Sick for most of the last week. Travel catching up to me, or something I caught on the last leg of travel. Coughing and coughing and coughing. The cabin fever is excruciating. But with 20/20 hindsight, I’m glad my norms have shifted. Better to be sick at home and working than going into the office and blithely infecting people.
Noticing a new acquisitiveness since I got back from Japan. I think I’m see my old stuff in a new light, feeling a big urge to replace it, overturn the old ways. Not yet sure what’s trying to be expressed. Listening.
Art
The Laughing Demoness (Warai Hannya), from the series “One Hundred Ghost Tales (Hyaku monogatari)”, color woodblock by Katsushika Hokusai. (Thanks, Jara). Still Life with Books, Sheet Music, Violin, Celestial Globe and an Owl, oil on wood by Jacob van Campen. The White Place in Sun, oil on canvas by Georgia O’Keeffe. Sun Beams Slant on the Riverbank and Cold Rain Falls from a Floating Cloud, woodcut print by Stanton Macdonald-Wright. Animal, oil on canvas by Victor Brauner. Boy on horseback watching the Space Shuttle Enterprise being towed across Antelope Valley, photograph by Art Rogers.
Books
Crossroads of Twilight, cont.
Running
n/a, sick! :( Lots of walking this week.
Around the Web
Please take one, wonderful essay on museum brochures.
“Part of “good practice” (deep focus, lots of iteration) is having properly-sized feedback loops. Too short a loop, and it subverts the development of voice (too many other voices jutting in, telling you how to be). Too long a loop, and you might lose momentum (some feedback, properly timed, is critical).”
“If Americans sometimes seem crass or like they take life at an easy stride,
it is largely because they are not idle. To the British temperament, there is something vulgar and unsettled about this lack of idleness. And yet the Americans are quite relaxed. Being busy puts them at ease.”
Can you be serious and seriously glamorous?
“It’s the job of teenagers to annoy, frighten, and bewilder you.”
“One of the most basic presuppositions of communication is that the partners can mutually surprise each other.”
Music
Lots of Klaus Schulze. I was using it mostly as wallpaper, but even with lower level of attention, it’s good stuff.
- La Vie Electronique, Vol. 1. Four hours!
- Moondawn
- Transfer Station Blue
- Dreams
- Beyond Recall
- In Blue. See “Wild and blue – Into the Blue“.
Daft Punk, Tron: Legacy OST. Big fan of “Armory“.
Movies
Black Bag. Took a little while to get on its wavelength, but ended up really liking this spy-couple story. Tight focus. Interesting visual choice to have that shimmery soft lighting glow. Appreciate the nod to “Let’s Get Lost“.
Trap. Not sure how I missed it the first time I watched it, but the small profiler role is played by Hayley Mills from The Parent Trap. Interesting that a movie like this can still succeed overall even when prominent characters are badly written/weakly acted. Good bones, good mechanics. Loved the angry conversation over pie.
Tremors. The time I watched this was on TBS or something as a kid. Never could track it down again, though I was generally aware of it. Enjoyed the setting in a dusty little western town, if it even amounts to that much. Don’t see that often.
TV
The X-Files, s5e4, “Detour“. So glad to get back to a monster-of-the-week episode.
Hannibal, s1e4–6. Episode 5, “Coquilles“, is so good, the way it ties together themes of shelter/abandonment, fear/mourning, loss/escapism. Beautiful script, connects the killer-of-the-week to the main characters’ developments, moves the season arc forward, great stuff.
Bob’s Burgers, s16e4.
Mark Larson 