Last week I got a new job. And with that, I felt a creeping anxiety about how to fill my time before it started. I’d spent the last year and change either doing schoolwork or job searching and then suddenly: not necessary anymore. The old routine no longer applies. A happy shock, but it’s unsettling when one phase of my life grinds to a halt and another one starts.

I ran a race this weekend, and kinda sorta mostly didn’t really want to when I woke up. It felt like a chore to get through so I could get back home and do other things. I arrived at the race later than I wanted, and didn’t get to warm up, so the first few miles were a bit of a drag. Blah. A few miles in, I somehow found one of the good ways to pull myself out of a rut: asking, “Am I really giving this my best?” The answer is usually “no”, and I can adjust accordingly. I suppose this is just a variation on “make the best of it”. I eventually convinced myself to turn on the jets, tapped into something deeper. That, and the cheer section with Diana Ross playing around mile 5, helped turn things around.

Books
New York 2140. A little aimless toward the end, but love how it unfolds and explores all the communities involved. It will go down as one of my favorites this year.

Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. DNF. I think I like the stories in anthropology more than the science of it.

The Peripheral. I like how William Gibson just tosses you in a pool of detail and makes you sort it out. I will go for paragraphs with no idea what’s going on, you realize what a key word means, and it all clicks into place very nicely.

Running
I ran the NYRR New Balance Bronx 10 Mile this morning and finished in 5746th place overall. 😤🏆🐐

I also did some morning trailrunning, and on one evening run I saw a nice full moon over the Wendy’s.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
I spent the better part of a day last week clearing out a backlog of open tabs and unread RSS. It wasn’t totally worth it, but I had fun!

“Writing on my own site has very different affordances: I’m not typing into a little box, but writing in a text file. I’m not surrounded by other people’s thinking, but located within my own body of work. As I played with setting this up, I could immediately feel how that would change the kinds of things I would say, and it felt good. Really good. Like putting on a favorite t-shirt, or coming home to my solid, quiet house after a long time away.” I’d never heard of the POSSE model of online writing before – “publish on your own site, syndicate elsewhere”.

Why Was the Miami Vice Pilot So Good?. “[Jan] Hammer says that when he watched the first cut of the pilot, he was unprepared ‘for how beautiful it was. I thought, Wow — this is actually like something that I would watch.'” I love this line from Michael Mann: “We haven’t invented the Hula-Hoop or anything. We’re only contemporary. And if we’re different from the rest of TV, it’s because the rest of TV isn’t even contemporary.”

Breaking Away from Disney Animation. Pushback/spinoffs from the early 20th c. Disney house style.

“When new creative mediums appear, it’s never immediately obvious what virtuoso-level performance with that medium looks like.”

“It is my hypothesis that, back in the 2000s, everybody’s activation energy was a bit lower. More of us were bloggers, back then. Linking felt more natural, somehow. Now, in the 2020s, the algorithms do most of that work. You must lower your activation energy again.”

“Being 10x faster also changes the kinds of projects that are worth doing. […] Having 10x as much feedback is a huge advantage in learning any complex skill.”

“Will is a kind of skill.”

“We do not really know what people want in terms of housing or transportation because their options are incredibly limited.”

Great video: Cruel Musical Chairs (or Why Is Rent So High?).

To Boldly House Where no Housing has Gone Before (Part I): New York’s Land Reclamation History. “Lower Manhattan south of City Hall is about 50% bigger than it was before the Dutch arrived.”

Measuring Housing Regulations at Scale.

Which School Districts Do the Best Job of Teaching Kids to Read?.

The ozone layer is healing.

Movies
Attack the Block. Over a decade old already – John Boyega is but a wee child here. It’s aged very well.

Tomb Raider. Second viewing (the first), and it’s still a blast. I like the young Croft’s swagger, a reckless confidence that gets… corrected… but never squashed. Action movies are better when the characters act like they’re in danger!

Blow Out. My third watch (the first). The ending makes me feel icky every time, gutting. I love the old accents – no one sounds like that anymore!

Music
The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall. (via) As you might guess, a Parker-Gillespie-Powell-Roach-Mingus line-up plays some good music! I love just about every version of “All the Things You Are“.

Since I saw Nate Smith when I was in Albany last week, decided to check out the discography:

• Pocket Change, a re-listen of the first and only album of his I’d heard. All solo drumming. “DumDum” is good entry point.
• Kinfolk: Postcards from Everywhere, jazz ensemble.
• Kinfolk 2: See the Birds. Disliked most of the vocals on this album. :(
• Pocket Change 2: Mad Currency. Another solo show.

Sabrina Carpenter, Short n’ Sweet. Ton of fun! I like “Please Please Please” – I’m hearing Kacey Musgraves in there. “Slim Pickins“, too. Both are great.

Mark Guiliana, The Sound of Listening and MARK, which I enjoyed more for being more energetic and weirder and harder to classify.

Tindersticks, Soft Tissue.

Brad Mehldau & Mark Guiliana, Mehliana: Taming the Dragon

White Rabbits, Milk Famous. Interesting as a historical artifact – “here’s something popular I missed in the 2010s” – but I dunno, rock just isn’t very interesting to me these days.

TV
X-Files, s3e9 “Nisei“. Alien autopsy! I’d never heard of Unit 731, awful stuff.

IWTV, s1e5-7. This season was very Hannibal. Fun to see the change in costume, etc. over the years. I’d tune in for another season, but wouldn’t put it on my calendar.

Kaos, s1e2. I thought I was done with the show after this one, but I feel like it’s burrowed in, just curiosity to see where they take it.

CSI: Miami, s3e3. I like when procedurals have two murders going on in one episode.

The Terror, s1e1. Really liked the first taste. Can you imagine being life on a ship stuck in the ice in arctic winter? Lordy. (Thanks to @jamesfflynn for the rec!)

Words of Wisdom
“Wisdom is always wont to arrive late, and to be a little approximate on first possession.” – attr. Francis Spufford

This weekend I went to Albany, adding another state capital to my meager collection (let’s see, top of my head: AL, AZ, AR, CO, GA, HI, IN, LA, MD, MT, TN). I think we’ve locked in a good travel pattern: leave home early, arrive late morning, grab a snack, hit the museums, crash for a nap, then have an evening activity out before going to bed. Next morning: wake up, eat well, and get some nature before heading home.

I was pleasantly surprised with the NY State Museum, the size and scope of it. There’s so much expertise and attention that goes into these places! Even the “unimpressive” ones can have a lot to offer if you’re open to it. Similar feeling about Washington Park, a green treasure at the top of the hill, and the Lark Street Neighborhood was a cute entry point to it.

The best exhibition at Albany Institute of History & Art, by far, was Enchanting Threads: The Art of Salley Mavor – intricately detailed fiber arts scenes, colorful and playful. The trip accidentally coincided with the Riverfront Jazz Festival, so the evening entertainment was Nate Smith (pretty sure I first heard his sick drumming on Pocket Change). Listened by the water with a limeade, followed by a plate of Jamaican sides, and then fireworks. Couldn’t have planned it better. Twilight Market was nearby – not for me, but glad to see a smaller town has room for all types.

Favorite meal was breakfast at Iron Gate Cafe, followed by lunch at El Mariachi. Stacks Espresso Bar did its job.

The biggest lesson here: you don’t need a Brand Name™ travel destination to have a really fulfilling trip.

Art
I had to look her up after seeing her art, and I’m so happy that Salley Mavor has a great blog with lots of behind-the-scenes details.

Blue Leaf Form, a lithograph from William Turnbull.

This Chokwe Chief’s Chair is so cool – I’ve never seen sculpture like that on rungs between chair legs!

Running
Cut back the mileage in prep for Bronx 10-mile. I think with one more run, or maybe two, I’ll have run every street in Bed-Stuy. 🔜

Books
New York 2140, cont. Savoring this one, and hoping I can find more like it.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
I like the whirlwind tour of California history in “How California Turned Against Growth”. I would read… ~49 more capsule summaries like this.

What are subway signals and why should you care?

Robert Caro buys a writing shed: “This particular shed was a floor sample, bought because he wanted it delivered right away. The business’s owner demurred. “So I said the following thing, which is always the magic words with people who work: ‘I can’t lose the days.’”” The word count calendar is cool, too.

Celebrate Your Victories. “And then … be prepared to let it all go.”

Movies
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. All about efforts to get power or keep it. Caesar and Koba’s relationship is so heartbreaking, both deeply motivated by their experience, both unwilling in their own way to see past it. Koba’s play-acting scenes, the whole making a fool/circus monkey act, is so brilliant.

The Firm. On rewatch, keeps getting better! (previously) An underrated Tom Cruise micro-skill: intense phone conversations.

Music
Top recs this week…

• A lovers rocks playlist from Questlove. Lots of new stuff for me, and I especially liked “El Cielo” from Radio Citizen & Bajka, “Lost Weekend Dub” from Slowly, and especially Ernest Ranglin’s “In the Rain“.
• Sona Jobarteh, Badinyaa Kumoo. Upbeat kora + Gambian griot from a cousin of the great Toumani Diabaté. Hard to pick just one! Maybe “Fondinkeeya“, with all its intertwining threads.
• Salif Keita, “Folon”…..The Past. I like the lean-back funk feel on “Mandjou“. “Nyanyama” the opening aching vocals of reminds me of Thione Secks’s “Mass Ndiaye” (complimentary!!).

And as for rest of my listening…

• LL Cool J, The Force. It was “Black Code Suite” that put Sona Jobarteh ↑ on my radar. I like the throwback feel, machine gun chatter in “Basquiat Energy“
• Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1. Number 8 just hits different, huh?
• Jeff Majors, For Us All (Yoka Boka).
• Raleigh Ritche, You’re a Man Now, Boy. Straightforward modern pop/R&B by the star of the Interview with the Vampire TV show.
• Bonnie Prince Billy, Hear the Children Sing the Evidence. The wandering folk you’d expect from him!

TV
X-Files, s3e8 “Oubliette“. A dungeon kidnapping thriller!

The Leftovers, s2e2 “A Matter of Geography“. Focusing on the NY folks’ move to Texas. Kevin is losing it.

Kaos, s1e1. I wish it were a little snappier and goofier, but I generally like where it’s going.

Last week I finished a project: MoviePeers.com, a novelty website inspired by a tweet from last year. I’d been meaning to circle back to it for a while! Felt good to wrap it up and ship it.

The long weekend felt like it split the week into two parts – one in goblin mode, watching movies, reading; the other cranking through interviews, administrative stuff. Also got a wedding license and picked up my ring. Big week!

Art
A Navajo weaving of an Intel Pentium chip.

The flat face of this mask (kplekple) really tickles me for some reason.

Extraordinary Values, painting by Ray Yoshida.

Running
It’s that time of year where an evening run comes with a lovely sunset.

I ran about ~16.5 miles yesterday, my longest in a good while. Felt great during the run. Feeling some “overdid it” kinks in the system today, but really happy with my progress, the fact that it didn’t feel like a big deal. Running with company probably helped with that. The next couple weeks will be a short taper to my next race.

Books
New York 2140, cont. This book has been so fun. Halfway through.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
“The older you get, the more you’re able to look at it and go, well, it’s not my brilliance that made this thing a hit and it’s not my stupidity that made this one flop.”

“One Minute Park allows you to visit parks from around the world for one minute each.” (via Naive Weekly, one of my favorite newsletters)

On luxury produce: “A certain kind of tomato has become a status symbol.”

How pour-over coffee got good.

“Nobody has ever scolded themselves for failure to complete a reference book. They are intended to be used as the reader demands—nothing more. You owe no obeisance to the author; there is no pretense of a conversation.”

Progressives need to learn to take the W. “There’s another, more subtle cost of perpetual outrage as a theory of change. I think it leads to premature exhaustion and unnecessary disillusionment, by preventing progressives from realizing when they’ve had major successes.”

The latest issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room is focused on Spike Lee.

The Secret Inside One Million Checkboxes.

Furnishing your house with server racks.

Movies
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. It’s crazy how good this movie looks. An under-appreciated franchise this century. I love how they show the ape societies developing – architecture, costume, tools. Interesting that they do the same no-kiss greeting as in Fury Road/Furiosa: foreheads touching, hand on the back of the other’s. LOL at apes talking about now-immiserated scavenger humans like stray animals. I like the very gradual character reveals!

Incroyable mais vrai (Incredible But True). A couple buys a house that happens to have a portal where you can time travel 12 hours ahead while also getting 3 days younger. Great soundtrack! Old-school classical and videogame-like electronic versions. I like the use of montage to fast forward.

Beast. Jessie Buckley is awesome and after seeing this and Men and Women Talking, I’ll keep tuning in.

Beetlejuice. Speaking over very gradual character reveals. They very literally do not make them like this anymore. What a manic, crazy blend – I love the actors, across the cast, putting all their chips in. The suicide jokes (?!) didn’t age well!

Music
Started off the week in an R&B mood…

• Prince, For You. Never gone that deep in the Prince archives before. “Soft and Wet” is the only one I knew of, still bouncy and perfect. The demented backbeat in “In Love” feels like a decade ahead of time.
• Maze, Frankie Beverly, Silky Soul. Late ’80s disco/funk/soul/R&B – even if you don’t know the songs, the music sounds so familiar and comforting (and owes a tremendous debt to Marvin Gaye). “Love’s On the Run” has the bump.
• The Best of Sade. When the “Best Of” album comes out before two other killer albums. “Hang On to Your Love” deserves some more attention. “Kiss of Life” has lovely production, something I’d listen to when I take my imaginary sailboat out at sunset. The grinding, vaguely menacing electric guitar takes “No Ordinary Love” to a level few can reach.

I like listening to other people’s playlists. But more often, I just pillage and plunder for ideas. I usually end up skimming the titles and snagging a couple albums that catch my eye. This week, albums stolen from a playlist for driving around Oahu:

• Pacific, from Haruomi Honoso, Shigeru Suzuki, and Tatsuro Yamashita. “ノスタルジア・オブ・アイランド (Nostalgia of the Island)” is an easy fave, lazy and happy.
• Raymond Scott, Manhattan Research, Inc.. I really like the noises, but there was too much talking (for me, at the time).
• Daniel Lanois, Shine.
• Gaussian Curve, Clouds.
• A.R.T. Wilson, Overworld.

Cameroon: Baka Pygmy Music. Highlights are the children singing in “Hut Song” and aquatic percussion in “The Water Drum“.

Back to Beethoven again this week, comparing/contrasting recordings to make my soul bigger:

• Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4, Op.58 & Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 19 perf. Rudolf Serkin, Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra.
• Beethoven: Piano Concerto Nos. 4 & 5 perf. Daniel Barenboim, Berliner Philharmoniker.
• Beethoven: Piano Concertos No. 3 Op. 37 & No. 4 Op. 58 per. Krystian Zimerman, Leonard Bernstein, Wiener Philharmoniker. I like how the piano sounds here, it seems to have the most “sparkle” to it.
• Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4, perf. Mitsuko Uchida, Kurt Sanderling, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. This sound is so smooth and round and full, and feels like a wider overall dynamic range in the recording/performance. Probably my favorite of this bunch.

TV
X-Files, s3e7 “The Walk“. Another military revenge plot, this one in a veterans hospital. Fun to see the “No sir, it’s unusual.” guy from No Country for Old Men in a starring role here.

The Leftovers, s2e1 “Axis Mundi“. This show. Dang. This is why we say some works have a “rich text”. I took a bunch of notes, but feel like I just need to let them simmer. I had no idea Regina King was in this show!

Interview With the Vampire, s3-4. So, this Claudia character… I appreciate what she’s doing for the story, but a very tiresome presence on screen.

I’ve been working on a coding project (more to come) and collaborating with AI is so fun. I like the near-limitless patience – explain X for the tenth time, remind me why we’re doing Y, let’s start over from scratch… again. Stuff that would exhaust a human teammate is taken without flinching. I hope we can learn from this.

Books
New York 2140. Loving this book so far – intrigue in a New York City partially submerged by global sea level rise. Exactly what I needed. Really appreciate this line:

“Stick your finger on your little tourist map and wherever it lands, amazing things will have happened. The ghosts will rise up through the manhole covers like steam on a cold morning, telling you their stories with the same boring maniacal ancient-mariner intensity that any New Yorker manifests if they start talking about history. Don’t get them started! Because a New Yorker interested in the history of New York is by definition a lunatic, going against the tide, swimming or rowing upstream against the press of his fellow citizens, all of whom don’t give a shit about this past stuff.”

The Path of Daggers, cont.

Running
I’m now over 1,000 miles for the year so far. Getting close to filling out my map of Bed-Stuy, too. Just a few more runs and I’ll have every street done.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Eastern Parkway was never meant to be a highway. If only…

“I was ‘2 months away from quitting the podcast‘ for 2 years.”

“It’s worth listening to your intuition because this is what’ll set your perspective apart from everyone else who’s also looking around for problems to solve.”

“In midlife almost everything looks like a midlife crisis book.”

Movies
Totally Killer. Dialogue reminded me of Hitman a bit, not in a good way, sometimes sort of listless, slow, obvious. And it ran the “boy, times have changed” and raunchy humor into the ground. But! It’s a pretty fun satire and I like the time travel angle.

Sherlock Holmes (2009). I love the fashion from this time period. Leaning into Sherlock’s restlessness and Watson’s gambling is a plus.

Music
Continuing the Asian kick from last week, I really enjoyed the stuff I’ve found in the Nonesuch Explorer Series.

• Explorer Series: Indonesia – Java: Court Gamelan, Vol. I
• Explorer Series: Indonesia – Java: Court Gamelan, Vol. II
• Explorer Series: Europe – Bulgaria: Village and Folk Music of Bulgaria. Really liked all the 1-3 minute track lengths on this album. The tight small-group harmonies in “Jofcharche mlado” followed by the more expansive chorus + woodwind + strumming” in Trugnal mi Yane Sandanski, Iele” capture the range well.

After seeing a random twitter thread about it, I switched over to Japanese jazz…

• Leo Takami, Next Door. Maybe my favorite of the bunch. Reminds me of Pat Metheny – nylon electric guitar + piano + percussion is a proven blend, like in “As If Listening“. “Family Tree” opens and closes with this melancholy line where I feel like he’s quoting something – Eno’s Airports, or Satie’s Gymnopedies, or a snippet of Copland – but maybe that’s just what happens when something is so spare, clear, beautiful, dialed in. Or maybe it’s a quote!
• Masabumi Kikuchi, Poo-Sun.
• Hiromasa Suzuki, High-Flying opens with the title track quoting Marvin Gaye. A bit more funk/fusion/blues-y than the previous.
• Masabumi Kikuch & Masahiko Togashi, Poetry.
• And a playlist: “japanese jazz when driving on a warm rainy night“.

I really enjoyed this compare/contrast exercise, and I should do it more often:

• Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” & Coriolan Overture, performed by Budapest Festival Orchestra, 2024. Is #3 the best Beethoven symphony?
• Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, Op. 55 “Eroica” – Strauss: Horn Concerto No. 1, Op. 11 (Live), from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, 2018. A notable increase in tempo in this Eroica. Buoyant!

Star Feminine Band, self-titled and Paris. High-energy Beninese teenage garage band!

TV
The X-Files…

• s3e4 “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose“. Quote of the season so far: “I believe in your abilities, but not your attitude.”
• s3e5 “The List“. This show loves to consider revenge after death. Has a great moody look to it – deep shadows, Florida sweat. Stories set in the prison system, with so many abuses of power, are really tough to watch.
• s3e6 “2Shy“. I like how they literalize the psychopath’s hunger to kill. Also: old school internet dating! Vulnerability, loneliness, hopefulness, the willingness to ignore red flags. Also interesting to see the villain’s reluctance to engage when it’s not on his terms.

The Leftovers, s1e10 “The Prodigal Son Returns”. Season finale stuck the landing. I am hooked.

How To With John Wilson, s1e1. So unexpectedly funny! I love the juxtaposition of image and word. This really made me appreciate NYC anew. Can’t wait to make my way through the rest.

Words of Wisdom
“All hobbies require zero talent if you’re comfortable with being bad at them.” Get a hobby!

Ups and downs last week. Found myself in a bout of mid-week doldrums. That’s been a Wednesday/Thursday pattern a few times, and… I think it may be caffeine-related. Time to cut back.

Running
The race I was in left me defaulting to higher speeds, so it took a bit of time and conscious effot dial it back to the norm. After the race week taper, ramped up the volume quite a bit. It’s funny how noticeable it is when I’m underfed. A big healthy meal and a good night of sleep can make a big difference.

Books
The Vaster Wilds. Don’t read it to cheer yourself up.

Don Quixote, trans. Grossman. Pretty sure I’ve DNF’ed this in every decade I’ve been alive. 🤷‍♂️

Nuts & Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World in a Big Way. Nails are more interesting than you’d think!

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
“Thriving and growing cultures are liberal about handing out ‘cultural green cards.’.”

Movies
The Rental. Effective! Good use of fog. Interesting choice to keep the villain unknown. I dig it. Airbnbs are creepy!

Collateral. Never gets old.

Days of Heaven. I was really disappointed with the sound at BAM Harvey Theater – too hot, too echo-y – but it’s still a splendid movie. I’m happy I got to see it on a big screen again. I really like Malick’s willingness to remove boring, functional dialogue. He’ll give you a couple clips of dialogue, or what they see, just enough to get the basic idea of what people want, and then he lets you look at how they’re processing it all.

Music
Listened to a bunch of great music from Asia this week…

Explorer Series: Indonesia – Bali: Golden Rain. Love the contrast in frenetic melodies vs. the very ponderous ding-dong of the deeper gongs in the first couple tracks. The explosive piston vocals in “Ketjak: the Ramayana Monkey Chant” are fantastic.

Mandolin Duo: U. Srinivas – Vol. 1.

Gundecha Brothers, Bhaktamar Stotra.

Sabri Brothers, Qawwali: Sufi Music of Pakistan.

Nusrate Fateh Ali Khan, Best Urdu Qawwalies. Seven hours’ worth! “Allah Hoo Allah Hoo” is a banger.

Rare Voodoo Songs from Northern Haiti. Really beautiful singing with minimal percussion accompaniment, as in “Pikan Kwenna“.

James, Seven. If you like early U2, you might like this.

TV
The X-Files, s3e3 “D.P.O.“. I like this lightning kid, and most of the creepiness comes from the very real-life stalking rather than the superpowers or generic villainy. Jack Black guest appearance!

The Leftovers, s1e9. Based on this and Hannibal: if you see an odd deer, it’s a bad sign. Deer, metronome, smoking. Everybody disappeared. :(

Columbo, s4e3 “By Dawn’s Early Light”.

Lost, s4e2. The island is getting crowded!

This week I watched a bunch of the Olympics. Peacock made all the difference – finally a focus on events without all the backstory filler! I’ll tune again for Los Angeles 2028 if (I’m not there in person…)

The clear highlight for me was watching a distant relative win a silver medal. I won’t mention their name out of respect for privacy/not wanting to be a celebrity stalker. I just recently learned we’re related! But man, what a thrill. I’ve never watched the Olympics with rooting interest like that, and ended up jumping up and down in my living room.

I found myself thinking back to the first Olympics I paid attention to, 1992 in Barcelona. Imagine 9 years old and seeing the Dream Team guys playing together, Dan & Dave commercials during the lead-up, the torch getting lit with a bow & arrow, and later Derek Redmond limps through the finish of a 400m semifinal with his dad. So much athletic drama to soak in, and knowledge that it was going to be down the road in Atlanta in just few years’ time.

Anyway, great week, a renewed spirit. The vibes have shifted!

Art
Rugs by Agda Österberg.

Enjoy summer more, read books, poster by Bill Sokol.

Running
Yesterday I ran the Percy Sutton Harlem 5k.

The last race I’d run was back in 2019, before I left Atlanta. I did that one in 24:03, at 7:45/mile. Yesterday on a tougher course in warmer weather: 25:20 at 8:10. I had 25:00 as my reasonable goal going in, so I’m really happy with how things turned out. Haven’t lost much speed in the last 5 years, but I can handle much longer distances much more easily than I could then. It was a really fun course, too. A squished loop, with plenty of sharp turns and some wicked hills to crush your spirts before you sail back down.

The 5k is kind of a perfect distance. And when you recover a few minutes after finishing? Plenty of energy left to cheer for others.

Books
Here in the Dark. First-person narration is tricky, especially when the narrator has sharp edges. (__ that one noir with narration I really liked?)

The Vaster Wilds. Archaic, prayerful language. Reminds me of The Road, but not as morose and dreary. It’s got more urgency at the point we enter the story.

The Path of Daggers, cont.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
“One of the great pleasures of trends is the option of sitting them out.” (via)

Designs for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics from Lance Wyman.

“Big week for the glasses community.”

“These examples are real ways I’ve used LLMs to help me. They’re not designed to showcase some impressive capabiltiy; they come from my need to get actual work done. This means the examples aren’t glamorous, but a large fraction of the work I do every day isn’t, and the LLMs that are available to me today let me automate away almost all of that work.”

Do Quests, Not Goals.

“You’ve got to be proud of your wounds.”

Plant Care and Power Tools.

When online content disappears. “38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible a decade later”

A much-needed change: a new generation of elite female runners embraces strength over thinness.

How a Rare Disorder Makes People See Monsters. This is wild.

The Urban Family Exodus Is a Warning for Progressives.

Movies
Hit Man. Overall fun, but it had too many flabby, listless passages. Not loose or goofy enough for a hangout flick. Not tight enough for a thrill. It just felt low-energy for me. Surprisingly quiet, too. I’m willing to chalk some of it up to mismatched expectations, but I was a bit let down. “Hit Man serves as a fitting microcosm of the dilemma of this charismatic new face: all the right components there but in the wrong proportions, too many ideas and not enough wisdom to discern which are worth pursuing, the right time but the wrong place.”

Superman: The Movie (1978). Better in keeping with the spirit of the week, rewatched this in celebration of Truth, justice, and the American Way.™ I got all choked up hearing Lois’ dazzled, hopeful, love-doped reflections during their flight scene. “If you need a friend… I’m the one to fly to.” 😭

Music
Mase, Welcome Back. “Breathe, Stretch, Shake” is so good. And the electronic (vocoder??) backbeat on “Into What You Say” is undermined by a terrible chorus. (Thanks, Jara!)

Christine & The Queens, PARANO¨IA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE. More “epic” than previous albums but I’m not sure it benefits. Will need a few more listens.

Muslimgauze, Mullah Said. Haunting and tranceful. Goblet drums! “Every Grain of Palestinian Sand” just buckles in and keeps pressing forward. Really liked this album.

Ezéchiel Pailhès, Ventas Rumba. Latin keyboard work, would make a good companion with Frankie Reyes from last week. I like the title track.

GoGo Penguin, Man Made Object. I looped their 2018 tune “Raven” a bunch in the past, and “Branches Break” on this album has similar flavor, a prominent acoustic bass, a chattering drumset, and a pressing forward momentum.

B. Fleischman, The Humbucking Coil

Job for a Cowboy, Doom. It’ll wake you up.

TV
The X-Files, s3e2. “Paper Clip”. I love seeing the Smoking Man nervous and trying to cover his tracks. Skinner taking action!

The Leftovers, s1e8. Kevin is having memory lapses. His daughter is chaotic and trying to join the cult. Nora has a gun. Cult lady got kidnapped, and then…

House of the Dragon, s2e7-8. Welp. Farewell to all that.

New York Undercover, s1e1. Off to a good start. With musical guest Teddy Pendergrass!

I traveled this past weekend, down to Maryland for a family reunion on my fiancée’s side. I’d never been to one before. I was mostly surrounded by strangers, but found a warm welcome and I can see the appeal in events like this. Renewing present bonds, honoring the previous generation, encouraging and modeling for the next. Family can be a beautiful thing.

We took the trip down there on Amtrak. Couldn’t ask for a smoother trip. If only the rest of the States had trains as easy as we do up in this corner of the country. Just night and day compared with the usual airport/airplane experience.

We only spent a couple hours in Baltimore, but the Baltimore Art Museum was a worthwhile side trip.

The event was hosted at a local Quaker/Friends meeting space. I liked the Biblical cartoons in the hallway.

School
Capstone project is maybe 1/4 done. (Actually more like 1/2, but I’m hedging for a confidence boost.) (It’s actually more like 2/3-done, just being careful!) Maybe have that wrapped and submitted this week? We’ll see.

Running
The week was just too darn hot, so I leaned on morning runs and kept’em short. Still managed to run a few miles of new-to-me streets. Also trying to make another local park turn red on my personal Strava heatmap.

Our trip out of town gave me a rare treat: trailrunning in a new city. I went out to Broad Creek Park and jogged in swampy suffocating forest and had an absolute blast.

Books
Everything You Ever Wanted. Reading about listless depressed people is not very compelling. (Although it does remind me a bit of The Leftovers, with a group that has lost meaning and chosen to exit…)

The Cyberiad: Stories. Been a while, but Stanisław Lem is usually pretty rewarding. That’s the case so far here.

A Crown of Swords, cont.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
I don’t have time to dive into the new Michael Mann Archives right now. But it’s super cool that he’s taking ownership of this and sharing the work behind the work.

I Went Looking for a Man in Finance. Fun bit of local anthropology.

The Eyes of Lacy. “Owlishness, then, is the opposite of pretty, petty, and shallow; it is a term we reserve for those who are more lens than body, who make us acutely, uncomfortably aware of our own moral and physical imperfections.”

Nicolas Cage Will Always Go Big. “It’s not crazy to think he’s trained (or retrained) some part of the movie-watching public to be more open-minded in general when evaluating quality acting, encouraging them to prize factors other than delicacy.”

A collection of video game skies.

Movies
Top Gun: Maverick. Second viewing, still love it. Those opening scenes with the test flight are just achingly beautiful. I just want to soak them in. Reminds me of the plane/boat travel scenes in Miami Vice.

Music
Lots of electronic this week, and while all were enjoyable, few tracks in particular got etched in my mind.

Ekolali, Playfond 2. The drums and muted droning flutes in “Doggerland” are great. Doggerland!

My favorite of the week is a new one out from Laraaji, Glimpses of Infinity.

Huerco S., Colonial Patterns and For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have) and Plonk.

Space Afrika, Somewhere Decent to Live.

TV
The X-Files…

• s2e23 “Soft Light“. Tony Shalhoub (!) is scared of his shadow. I reallly like the concept in this one. It’s rare that the weekly “monster” is ashamed, fearful, caring.
• s2e24 “Our Town“. Another warning about food supply chain vulnerability, but with a factory chicken town cannibal cult.
• s2e25 “Anasazi“. Poisoning an apartment building’s water supply is wild. I wonder how much that has happened before. Out to the desert for aliens, and the sloppiest cover-up job you’ve ever seen.

The Leftovers, s1e5. One of the cult people gets a free day and returns with renewed faith. This show is agonizing in a great way.

Today I decided on my wedding band. At a couple points in the brief sizing tests, my finger felt trapped and panicky. It will be fun to get used to it. I can’t wait to fidget-spin it when I’m lost in thought.

School
Last week was a big turning point: passed my two final classes, and moved on to the capstone project for my degree. And with that, a big shift in attitude and confidence. The finish line is in sight.

Books
A Crown of Swords. Returned to where I left off in the Wheel of Time series, as an antidote to a general book lull and a couple sleepless nights. And what do you know, I pushed through some boring stuff and found my groove again. (I’ll also give some credit to House of the Dragon for making me want to get wrapped up in a fantasy universe again, if not that particular one.)

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
How Olympic athletes get fed. “There are also grab-and-go spaces with things like burgers and shawarma sandwiches. We don’t talk about nutritional values there, because this is what the athletes want after competing.”

The American Elevator Explains Why Housing Costs Have Skyrocketed.

“Bullshit Jobs” is a Terrible, Curiosity-Killing Concept. “Consider reading it an act of meta-anthropology, exploring why a professional anthropologist could be so relentlessly, aggressively incurious about the lives and experiences of others.”

Activism as production vs. consumption.

Why a hotter world might be a more dangerous, violent, and less productive one.

Movies
Jagged Edge. Sexy legal thriller! I don’t think I’ve seen Jeff Bridges and Glenn Close so young before. Really appreciate how this one toys with your convictions.

Inside Out (2015). Better than expected! Not sure I dig the Bing Bong character. I also wonder what this story would be like with Sadness’ journey at its center.

TV
The X-Files, s2e22 “F. Emasculata“. This episode inspired gruesome artwork in my household.

The Expanse, s2e13. Season finale! Everyone has the Protomolecule now! The episode suffered in a way that many long-running series do: I didn’t trust that anyone was really in danger.

The Leftovers, s1e4. Such an odd show. It’s great. Appreciate how often they tell a full story arc within each episode, not just a path from A to B.

Bob’s Burgers, s5e12. Silliness, like usual!

House of the Dragon, s2e4. Dragons, etc..

Game of Thrones, s3e9. The “red wedding”, etc.. I only made it a few episodes into GOT, but glad to get some closure on what this was all about.

So much TV this week! I need to get back into the movie groove…

Music
Holly Herndon, Platform. Oddball cyborg vocals and synthesizer stuff. In wake of PROTO a couple weeks ago, maybe my favorite album of the week.

Ghost, Opus Eponymous and If You Have Ghost. I like the main riff in “I’m A Marionette“. I just really love this band! Distinct nasal singing and general theatricality.

Spent some time with The Joy’s South African a cappella and otherwise.

• Amabutho. “Jele Iguana” is my favorite.
• Hammarsdale
• The Joy. The clicks and “tss” and harmonies in “Amaqatha Amancane” are really nice.

Kamasi Washington, Fearless Movement. A lot more hiphop/rapping than previous albums, and more vocals in general. Not my preference, but the ensemble is as locked as ever. “Road to Self (KO)” is the slow-build multi-genre noodling I signed up for.

The Blackbyrds, Action. I love “Soft and Easy“. Is there word for that kind of ostinato on the electric guitar that shows up in this Barry White genre?

Akusmi, Fleeting Future and Lines. Chamber minimalism in the spirit of Reich, Glass, et al..

On recommendation from my brother, listened to Sylvain Rifflet, Cake Walk From a Space Ship and Dooble. Jazz a bit on the experimental side.

What am I making harder than it needs to be? In a response to a tweet about counterproductive difficulty in beginner running programs, I found something to ponder:

“People like it to be harder than it has to be. You know why? Because if it was easier than they thought, it would make them realize they could have been further along years ago. It’s like a confirmation bias to protect the ego that it has to be hard. I’m not saying it’s easy but sometimes it isnt as hard as you think.”

I’ve gotten more injury-averse as I’ve gotten older. I want to avoid injury, because I really really want to avoid not being able to run. The change in mindset has pushed me to take a longer view. I can always come back tomorrow… but only if I don’t wreck my progress today. (And also, sometimes: I can always come back tomorrow… but it’ll be better if I do something today.) The reward for this consistent, steady, non-punishing approach has been a couple of the best running years of my life.

Seeing that tweet also made me think back to playing music in college. I was working through a marimba piece during a lesson with my percussion teacher. I played through a section, then he stopped me and asked a simple question: what does “Allegro” mean? I gave the simple answer: “fast”. And he countered with a bit reframe: what about “fleet”, “brisk”, “energetic”, “zippy”, “storming”? Play again, same tempo, but it feels different, it sounds different. I recognized “fast” mode felt like a sprinter, tense, coiled, explosive, muscular. But I could also play fast like a… robin? Or a stream?

We went through a similar exercise when playing snare one day. I’d sometimes wind up like a caveman with especially difficult pieces, not playing relaxed. So: tap 20 times with the same force, but start with a heavy grip and gradually loosen it. The drum makes a sound, but the drumstick itself does, too. A tense fist is tiring, and the wood can’t resonate as much, and the overall sound can have a dramatically different color to it. You have to set things in motion, trust the work to release its own vibrations out into the world.

School
Revisions, revisions, revisions. Few things as annoying as finishing something, moving on… and then later recognizing the work isn’t finished yet. My program is ~94% complete at this point. Funny feeling on the precipice. But lots of hard work to go.

Running
Took a break this week, dialed it back about 20%. It’s startling how much easier a 4-run week feels compared to a 5-run week. One small goal accomplished: I’ve now run every street in the Clinton Hill neighborhood.

Books
Moonbound. Robin Sloan is just a fountain of ideas and optimism, and both of those traits carry through in this scifi-fantasy mishmash. It has fun and enjoys playing with your expectations.

The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn. It’s only a couple decades old, but funny how much that was common knowledge then (neighborhood boundaries, makeup) doesn’t apply anymore. Appreciate the historical nuggets in here. Glad to live in a place that changes.

Music
I missed Mary Lattimore’s Rain on the Road back in May. “The Poppies, the Wild Mustard, the Blue-eyed Grass” has a really cool build-up and disintegration into UFO space noises.

Labradford, Mi Media Naranja. “Wr” has heavy reverb guitar and a bit of spooky voiceover.

Bohren & Der Club of Gore, Sunset Mission. Maybe I’d call this “film noir music”?

Jerry Goldsmith’s Chinatown OST.

Bark Psychosis, Hex.

Harp Concertos of Handel, Boiedieu, Mozart, Dittersdorf, Glière, and Rodrigo. The Handel was new to me. Pretty wonderful!

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
MAKE IT A LIBRARY SUMMER

How to Catch a Lab Leak. Fascinating interview about researching Soviet Union anthrax deaths. “All of these things are full of stories of human beings and all the nutcakes and crazy things that happened. You’ve got to make allowance for that in nearly everything.”

Michael Mann includes Out of the Past in his Letterboxd list of his favorite films – I can relate!

An appreciation of critic Greg Tate. “His best paragraphs throbbed like a party and chattered like a salon.”

The quiet return of eugenics. “The new eugenics will shortly be with us, although it will not describe itself as such. It will be described with euphemisms such as ‘genetic enhancement’ or ‘genetic health’.”

High-pressure youth sports is bad for America. “Shifting from informal and school-based sports to expensive pay-to-play leagues has landed us in a pretty dysfunctional place, where parenting is unnecessarily complicated, society is unnecessarily inegalitarian, and communities are unnecessarily weak.”

Movies
Terminator 2: Judgment Day. A 4th of July rewatch. Hope we don’t blow ourselves up!

Event Horizon. Horror in space, etc.. It’s done much better elsewhere.

The Lady Vanishes (1938). It takes a moment to adjust to old movies. I like the wisecracks and innuendo here. Good to see an elderly actress in a dynamic main role; shame to see our firecracker primary heroine largely be set aside when she partners up.

TV
The Expanse, s2e12. I keep thinking about about starting over from the beginning of the series. I think there are some nuances I keep bluffing my way through.

The Leftovers, s1e3. Uh-oh. The cult bought the church down the street.

House of the Dragon, s2e3. Ended this episode not necessarily interested in more GOT lore specifically, but more interested in being immersed in one of those elaborate worlds. Inspired me to pick up the Wheel of Time series again before going to bed.

Wild Portugal. As with many nature docs, too much slow-motion footage. Bustards look really cool. I had no idea the whole genet family existed. Wolves are still the best.

Good week. Last week’s R&R helped a lot. Came into this week with more focus and more time-in-chair than I’d been able to do previously.

After launching runwear.app, I decided to let all the ideas in the backlog simmer for a little while, and switched over to a new coding project. Feels good to have a clean sheet of paper and a steep learning curve again.

I think it also helped that I returned to my old burger place again. And again. I’m realizing the extra time and energy is worth it, even on a 90º afternoon…

School
Finished up two projects for my current class. One to go.

Running
Three of four Wednesday evening hill workouts complete. Really happy I worked this in. Next month, switching to trail runs. Trails at twilight? Can’t beat it. Falling in love with running again. I’ve been on such a high, and knock on wood, healthy as can be. So many ideas and goals bubbling up. (Maybe that’s one thing hobbies are good for: a low-stakes area of continuous work, experimentation, reward… so you can better recognize by contrast the areas where you don’t have it!)

Books
The Good Thieves. Katherine Rundell strikes again. Her writing style doesn’t strike me as much as it did the first time, but that’s to be expected by the time you a writer’s fourth book. It’s still as lively as ever, and I still appreciate the relentless optimism and mild deviance she promotes. 😈

Music
This felt like a “clean-up” week, not as focused as previous ones. Just tidying up some stray albums I’d saved for later.

Overseas, from Tommy Flanagan. I really like how his toms are tuned, high and resonant. As on “Dalarna“, the piano + brushes combo is still undefeated.

Thom Yorke, Suspiria OST. I like “An Audition” for all the wiggly static. Short but sweet.

Thom Yorke, Anima. I like “Twist” for its full saturation. “Not The News” has this wonderful brush/sandpaper sound, along with sirens and bleeps and bloops. Just perfect.

No Doubt, Tragic Kingdom. I gained a glancing awareness of the “I’m Just a Girl” discourse, which led me to better things: re-listening to this album. “Spiderwebs” is due for a revival?

Electrelane, The Power Out. I don’t listen to rock very much anymore! Just really lost the taste for it, unless it drifts more into the prog/metal realm. I really like hippie/folk/cult/choral flavor in “The Valleys“.

Masego, Studying Abroad: Extended Stay. “Sides of Me” is the best one. Love the looseness in the snaps.

Moodswings, Moodfood. Easy listening wallpaper. Always appreciate when nature sounds work their way in, as on “Thailand“. Really nice orchestration – saxes, bass, shaker – in “Yebo/Sema“.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
It was Black Writers Week at RogerEbert.com, your finest source of movie and TV writing. Robert Daniels introduces great writing on…

• a Wild Wild West reminiscence
• Black couples in ads
• Black “final girls”
• Masculinitity and vulnerability
• The Shield vs. The Wire
• Black villains

…and much more.

The Hands Behind New York City’s Hoop Dreams. Talking with NYC Parks employees that make replacement rims for public basketball courts.

The mysterious tyranny of trendy baby names. The graphs of most popular ending letters, changing over the decades, are super cool.

Movies
F/X. A movie special effects genius is recruited by the Justice Department to help stage a fake assassination, so they can move a key witness out of sight and move a big case move forward. Lots of fun. They don’t make’em like this anymore!

TV
The X-Files, s2e19, “Død Kalm“. I hope Scully & Mulder have generous hazard pay. Impossible task for the makeup team.

The Expanse, s2e9–10. I’m coming around on those Martians a little bit.

Bodkin, s1e7. Season finale in the books. Decent show overall, starting strong and coasting to a pleasant stop.

I keep a tally of how I spend my working hours. I put it all in a spreadsheet to make sure I’ve got enough “butt in chair” time when it comes to school, coding, career stuff. It also helps me admit when I’m burned out, because the numbers don’t lie. Recently: 📉. So I took a few days off this week, just focusing on rest and recuperation. And movies. Felt great. Coming out of this weekend with a just-enough-vacation sort of freshness.

A couple other highlights this week:

• Having hot dogs and potato chips for dinner, along with a summer blockbuster on TV.
• I finished v1 of www.runwear.app, aka Project Runwear, a little experiment to help me figure out my running outfit given the local weather, dialed in based on my own experience. It’s not essential right now – these days the main question is: tshirt or tanktop? – but it will be useful in the fall and winter, soon enough.

Art
Look at this cool pair of teacups by Sargent Claude Johnson.

Books
Titanium Noir. A blend of hard-boiled detective in a scifi web of intrigue. I thought I was going to drop it, but glad I decided to push through. There’s some sort of “wise guy” crack on just about every page, often our can’t-help-himself hero just digging the hole a little deeper.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Free Things NYC 2024.

The case again travel. “You have to let go of wanting to do anything existentially and focus on shortest term pleasure. Optimization of time and energy is the complete antithesis of loafing.” and “Moving is the most passive thing that feels active.” (via)

Running
Hill workouts are going well. And I’ve started taking small tangents from our run clubs usual routes – breaking off for little spells of novelty before rejoining. Gotta do the things that keep me interested.

Music
Godzilla Minus One OST. Enjoyed what I heard during the movie, but I really knew I’d like this when I saw the track list.

Holly Herndon, PROTO. Herndon was a recent guest on Ezra Klein Show, and is thoughtful on her use of AI systems in her music. I like the overlapping voices and orchestra hits in “Eternal“

Movies
The Rock. Nicolas Cage is such a gem. I should really spend more time with his filmography.

Perfect Days. Such mixed feelings! It’s lovely but I felt a little remote from it. Some of this may be situational. The theater played a pre-roll promo with the director and lead – “This beautiful movie is about X. It’s also about Y. So-and-so is a true talent.” – and I found it really, really off-putting.

She’s Gotta Have It. Spike Lee was just shot out of a cannon, huh? Really cool seeing Fort Greene Park, just down the road. And man, he loves a musical interlude. Didn’t know he was doing those from the jump. Why not?

Men. What you might call a “rich text”. E.g. we’re picking apples in gardens within the first few minutes, and plenty more comparably subtle imagery to come. Really appreciate the eeriness simmering underneath from the very beginning. The sinister, fantastical turns toward the end are a bit too drawn out, but effective in their own way.

Orion and the Dark. Glad to see animated movies mixing in different visual styles in the middle of the movie. Interesting that they didn’t have that contrast for the framing device. Don’t always love a narrator, but it fits the structure.

Passing. Really heartbreaking, uncomfortable. I like how how the upper-class milieu just heightens everything, draws in your focus. Ditto for dense, allusive conversations, and our limited view through Clare’s perspective. We get only a limited sense of the tradeoffs, though some acutely felt. The book was one of my favorites read in 2022.

Immortals. This got on my radar from cool-looking stills. I think I was expecting something a more clean, campy, cartoony, adventurous. It was much more in the 300 vein, with plenty “look at this badass being a badass” slow-mo-ments, plenty of bloody splatter to go around. Still elevated by the thoughtful sets and costuming. (The Fall is the only other Tarsem film I’ve seen, with a narrator dials up the kooky visuals even more.)

TV
The X-Files, s2e17, “End Game“. Alien Bounty Hunter escapes again. I still love Skinner so much. The most unpredictable character in the show.

The X-Files, s2e18, “Fearful Symmetry“. Zoos are bad! Love the recurring PNW environmentalist hippie types we’ve seen in this show.

The Expanse, s2e5–8. I liked the first season, and the corresponding first book in the series. I abandoned the show a while back, though. I started to tune out when the Mars characters and bureucrats were getting more focus. I think I’m still trying to figure out exactly where TV fits in my life.

Bodkin, s1e6. Curious how they’re gonna wrap this up…

Build all the scaffolding you like, nature will follow its course.

Wardrobe Upgrade PSA
Prescription sunglasses are great! I’ve been wearing glasses since 8th grade, and contacts almost as long. My new prescription sunnies are perfect for when I’m going to be out in the sun for a while, but not long enough to “waste” a pair of contacts and wear sunglasses. For daytime runs, errands, morning walk, etc., I love being able to do a quick swap and head out the door.

I also got some roomy, light-wash khakis. Summer dad style: activated. 😎

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
“Don’t apologize for your interests. Sell your interests.” Can’t speak for him, but I think Joe was using “sell” in the broader sense of promotion/persuasion, rather than simple transaction. In any case, I choose to read it that way!

Zadie Smith: “Generally speaking, I don’t make notes. I sit down. I write a novel. But already this non-novel that I was refusing to write had generated a drawer full of notes and a shelf of books.”

Jumping, a really interesting animated short with a first-person “through the eybeballs” perspective. (via Funkaoshi)

I’ve only seen a handful of Howard Hawks movies, and didn’t love them all, but love this description: “his movies feel like motorized airport walkways — life, but a little bit quicker, a little bit smoother than normal people can manage.” Along the same lines, and great reason to listen to podcasts at 2x: people are funnier when reactions are quicker, snappier! Bonus: an interview clip of Howard Hawks talking about overlapping dialogue. (via Bright Wall/Dark Room)

I love Tyler Smith’s re-appreciation of Congo. “Marketing, critical consensus, box office; while these are impossible to ignore, they do tend to fall away on their own as the years go by, leaving only the movie itself, free of baggage and ready to be seen from a fresh perspective.” It’s been a few years, I need another re-watch.

“Moments that get ‘gridded’ are highly economical. They refine an entire story to a few key images less for their formal memorability (meaning, they don’t look particularly special) than for what they symbolize: critical emotional flashpoints that, taken together, constellate the fantasies that shows like [these] reflect and cater to.”

“The gender gap in higher education is wider today than it was in 1972, when Title IX was passed, but the other way round, with men earning only 42% of degrees“.

RIP Bill Walton. A remembrance from my friend James and from the Trail Blazers.

Movies
Alien. Terror, in deep space! I guess I’ve seen this 5-10 times now? Never once let me down. I’m reminded again of Ebert’s note on the cast’s age: “By skewing older, “Alien” achieves a certain texture without even making a point of it: These are not adventurers but workers“.

Aniara. Despair, in deep space! A spaceship bound for Mars is knocked off-course, sending immigrants into a years-long voyage to nowhere. The crisp hotel/cruise-ship vibe wears off and we see passengers moving through stages of grief, despair, escapism, cult beliefs, false hopes. What I found most intriguing here is the AI service/entity called Mima from which the passengers get a sort of spa experience, lulled into hypnosis by their own experience and memories. Not too hard to imagine…

Music
Depeche Mode Week. I didn’t quite finish, but spent most of the week listening through their discography. I wasn’t prepared for how zany/computer-y their early work was.

• Speak & Spell. Interesting how upbeat, pop, and chip-tune-y this is. Good choice doing single promo for “Just Can’t Get Enough“.
• A Broken Frame. “Nothing to Fear” sounds like SNES RPG music, great instrumental. Also dig “The Sun and the Rainfall“.
• Construction Time Again. This feels like the album where the distinctive open baritone voice really comes to the fore. I think “And Then…” is my favorite here. “More Than a Party” is solid.
• Some Great Reward. I LOVE the disjointed melancholy lullaby of “It Doesn’t Matter“, with its occasional sour bursts.
• Black Celebration seemed like a more blandly consistent album. No strong stand-outs. I’ll take “World Full of Nothing” on this one.
• They must have been saving up for Music for the Masses, where it feels like all the familiar pieces have fallen into place. I love the long lines of “The Things You Said” – a bit of Kraftwerk flavor in the counterpoint organ bits? I also like the murky haunting of “Agent Orange“.
• 101 (Live). Do I like live albums? I think get too attached to perfect studio vocals to appreciate most live recordings. I tend to like the instrumental ones more. And I don’t want to listen to those dorks in the audience have a sing-along. I want to be there! There’s a new book about this album that sounds promising.
• Violator. “Enjoy the Silence” and ominous “Memphisto” win the day.
• Songs of Faith and Devotion. Here it feels that we’re more fully transitioned into stadium/industrial rock, with added electronics. Add a touch of blues? Vocals are more belt-y. It’s not quite as fun for me. I’ll still shout out “Judas“, I think.
• Ultra. “It’s No Good” feels like a return to form – maybe that’s why it’s gotten so much play? I want to fix their sound to a certain point in time. Also, some of these songs are really long – 7/12 over 5.5 minutes! I get restless…

Maybe I’ll make a playlist of favorites when I catch up to today, and see what themes I can spot?

In other listening, since “Water” was the big hit last week, I continued with Tyla’s TYLA. This week, I’ll shine a light on “On and On“.

Inspired by my friend Will, I revisited Mastodon’s Remission. The opening riff of “March of the Fire Ants” is a classic.

Antonio Salieri, Piano Concertos.

Alice Coltrane, The Carnegie Hall Concert.

Books
Infinity Gate. Enjoying this scifi so far. Given an infinitude of Earths in different realities/dimensions and development paths, imagine a paranoid super-civilization develops among them.

School
Another class down, two to go.

TV
X-Files, s2e14, “Die Hand Die Verletzt“. A small crew of (half-hearted?) devil worshipers meet their match.

s2e15, “Fresh Bones“, Haitian voodoo stuff. I was nervous about this one being more clumsy or offensive, but not too bad in the end. I like the military and refugee aspects – sadly relevant for NYC right now.

Bodkin, s1e3–4. I’m enjoying the “Sunshiny Yankee” trope in this series. Seen also in Catastrophe, for example – an “aw shucks” friendly and gullible American, so easily bullied.

This week I got a new bucket hat. I have not owned a bucket had since I was maybe five or six years old. And “owned” is a strong word here. I have no understanding of my relationship to that hat. It’s more like: I can see I was photographed wearing it, and I remember it being in my bedroom.

But now I’m an adult, and I intentionally bought a bucket hat, and I found myself with a funny feeling: do I look weird? After 41 years, I’ve got things pretty dialed in at this point. I can’t remember the last time I stood in front of a mirror and wasn’t sure. Took a second to gather my courage, damn the torpedos, and step out into society. Still growing!

(Btw, I look I great. And now I own two bucket hats.)

Running
Hot days are back. Wardrobe is shifting to lighter fabrics. Sunscreen is slathered. Shade is precious. Pee is orange. I designed a hilly route for run club’s weekend long run and everyone hated me for it. 😈

School
This week was a struggle. I found it difficult to focus, but in a physical sense. Like my body itself was bored and restless, didn’t want to stay put. Managed to finish a project and submit, hopefully doesn’t need too much revision.

Music
Cantus Thuringia, Time Stands Still. “Come Again” is beautiful.

Brahms: Complete Choral Works all blended together for me. I struggle with Brahms! Couldn’t name a single piece that’s stuck with me. :(

Inspired by Craig Mod’s latest newsletter, went back to listen to Tony Williams’ Tokyo Live.

I spent some time with Jamiroquai. On Travelling Without Moving, “Everyday” is smoooooth! And from Synkronized, are you sure you’ve played “Canned Heat” enough recently?

Mozart, Clarinet Concerto (+ Oboe Concerto & Bassoon Concerto).

Bach, Oboe Concertos (BWV 1053, 1055, 1056, 1059, 1060). The adagio movement in BWV 1059 is perfect, I tell you.

Tyla, “Water“. I’ve had/will have this on repeat for a while.

Movies
Space Is the Place. Sun Ra! I wouldn’t recommend it but it’s an interesting slice of history. And I appreciate that Sun Ra has been doing this space thing for decades. If you go long enough without breaking character…

The Swimmer. At opening, it captures the feeling of a boundless perfect day. By the end, nothing seems possible. The character seems to be well-known but long missing. Have to fill in the blanks as you go. I love all the image blurring, fuzzy focus, leafy obstructions, lens flare, warm comforting haze. Also: young woman meeting her boyfriend “through a computer”!

Dune: Part Two. Blah. Felt more choppy, episodic, ponderous. The movie insists you understand that everything is so Important! I found myself wondering what a non-widescreen version would look like. Even a 4:3, there’s a lot of real estate, that doesn’t always have that much going on. Entire planets with nothing but humanoids, vehicles, and vaulted rooms.

Scream VI. Really appreciate that they continue the opening schtick. The goriest one yet, but it’s not an improvement. And a bit too much plot-splaining to wrap things up. New York City, though! Change of scenery is welcome, as is new energy from cast turnover. I’ve decided that I love this franchise.

The Silence (2010). Good thriller, left me feeling icky (complimentary?). I like that it has some frustrating protagonists, a few people you just need extra time to figure out.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
The morning after I watched the movie, I listened to “The Swimmer” as read by Anne Enright on the The New Yorker Fiction podcast.

“Storytelling is the well-orchestrated withholding of information.” George Miller on making Mad Max and collaborating with wife and editor Margaret Sixel. Loved this, too, on gardening/editing parallels:

She happens to be a really great gardener, on any scale—whether a big thing like a farm or a small back-yard garden. And she’s comprehensively good: everything is taken into account. I think that is where the same skill sets overlap. To make a great garden, you have to understand all these hidden processes and dimensions to a ridiculous degree: the soil, the geology, the sun, the light, the weather. You have to know the plant and when to put in the seed or seedling. But here’s the thing: somehow, in that process, you have got to anticipate what will happen a year down the line, or five years down the line, and how all those variables will fit into a graceful whole. I knew that’s how she approached gardens; I have seen gardens that she has done that are twenty-five years old. And I knew that is how she approached editing.

“In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, only about 6 percent of forty-year-olds had never been married. Today it is true of one in four.”

“The Earth receives about 173,000 TW [of solar energy] continuously, more than 10,000x humanity’s current needs.”

The Rise of Rapid Regional Rail.

How Might We Learn?.

TV
X-Files, s2e13, “Irresistible“. This was the saddest, creepiest, most unsettling episode yet. Good to see some meta conversation about the trauma and the toll of their work.

Bob’s Burgers, s8e9. Watched immediately after the X-Files episode above – needed a palate cleanser!

Bodkin, s1e1-2. Off to a strong start! A “quiet little village” mystery in the vein of Deadloch, Broadchurch, Three Pines, etc.. Podcasters, smh.

Words of Wisdom
“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” Prentis Hemphill, quoted in an essay on the men vs. bear debate.

A few years ago when I lived in Santa Monica, I walked every street in city limits. And I did the same in downtown Atlanta a couple years before that (along with other silly walks).

After my run yesterday, I’m getting close to filling in the map of my neighborhood here in Crown Heights, Brooklyn – only 9 or 10 miles left! 🔜 There is nothing like knowing every inch of where you live. Can’t recommend highly enough.

School
The last two courses were the most tedious I’ll come across. Definitively in the homestretch now.

Running
This week I focused on working through fatigue. So: a couple short runs with weights beforehand, and ending my longer chill runs at a faster tempo. It’s been fun to practice like this for a little while. To feel that extra bit of tired resistance, and insist on pushing through it. Cultivates an interesting focus, and I suppose it’s good to annoy myself with slightly-higher expectations every now and then.

Books
I just started Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter, and it’s already rewiring my brain a little bit. It starts with an important corrective: our tendency to see “progress” through a mostly technological lens tends to exclude as much as it highlights. The flourishing of the Renaissance, Enlightenment, etc. was percolating long before.

Music
Big nostalgic highlight this week was seeing a twitter convo that reminded me of the “Birdman” track from Pilotwings 64. One of my favorite videogame tunes of all time. and then saw a message from the composer Dan Hess. He’s got a fun “Birdman” remake on his own channel.

This was very much a week of re-visiting classics. One interesting thing I seeing the disparity between hits and long tail. Not everything you do will be celebrated. Happens to the best of’em.

Aretha

• Get It Right. I like “I Got Your Love“.
• Sparkle. It’s too bad everything on the album so completely overshadowed by “Something He Can Feel“. The orchestration on e.g. “I Get High” is so good.

Diana

• Diana Ross. “Where There Was Darkness” reminds me of the Prayer of St. Francis lol.
• Everything Is Everything. Wasn’t expecting two Beatles covers!

James Ingram, It’s Your Night. “Yah Mo B There” is great – see also the music video with Michael McDonald.

Fatback Band. Is This The Future?. Funky! I like the title track and Sunshine Lady.

Quick hits…

• From Deodato’s Motion, “Are You For Real?“
• From Teddy Pendergrass, Life Is A Song Worth Singing. “Close the Door” has the hoarse Barry White delivery + orchestral backing I love.
• Monteverdi, Duets & Solos
• Galina Grigorjeva, Nature morte

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
“I will give you my three real keys to life. No jokes in this part, okay? They are number one. Bust your ass. Number two. Pay attention. Number three. Fall in love.”

“In 1985, I asked my brother David (age 15) to be the rotoscope model for my new game, Prince of Persia.” Very cool to see that old VHS footage. (I loved the way that game looked – there was nothing like it – but man, it was infuriating to play!)

Generative AI Is Totally Shameless. I Want to Be It. There is a humorous/lightly cynical tone here, but I think there’s an interesting silver lining: it’s pretty much always willing to try. No small thing!

No Web Without Women.

“The same thing happened in the United States, though not to quite the same extent. In 1980, there were around 28,000 drunk driving deaths there, while in 2020, there were 11,654. Despite this progress, drunk driving remains a substantial public threat, comparable in scale to homicide (of which in 2020 there were 594 in Britain and 21,570 in America).”

Movies
Taken 2. Does what it says on the tin! My previous review holds up.

TV
X-Files, s2e12, “Aubrey“. I haven’t seen many unrepentantly ugly characters in this series, so the ex-con in this one was a bit jarring. One of the more down-to-earth episodes?

Shōgun, s1e10. Great show. I have my quibbles here and there, but really happy I put the time into it. I hear they’re already signing people to come back for second and third seasons. I think I got enough out of this one that I’m not sure I need more, but maybe I’ll be swayed.

This week I celebrated my anniversary (until the new one!) with the aforementioned gumbo and a big ol’ cake that lasted a few days. Recommended!

Another highlight of this week: I printed my old iPhone journals into hefty hardbacks. One of the most satisfying little projects I’ve done. Five or six years of material in a form I can hold. The cloud is vapor; paper is forever. What’s a body of work without a body?

And another: a weekend stroll on the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, rambling 11-12 miles from Tarrytown to Yonkers through backyards and local parks, much of it with the Hudson River in sight. I need to go back and run it.

Books
Still Life. I loved the Three Pines TV show, and this is the book that started the Inspector Gamache franchise (and inspired the awful movie :\ ). Enjoyed going back to the source, comparing the characterizations in the book with the two acted versions. Like the hero, the plot gently takes its time to observe and absorb.

School
Structure makes a big difference!

Running
My highest-mileage week in the last year or so, I think. Mostly from mixing in more frequent, shorter weekday runs. Feeling more tired, but looser? I registered for a couple more races in the fall, so there’s lots to look forward to in the back half of the year.

Music
Amanda Whiting, “The Liminality of Her“. Spacious lounge harp! “Facing the Sun” makes me think of… lazy days in Central America. I like how forward the rhythm section is throughout the album.

Shaboozey, “Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die“. Can’t say I like it, but it’s interesting.

In the barely-30-minutes-long category: Juaneco y Su Combo, El Gran Cacique. Peruvian rock & roll x cumbia x psychedelia.

In the barely-16-minutes-long category: Benedikt, Jag är sen igen. I like the insistent heartbeat in “Til fordel for ny“.

In the 18.5 hours long category, a compilation of Keith Haring’s mixtapes. It’s a cool capsule of a certain slice of radio and subcultures. Also, listening to stuff like Good Life, it’s obvious why the Streets of Rage II soundtrack hits so hard.

The Beloved, Happiness unlocked a memory I didn’t expect – one of my roommates in college had an EDM mix that featured “The Sun Rising” on it. Hadn’t heard that in a couple decades (!). In its gentle, direct vocals, “Don’t You Worry” made me imagine a Arthur Russell x Depeche Mode crossover.

I listened to Fauré’s Requiem three times on Friday (and a few more times in my head). It’s the perfect way to start your weekend.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
“Bureaucratic hell is always about one person’s ease coming at the cost of someone else’s frustration, time wasted, and busy work.”

How a migrant farmworker built generational wealth, penny by penny. Beautiful story.

Movies
Air Force One. Incredible watch, lovely momentum. It holds up so well. And there’s something comforting and reassuring about films of the 1990s. They just look right. Special effects can be “good enough” if you care about what’s going on!

Scream 4. It’s been really fun to catch up on this franchise. “All through the movie, ‘Scre4m’ lets us know that it knows exactly what it’s up to — and then goes right ahead and gets up to it.”

TV
X-Files, s2e11, “Excelsius Dei”. When elder care goes bad, toxic mushroom edition.

Bodies, s1e6–8. I’d give the series a solid B. Unlikely to rewatch or think about it much, but I don’t regret any of it. That’s something!

Shōgun, s1e9. Mariko’s persistent death wish is heartbreaking. Curious how they’re gonna wrap this up. (I hear rumors of season 2, but kinda don’t want it?)