Thanksgiving is the best holiday of the year and it’s really that simple.
Art
Man Conquers the Cosmos, mosaic by Fritz Eisel. Portrait of Elisabeth Bellinghausen, painting by Bartholomäus Bruyn the Elder. Pleas and Thank Yous: 100 True Stories, lacquer on aluminum by Gwendolyn Knight. Standing male cupbearer, Sumerian sculpture in calcite with lapis lazuli and shell inlay , ca. 4500–1900 BCE.
Books
Rebecca. For whatever reasons, I thought this was set in the 1800s. Quite a surprise when the main characters spend their time driving around town. Fun so far, so melodramatic!
One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder. Short essays and whispers from memory lane.
The San Quentin Project. Photographs of daily life in the prison, along with work from a photography class with the inmates – their annotations and reflections were super cool.
Around the Web
“That’s a Victor Frankenstein move: Get disappointed that your creation doesn’t immediately match the image in your head, declare it a failure, and abdicate.”
“Art in museums is valuable. And it’s valuable because museums made it that way.”
101 Things I Learned Listening to Every Number One Hit: Part 1.
“Every generation imagines a version of Shakespeare that reflects its own aspirations and anxieties, which means every generation gets him wrong in revealing ways.”
Henry Oliver and Rebecca Lowe discuss theories of time and On the Calculation of Volume, and Solvej Balle’s Novels Rewire the Time Loop.
Requiem for Early Blogging. “If someone wanted to troll you, they’d have to do it on their own site and hope you took the bait because otherwise no one would see it.”
“My philosophy of authenticity is that it doesn’t exist in the way people wish it did. I don’t believe it’s possible to perform in a way that’s authentic. People will say, I just post for myself, which is a lie. They say that because they feel it’s morally better to be that way, and I really disagree with that. It’s okay to feel like you’re performing and even want to perform a bit. That’s not evil. It’s a condition of living.”
“The bottom line is that ‘we’ is squishy. I is the brave pronoun.”
The work of getting people to leave cults. “For that reason, Kelly and Ryan are not looking to convince people of any particular version of reality or truth. They do not seem to be interested in truth at all, really. When you use your experience to test whether or not something is true (the holiness of a guru, the righteousness of a cause) then, Ryan told me: “The person who gives you that experience will own you.” Their work is to usher people into a state of skepticism about the conclusion they have drawn from their experiences; beginning to open them up to the idea that individual experience is not the same as truth or reality.”
Memory Palaces: Exploring the history of London’s cinemas online and on foot.
How to Make a Living as an Artist. “Growing tired of painting something people love is a good problem to have. Do not worry about it until it happens. May you be so lucky.”
Music
A few from drummer Senri Kawaguchi…
- Buena Vista. The main motif in “The Phoenix” is an incredible earworm.
- Cider ~Hard & Sweet~.
- Dynamogenic. “Storm Warning” is a lot of fun.
Charpentier: Messe de Minuit, Ensemble Marguerite Louise dir. Gaétan Jarry. Just exploring another rendition after sampling one last week.
Víkingur Ólafsson, Opus 109 (Beethoven | Bach | Schubert).
Ladytron, Kingdom Undersea.
Movies
You’ve Got Mail. Overall, good watch! Tom Hanks character is a jerk, though? I wonder how it compares with the original. “I wanted it to be you.”
Roter Himmel (Afire). A stressed-out writer tries to finish his work, but everything gets in the way. I really like Christian Petzold’s work overall: Phoenix, Barbara, and Transit are the others I’ve seen.
Sleepless in Seattle. Second viewing (the first). Love the melancholy in this movie – one characters knowing exactly what they’re missing, the other just coming to realize it. Better characters, more funny than You’ve Got Mail.
A House of Dynamite. Choppy Bourne-style editing was a little annoying. A bit on-the-nose in the writing here and there. Suitably stressful. Left me a little cold?
TV
The X-Files, s5e8 “Kitsunegari“.
All Her Fault, s1e3–5.
Winning Time, s2e1.
Mark Larson 