Started my long weekend with a bit of journaling, now I sit by the big window watching the snow fall. Life is good.
Art
La Cadie Diaspora, mixed media textiles, stencil, collage, embroidery, stiching by Merill Comeau. Embers, quilt by Barbara Danzi. Thar, sculpture in porcelain, earthenware, glaze by Kathy Butterly. The Boating Party, oil on Canvas by Mary Cassatt. Paysans Sortant et Allant au Marché (Villagers Going to the Market), oil on board by Philomé Obin. Trains and Bridges, lithograph in black on wove paper by Jolán Gross-Bettelheim.
Books
War and Peace, continued.
Running
Running trails in the earliest morning light, just before dawn, is such a perfect gift before starting the workday. Red Hook again this weekend, will take one more run to complete the map. Maybe next weekend, though I don’t love the idea of hitting the same area three weekends in a row. We’ll see.
Around the Web
This weekend I learned the phrase “haud yer weesht “, via Line of Duty. (Who else but Hastings?)
“The most virtuous thing is usually to make an up-front investment in making things easier, so that going forward, you are not making high day-to-day expenditures of your patience, energy or happiness.”
How the Brooklyn Bridge has changed over time. I had no idea the bridge had trolley cars at one point.
The real reason New Yorkers’ groceries cost so much. Zoning strikes again! Expensive elevators strike again!
Where Americans Choose to Move and Where They Leave. Interesting to see some family trajectories mapped out here. “From 2020 to 2024, 1.47 million more people moved from California to elsewhere in the United States than from a different state into California. That outflow is equal to 3.7% of the state’s 2020 population.” Time to buy low?
A finding that “Living next door to someone as a child increases the probability of having the same occupation as them 30 years later by about 10 percent.” (via)
The United States needs fewer bus stops …and better (faster) service as a result.
Music
Yosi Horikawa, Vapor. Had this album on repeat throughout the week. I love all the nature sounds mixed into bouncy, juicy, lush electronic stuff. Two faves: “Maki” and “Summer in 1987“.
Tako Tiki, Hirsutes Farfelus. Oddball winds + percussion.
The Platters, The Flying Platters Around the World. I really like “Twilight Time“.
Titanic, Vidrio and HAGEN. How to summarize these – Latin experimental chamber pop?
Philip Glass, Etude No. 1 → No. 8 perf. Vanessa Wagner. What you’d expect!
Donnacha Dennehy: Land of Winter perf. Alarm Will Sound cond. Alan Pierson. Months of the year in chamber form. I liked this recording. “November” is the best, of course!
Movies
Girls Town. Close friends, soon to leave high school, navigate shared tragedies. It’s very sweet and sad and funny. Two thumbs up.
Wolf Man (2025). Got exactly what I signed up for. Fun movie. Love that we see the early hints of transformation in the heigtened senses – smell, hearing. The sound design is especially good, as we take on the perspective of the protagonist. Early tragedy in the simple distancing from inability to communicate what he’s going through. Appreciate the novelty of the precarious greenhouse sheeting – take full advantage of your setting!
The Fate of the Furious. I’ve seen a lot of individual scenes before, but for the life of me I cannot tell you how or when. The spectacle is dialed in. The writing is bad. I don’t think I’d intentionally rewatch again. Vin Diesel wears the mythologizing well, but the Statham scenes easy eclipse everyone else in the cast.
TV
The X-Files, s5e15 “Travelers“. Body horror!
The Abandons, s1e1.
Hannibal, s2e12–13. Such a perfect and devastating season wrap-up. “In the pantry!”.
Line of Duty, s6e1–2. I care about one thing and one thing only!
Mark Larson 