Said goodbye to friends and neighbors last week, as they prepped for a move across the country. What a weird feeling to look over your friends' house from a stoop sale perspective. Trying their life on for size.
This week I tried some basic plumbing tasks that started with excitement, entered into a flow state, detoured into quiet fury, to desperation, and quiet calm resignation to try again later. Fun to learn, though, and cool to be able to take pictures of random parts and get help on the internet.
Art
Breakfast Time, oil on canvas by Hana Pauli. Artisten, weaving by Sten Kauppi. There was something with the sky, batik, appliqué, embroidery by Ida-Lovisa Rudolfsson. A Diver, woodcut by Lars Eriksson. Thinking Through Clay I, stoneware by Mårten Medbo.
Books
Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors. Finished with this one. I like the mix of thematic interlude chapters that talk about "what this was like" along with straightforward "this happened then this happened" narrative history.
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. It reads quickly but didn't love it. But it didn't make me want to re-watch the movie, so that's a win.
And now to find the next one!
Running
Canarsie Park is very nice on a bright spring morning.
Around the Web
Larry McMurtry's home library.
The Mystery of the Backward Index. Clever and obvious, now that I know! (via)
Urban spelunking in Brooklyn Heights.
"One of the lessons of the synthesizer is that the first generation often imitates. This is not a failure of imagination so much as a necessary stage of grief: mourning the loss of the old constraint."
Americans are leaving the US in record numbers.
Scammers use AI for empathy bait now. So gross. :(
Tracking a spouse succumbing to Alzheimer's. "It’s awful missing someone while they’re standing right there."
Music
Lots of electronic this week. Starting with two from Max Cooper, Feeling Is Structure and On Being. Harmonia, Musik von Harmonia. Roedelius, Selbstportrait I. Floating Points, Shadows. Ear, The Most Dear and the Future. Kangding Ray, Sirāt OST.
Bill Evans, You Must Believe in Spring was a lovely contrast to the rest.
Movies
Sirāt. Looooooved it. I wish I'd seen it in a theater. The sound and landscape overwhelm.
One Battle After Another. Great energy through the whole thing. I felt nothing but it's fun.
Annihilation. Scifi where the thread is more biology than technology, and truly alien. Third time I've seen it, never regretted. (first, second)
Brotherhood of the Wolf. Period horror with a swashbuckling wink. Why not?
In Cold Light. Second favorite of the week at after Sirāt. Neo noir in cowboy Canada, what's not to like?
TV
The X-Files, s6e11 "Two Fathers".
Hannibal, s3e11.
Couples Therapy, s5e1. Bracing for stress and catharsis.