This week my team at work had an off-site gathering. Highlight was learning improv for a couple hours. Mark of 10 years ago would not have been so ready to fully commit. It’s really cool to see and feel how much more comfortable I am in my own skin, a feeling of safety, new perspective on what counts as risky.
I also did my first escape room, which was amusing.
Lowlight was sitting down for dinner in a fancy restaurant for a couple hours. I appreciate the generosity, but… they’re not for me. I find restaurants more and more tedious. Impatience? Casualization of taste?
We also had an office holiday party this week, which I skipped entirely. It made me think back to earlier in career, another period where I was fully bought-in to a role and team, and how much more time I invested in the social side of things. Spending time with out-of-towners, joining team events, etc.. I remember how I felt a little mild annoyance with the never-joiners… and now I am one. Perhaps I can take it as a sign of better boundaries and more compelling opportunities outside of work, the perks of growing older and wiser?
Art
Incredible glaze on this Qing dynasty porcelain vase. (via) I like how The British Museum can let you search by culture/period or object type.
Doubt-Forest4, 2009 acrylic painting by Dae-Won Yang. (via)
Running
Yesterday morning I ran the NYRR Frosty 5K and set a new adult-era PR of 24:07, a full minute faster than I ran the Harlem 5K back in August. I could have broken under 24 minutes, but [if I had any excuses, they’d go here], but more importantly – it was super fun! I think I enjoyed the Harlem race more for the surprise of running on streets I don’t know very well. But I can’t deny the boost I got from racing on a loop I’ve done hundreds of times. Big advantage on the climb up Battle Pass Hill – no need to get psyched out, I done it twice a week for years, it’ll be over in a minute, keep pushing, harder!
Another great reason to get out of bed early on a 24º morning: sunrise on a lake.
Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Reflections on donating a kidney.
“Not everyone learns best from the top teacher out there, not everyone enjoys the writing of the most prolific blogger you know, and not everyone uses the most popular app for their problem. You don’t know who might benefit from what you offer.”
Each of the critics at RogerEbert.com shared their top 10 movies of the year.
“One of my colleagues had said that the Internet is the most effective short-term, nonprescription painkiller out there.”
“Tedium and boredom are both patterns of thought, not circumstance.”
6 lessons I learned working at an art gallery. “It is not that I’m some grumpy person who thinks that some people are great and others aren’t, in some predetermined way—I think you can to a large extent decide which kind you want to be. But if someone else isn’t measuring up, I have no idea how to convince them to do so. So I look for people who have already decided.”
A few nuggets from Things learned in 2024 from James Dillard…
– “78 percent of Christmas hits were penned before 1990“
– “Lake Superior is about the size of the state of Alabama”
…and from 52 things Tom Whitwell learned:
– “London Underground has a distinct form of mosquito, Culex pipiens f. Molestus, genetically different from above-ground mosquitos”
– “In the 2020s, over 16% of movies have colons in the title.”).
“The core intuition is simply that you should be asking more questions.”
“IMO one of the biggest benefits of travel is just acquiring a scaffold to hang future knowledge on. Places that had similar embeddings in my mind before I saw them (Chongqing vs Chengdu, Abu Dhabi vs Dubai, Wroclaw vs Warsaw, etc.) become extremely distinct, and future facts become much stickier.”
Books
Meditations for Mortals. Finished, recommended! “Going through the world with the default belief that it’s full of people or things that need holding at bay is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Native Nations, cont.
Build a Large Language Model from Scratch, cont.
Music
Blood Incantation, Absolute Elsewhere. I like how this album balances metal with Pink Floyd-style stadium/galaxy rock.
Beethoven, Complete Piano Trios perf. Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio.
E-40, My Ghetto Report Card. Exploring some of the Bay Area sound.
Reformation: Keyboard Works by William Bird, Orlando Gibbons, John Bull, & Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck per. Mishka Rushdie Momen. “Delicate” is the word that comes to mind. Really lovely.
Galina Grigorjeva, Nature morte perf. Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir.
Movies
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Dated effects, but I’d forgotten this thing is a couple decades old now. We spend a LOT of time showing how magical everything is. Quidditch is not interesting, never has been! The chess match also kills momentum, goes on a bit too long. I forgot that Voldemort was barely present. I appreciate the skill of the talent scouts, they did a great job finding these kids. And I appreciate the characterization through costume – e.g. Hermione with necktie sharply knotted and cinched, Harry’s knotted loosely under an unbuttoned collar, Ron’s untied and draped over his shirt.
Farewell, My Lovely. The line delivery felt really stilted here. Like they were reading or reciting what they’d memorized, rather than speaking. It didn’t fully make the transition from the page. Fun to see young Charlotte Rampling – don’t think I’d ever seen her without wrinkles, grey hair, etc..
P2. I like when horror movies play on common everyday fears, e.g. being trapped in a parking deck with a creep.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League. It is a vision all its own, which is great. Surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting a movie where I’d end up half-watching while scrolling Twitter, but… I was lured int. Like a bunch of 25-minute stories strung together. We need more episodic movies! (I liked that about Furiosa, too.) And the 4:3 aspect is cool! Widescreen ≠ inherently epic. For as many epic events we see, it’s a shame that our heroes merely look… deeply concerned? when someone dies. Also a funny contrast where Gal Gadot has such limited range, but Wonder Woman is very fun to watch in action scenes. I really like those Parademons henchmen, cute waspy cannon fodder (like the flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz!). Having Joe Morton as the father of Cyborg is a really great touch, seeing as how he also led to Skynet. I wish Superman would use the ice breath more.
Monkey Man. The action is bloody and frenetic. I won’t pretend to understand the connection to current Indian politics, beyond the broad strokes. Hijras play a fun role in the film, and the goat Zakir Hussain is a minor but prominent character, too, so that’s another good reason to watch.
TV
The X-Files, s3e24 “Talitha Cumi”. I lost the plot here! Aliens, an ailing mother, The Smoking Man, Mr. X, The Bounty Hunter. All systems going… somewhere.
Cross, s1e4. My prayers from last week were answered: we got more scenes of Cross thinking through things. There’s even a “he’s wired in“-type moment!
Words of Wisdom
“i recommend exploring niche interests in public“
“it’s important to know at least one guy who you find really annoying but who is also very similar to you. it keeps you humble and aware”
Mark Larson 