Last week I got a new job. And with that, I felt a creeping anxiety about how to fill my time before it started. I’d spent the last year and change either doing schoolwork or job searching and then suddenly: not necessary anymore. The old routine no longer applies. A happy shock, but it’s unsettling when one phase of my life grinds to a halt and another one starts.
I ran a race this weekend, and kinda sorta mostly didn’t really want to when I woke up. It felt like a chore to get through so I could get back home and do other things. I arrived at the race later than I wanted, and didn’t get to warm up, so the first few miles were a bit of a drag. Blah. A few miles in, I somehow found one of the good ways to pull myself out of a rut: asking, “Am I really giving this my best?” The answer is usually “no”, and I can adjust accordingly. I suppose this is just a variation on “make the best of it”. I eventually convinced myself to turn on the jets, tapped into something deeper. That, and the cheer section with Diana Ross playing around mile 5, helped turn things around.
Books
New York 2140. A little aimless toward the end, but love how it unfolds and explores all the communities involved. It will go down as one of my favorites this year.
Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. DNF. I think I like the stories in anthropology more than the science of it.
The Peripheral. I like how William Gibson just tosses you in a pool of detail and makes you sort it out. I will go for paragraphs with no idea what’s going on, you realize what a key word means, and it all clicks into place very nicely.
Running
I ran the NYRR New Balance Bronx 10 Mile this morning and finished in 5746th place overall. 😤🏆🐐
I also did some morning trailrunning, and on one evening run I saw a nice full moon over the Wendy’s.
Articles & Episodes & Twoots
I spent the better part of a day last week clearing out a backlog of open tabs and unread RSS. It wasn’t totally worth it, but I had fun!
“Writing on my own site has very different affordances: I’m not typing into a little box, but writing in a text file. I’m not surrounded by other people’s thinking, but located within my own body of work. As I played with setting this up, I could immediately feel how that would change the kinds of things I would say, and it felt good. Really good. Like putting on a favorite t-shirt, or coming home to my solid, quiet house after a long time away.” I’d never heard of the POSSE model of online writing before – “publish on your own site, syndicate elsewhere”.
Why Was the Miami Vice Pilot So Good?. “[Jan] Hammer says that when he watched the first cut of the pilot, he was unprepared ‘for how beautiful it was. I thought, Wow — this is actually like something that I would watch.'” I love this line from Michael Mann: “We haven’t invented the Hula-Hoop or anything. We’re only contemporary. And if we’re different from the rest of TV, it’s because the rest of TV isn’t even contemporary.”
Breaking Away from Disney Animation. Pushback/spinoffs from the early 20th c. Disney house style.
“When new creative mediums appear, it’s never immediately obvious what virtuoso-level performance with that medium looks like.”
“It is my hypothesis that, back in the 2000s, everybody’s activation energy was a bit lower. More of us were bloggers, back then. Linking felt more natural, somehow. Now, in the 2020s, the algorithms do most of that work. You must lower your activation energy again.”
“Being 10x faster also changes the kinds of projects that are worth doing. […] Having 10x as much feedback is a huge advantage in learning any complex skill.”
“We do not really know what people want in terms of housing or transportation because their options are incredibly limited.”
Great video: Cruel Musical Chairs (or Why Is Rent So High?).
To Boldly House Where no Housing has Gone Before (Part I): New York’s Land Reclamation History. “Lower Manhattan south of City Hall is about 50% bigger than it was before the Dutch arrived.”
Measuring Housing Regulations at Scale.
Which School Districts Do the Best Job of Teaching Kids to Read?.
Movies
Attack the Block. Over a decade old already – John Boyega is but a wee child here. It’s aged very well.
Tomb Raider. Second viewing (the first), and it’s still a blast. I like the young Croft’s swagger, a reckless confidence that gets… corrected… but never squashed. Action movies are better when the characters act like they’re in danger!
Blow Out. My third watch (the first). The ending makes me feel icky every time, gutting. I love the old accents – no one sounds like that anymore!
Music
The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall. (via) As you might guess, a Parker-Gillespie-Powell-Roach-Mingus line-up plays some good music! I love just about every version of “All the Things You Are“.
Since I saw Nate Smith when I was in Albany last week, decided to check out the discography:
- Pocket Change, a re-listen of the first and only album of his I’d heard. All solo drumming. “DumDum” is good entry point.
- Kinfolk: Postcards from Everywhere, jazz ensemble.
- Kinfolk 2: See the Birds. Disliked most of the vocals on this album. :(
- Pocket Change 2: Mad Currency. Another solo show.
Sabrina Carpenter, Short n’ Sweet. Ton of fun! I like “Please Please Please” – I’m hearing Kacey Musgraves in there. “Slim Pickins“, too. Both are great.
Mark Guiliana, The Sound of Listening and MARK, which I enjoyed more for being more energetic and weirder and harder to classify.
Tindersticks, Soft Tissue.
Brad Mehldau & Mark Guiliana, Mehliana: Taming the Dragon
White Rabbits, Milk Famous. Interesting as a historical artifact – “here’s something popular I missed in the 2010s” – but I dunno, rock just isn’t very interesting to me these days.
TV
X-Files, s3e9 “Nisei“. Alien autopsy! I’d never heard of Unit 731, awful stuff.
IWTV, s1e5-7. This season was very Hannibal. Fun to see the change in costume, etc. over the years. I’d tune in for another season, but wouldn’t put it on my calendar.
Kaos, s1e2. I thought I was done with the show after this one, but I feel like it’s burrowed in, just curiosity to see where they take it.
CSI: Miami, s3e3. I like when procedurals have two murders going on in one episode.
The Terror, s1e1. Really liked the first taste. Can you imagine being life on a ship stuck in the ice in arctic winter? Lordy. (Thanks to @jamesfflynn for the rec!)
Words of Wisdom
“Wisdom is always wont to arrive late, and to be a little approximate on first possession.” – attr. Francis Spufford
Mark Larson 