The last week was a blur! I felt most days I came back home feeling wound up but fuzzy-brained, and every morning I felt like I needed an early start to not feel overwhelmed.
I’m glad I ended the week with a race, the 11-mile event at the Squatchapple Trail Party at South Mountain Reservation out in New Jersey. Friday night, I didn’t want to go – long week, bad training, low energy, wishing I had more time, etc. etc. etc.. Saturday morning, I kinda wanted to go, but not really, but I wanted to follow through on my commitment. Three miles into the race, I was so, so happy to be there. I wonder why I get in this kind of cycle.
I wiped out twice (both times on ~flat ground, and never on the reckless downhills!) and hyperextended my finger crash-landing during the second one. Worth the price
Art
Vessel in the Form of a Head, ceramic from the Missippian cultures of modern-day Arkansas, ca. 1450-1550. Apples, Grapes, Lemon on a Table (for BAM), print by David Hockney. Abstract Cityscape, oil on canvas by Léopold Survage. Salt or Pepper Shaker, earthenware and glaze designed by Russel Wright.
Books
Middlemarch, cont.
Articles & Episodes & Twoots
A Day At the Museum.
“We found that time spent on leisure over and above an individual’s average was positively related to work-related self-efficacy, but only when the individual’s leisure activities were high in seriousness and low in work-leisure similarity, or when they were low in seriousness and high in similarity.” (via)
“These tools have removed a lot of the friction from coding and because of that, I am less likely to give up.”
RIP, Gene Hackman. “To watch him, in any one of his almost insanely varied roles, often meant sitting there with your jaw hanging in disbelief. What was he doing? How was he doing it? Why am I buying it?” and “That’s the actor’s magic: capturing the attention of the camera and the viewer on the other side of the screen and transforming from Just A Guy into The Man.” and “Hackman stood out by appearing ordinary while setting up bespoke fireworks displays […] a vivid illustration of what we might call the Gene Hackman Principle of Transformative Acting: The best special makeup is talent.”.
Learn your lines, show up on time, and give it your all.
“Take a close look at what you assume the solution to your life must look like. Are there any of those assumptions that you could turn into variables instead?”
Music
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars, Radio Salone. I love the reverb in the opener, “Chant It Down“, but didn’t love most of the album. One exception, with more drums and chorus and reverb: “Toman Teti M’Ba Akala“.
Holy Tongue, The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now. Ear-filling pulsing pagan electronic stuff.
Zapp! Love & Basketball’s impact continues. Fun to listen through a decade of their work. All of these are solid, funky, fun:
- Zapp. “Be Alright” is a good slow burn.
- Zapp II – “Do You Really Want An Answer?” fits well with the Luther album I listened through later.
- Zapp III
- The New Zapp IV U – finally arrived at the only song I knew beforehand, “Computer Love“. So good.
Luther, Never Too Much. I’ll need to spend more time with his discography. Lots of stuff I like from e.g. Barry White and Lionel Ritchie shows up here. Can’t beat the title track, and the backing vocals in “Don’t You Know That?” add to the intrigue.
Gidion Kremer, Songs of Fate. Violin meanderings, didn’t love it.
Hanni Liang, Voices for Solo Piano. I like the Sally Beamish’s “Night Dances” – I hear it as curious and exploratory.
Movies
The Wild Robot. Visually, beautiful. I like the hand-painted look. The tory was stale and preachy, though, and music felt like replacement-level inspirational schlock. Still funny here and there. A far better movie about a robot learning to love and find common cause: The Iron Giant.
Gladiator II. I literally sat up straighter when Denzel came on screen. The movie is better when he’s on screen, and fine when he’s not. I appreciate how they escalated the Colosseum battles.
TV
The X-Files, s4e10 “Paper Hearts“. Mulder has the longest leash any employee has ever had. Tom Noonan plays our villain so well – a calm approach, “I’m already in jail so, meh, let’s just see if I can get anything out of this…”.
Severance, s2e5. I kinda wish I got a perfect-bound volume for performance reviews?
The White Lotus, s3e2. This show is so strange. Sometimes it feels like watching a travel brochure, but with some very light plotting. Just a good long soak in a warm bath.
Words of Wisdom
“Life isn’t as long as you think it is. You have a choice: You can go and try to live a playful life, or you can go and live a life which excludes playfulness. And it doesn’t get you anywhere. Playfulness gets you somewhere.”
Mark Larson 