I got a photo from family recently. My grandpa was a lifelong craftsman, mechanic, carpenter. On the day he died, three tools had been left out on the table saw in the barn. A combo square to plan and check; a notched wooden guide to steer boards safely over the blade; a screwdriver for the hundred little tasks that screwdrivers are useful for. Measure, plan, push forward, adjust.
Art
Exhibition coming soon to the High Museum: Faith Ringgold: Seeing Children. See you in ATL!
Man of the Night, statue in bronze by Germaine Richier. The Tilled Field, oil on canvas by Joan Miró.
Books
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights. Maybe it’s because I’m too familiar with them, but surprised by how… dry? factual? the stories were. Like reading very straightforward reporting. Not bad, though. Just not as dramatic as you’d think in this telling.
It. DNF. I’ve never read Stephen King before! I think I should look to his other, shorter works.
Between Two Fires. Historical Christian horror? Interesting! Getting a better sense of the time period (Black Death-era France), how desperate and destructive and confusing it must have been.
Running
I’m acclimating to summer weather. This weekend I continued my irregular series of running to the end of various subway lines, with a journey east through Forest Park to the Jamaica–179th Street end of the F line. There’s something interesting on the other side of every intersection.
Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Captchas in textiles.
“Your time and energy are the key bottlenecks in your life, and thus choices are always being made.”
What Happened to Working Your Way Up from the Mailroom? “The measure of how efficiently talent is allocated in a society is how young you are when your dreams are crushed.”
“We learned this about platforms a long time ago: following the old newspaper schematic, they aren’t the printing presses, but rather the assignment editors.”
“‘What about x, y, z? They’re really pushing the boundaries of fiction as a medium.’ I don’t want to be mean, but I doubt it.”
Is embracing AI intellectual or anti-intellectual? and the value of academic silos.
Invite knowledge through randomness with WikiRadio and WikiTok.
“The basic fact is that you cannot defend democracy if you cannot meaningfully contest a wider range of Senate seats.”
Music
Two more from The Knife this week:
- Deep Cuts. I like “You Make Me Like Charity” and videogame melancholy of “Behind the Bushes“.
- Silent Shout. “Silent Shout” feels like it has a lot of early synthwave Kavinsky-type sounds percolating in there. Not a complaint. “Like a Pen” is great, too.
Movies
Avengers: Infinity War. Captain America’s phone has an Atlanta area code! The deaths of Vision and Spider-Man hit hard. Respect for movies willing to end on a sour note. Well done.
Gosford Park. I’ll just echo everything I wrote about my first viewing. Still one of my favorites seen in 2024.
TV
Couples Therapy, s4e1–6. What an addictive show! And so rare for me to feel emotional about any reality TV. So much hurt that goes so deep.
The X-Files, s4e20 “Small Potatoes“. Another good silly one.
Dept. Q, s1e4–5.
Mark Larson 