programming: “At a high level, there’s one thing that sticks out to me: there’s little computation involved in most of these. They’re mainly about data wrangling and automating tedious manual tasks.”
Words of Wisdom
“You can do two things: you can pout, or you can go out there and respond.”
Movies
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Loved it. You see that Margaret is different – or at least that this won’t (only) be a typical coming-of-age/tween romance story – early on when we first see her bedroom. We see maps and star charts, and in her voiceover prayers, a search for place and meaning.
TV
A Real Bug’s Life, s1e2. Pleasantly upbeat and funny. I’m not the target audience, so I left feeling a little short on detail. For example, it just tossed out a quick aside on how bees can detect polarization of light (wild!) – and then moved on to the main plot. (But maybe enticing interest is the whole game?) Also: we can get the most insane footage these days. Leaps and bounds beyond what we used to have.
Jack Reacher, s1e2-4. Reacher is in pain and it’s hard to watch. :( A soft moment arrives and you see the walls go up. His knee-jerk smart-ass approach to life can be a little grating, but there’s a tender heart in there.
The X-Files, s1e20, “Darkness Falls”. Most exciting thing here is seeing a Titus Welliver guest spot, and a glimpse of the everyday lawlessness that still exists in the wilder corners of the States. And s1e21, “Tooms” was better than I feared! I appreciate the scene near the end, Mulder crawling through the tunnel like Bishop.
Batman: The Animated Series, “Feat of Clay” parts I and II – “Listen up, scum wad!” LOL. Such a treat to dip into this show again.
Mark Larson 