I went to the eye doctor and faced mortality. I don’t right now, but someday in the next year or two or three, I will need bifocals.
Art
Wild Beast Wood, painting by Sidney Sime. Basketball (Convention Hall, Philadelphia), 1935 watercolor by Michael Leone. Monuments at G., gypsum and watercolor on canvas by Paul Klee. Moomin and the Mymble paint an Easter egg by Tove Jansson. Collages made from ecurity envelope patterns by Amber Williams (via, via).
Books
War and Peace. Done! Finished in a hot sprint before March came to a close. I think the latter parts of the book dragged. Much more focus on the warfront, troop movements, and theory-of-history essays. I was itching for closure on the characters we started the story with. I’d read it again, in abridged form.
On the Calculation of Volume, Book II.
Running
Dialing back just a tad on the mileage. First proper warm-ish run in the city this year on Saturday morning, t-shirt and shorts. It’s going to take some adjustment.
Around the Web
Title Scream, graphics from 80s–90s videogames.
Akira Kurosawa’s painted storyboards. And here are more side-by-side Kurosawa paintings and stills.
The visual language and fashion in Sailor Moon.
A family genealogy project turns into a personal encyclopedia.
Those frogs that hang out in trees and chirp are called pinkletinks in some regions, spring peepers in others. “Their Latin name, pseudacris crucifer, can reveal a lot, […]. Pseudo means false in Latin, and cris denotes cricket or locust.”
The Ozempicization of the Economy and Body Futurism
Stop trying to make me buy a house.
“We are all made smaller by the pursuit of unproven and unprovable purity.”
“Strong works of art exceed any single paraphrase of their meaning. They remain open enough to support serious disagreement.”
Black Bart was a stagecoach robber with a grudge against Wells Fargo.
Music
Highlight from my listening week was an almost-trio of albums from Mathieu David Gagnon:
- Volume I. I love the toothy strings in “Fleuve I” and the way the anxiety ratchets up and up and up in “1991“.
- Volume II. “Voiles” is a nice little romance and “Navigation IV” maybe even more so.
- Volume III (soon!)
Nilam, Ganavya. I like “Land“.
Atabasca, Atabasca. It has some Hermanos Gutiérrez flavor, but a bit more variety in sonic palette.
Tomaga, Intimate Immensity.
Fazer, “Khanda“.
Movies
Crime 101. Ah, such fun! Mashes up a bunch of things I love but a bit more than a simple reheat, pun intended. I love seeing Hemsworth so bottled up and socially awkward. I will watch again some day.
TV
The X-Files, s6e4 “Dreamland“. Not sure these early-season two-parters work for me. I do like the switcheroo, though!
Hannibal, s3e5.
Mark Larson 