I passed this junk barge and towboat when I was out with my run club this weekend. Another runner joked it was a metaphor for his life. But, it's kind of a good one? Not glamorous but quietly powerful, useful, persistent, full of material to transform into something better. I'll take it.

Running
The highlight of my running week was visiting the first Summer Streets of the season, up in Queens. The event area was a bit desolate, but fun to take my first trip running over the Pulaski Bridge, visiting the The Hydration Guy, and coming back through Domino Park.

Art
NBA legend Bill Russell made art for the Olypmics.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
The Ten Muses of Poetry.

Guinea worm is disappearing and that's one reason Jimmy Carter will always be a top-tier President.

Kamala Holding Vinyls. My contributions:

I really like this metaphor: "The way a lawsuit works is that there's music and then there's lyrics. The lyrics are the technical legal theory. But if you don't have a good tune, often it's hard to get the judge to sing along, so the music is the emotion behind the lawsuit."

"When you deliver work you’re really proud of, you’ve almost certainly done too much and taken too long."

"Late last year, we invited students to participate in an experiment: We gave them $100 and a disposable camera each and asked, What is it like to live where you live?"

"Intelligent people are just as prejudiced as less intelligent people - but toward different groups."

"The class gap leads to an awareness gap, which leads to an empathy gap."

Movies
Upgrade. AI plots seem so much more real these days! Just a few years into this era, and I'm sitting up in my seat a bit more with these stories. I really appreciated Logan Marshall-Green's acting in the early fight scenes: surprise and fear at his new abilities, still merciful for his enemies.

Dead Reckoning (1947). "What to do in a hot wind smelling of night-blooming jasmine except wait and sweat, and prime the body to sweat some more?" We need more writing like this! And more wise guys narrating their way down a trail of clues.

Non-Stop. I need to check out the other Collet-Serra/Liam Neeson collabs. I've only seen Run All Night.

Music
Really liked Oval's 94Diskont., especially "Cross Selling" and the insistent "Commerce Server"

Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden. "Wealth" makes me think of Pink Floyd – is there a "Money" tie here?

Tonstartssbandht, Petunia. Lots of reverby guitar. I love "What Has Happened" – the stereo effects wobbling, brushes on the drumset, soft vocals, pulsing, hypnotic. A bit of electronic x folk vibe.

BACH. Still undefeated. One thing I really appreciate about classical is the ability to compare interpretations side-by-side.

• Tianqi Du, Bach: Keyboard Concertos. Lighter, smoother, more reserved. Has a polite, sophisticated feel for me.
• Gile Bae, J.S. Bach: Keyboard Concertos. This recording seemed more dark, driving, intense piano against a brighter sound in the orchestra. More Romantic-style variation in volume, more spacious echo-y. Not sure I liked it more, but appreciate the contrast.

Brian Eno, Eno (OST). Effectively a greatest hits album, so yeah, pretty great. Forgot how perfect "Spinning Away" is, and "Regiment", phew, always gets me hyped. The movie seems really cool.

Books
A Crown of Swords, cont.
The Cyberiad: Stories, cont.

School
I submitted my capstone project, and it got rejected for a couple little deficiencies. Ironed those out on Sunday morning, maybe get across the finish line before the end of the month.

TV
X-Files, s3e1 "The Blessing Way". Didn't love this season premiere, but appreciate how consistently this series works in spiritual/afterlife/astral plane sort of stuff. And I still love Skinner.

Lost, s4e1. We're never going back!

The Leftovers, s1e6. I love all the speculative stuff here. Like how groups hold conferences about the Departure(?), there are markets in mannequin corpses so people can have tangible funerals for the missing, the spike in charismatic opportunists, etc..

House of the Dragon(s), s2e5. Lots of dragon talk.

Words of Wisdom
"Almost nobody hears too many sincere compliments."

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.

This week we got our wedding invitations back from the printer (featuring custom designs by Jara Montez!), and… it's the coolest feeling. Just a few months away.

Art
Check out the Fungus of immortality.

Pierrot with Clarinet by Jacques Lipchitz. I recognize the word from the orchestral piece "Pierrot Lunaire", the movie "Pierrot Le Fou", etc., but never knew what it was – a sad clown!

Books
Zero Days. A husband/wife team of security consultants are caught in a web of intrigue. Been a while since I've read a book in first-person perspective. A bit wordy, but it flies right by.

School
Buckled down, finished a class. One to go. Great way to kick off the second half of the year.

Running
I've steadily been filling out the map, and got another quick win – finished running every street in Clinton Hill. With that and Crown Heights already done, next project is running all the streets in Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy.

Enjoyed my extra hill workouts this month, but recognize the cost in simple time away from home. I talked with a run club buddy this weekend about his prep for a 50-mile race, and he talked about how it "became his whole personality" for a few months. Not sure I want to go there.

Music
Thom Yorke, Confidenza OST. I like the woodwinds in "The Big City" and the hazy desert drug den trance in "Prize Giving".

The Blue Nile, Hats. A lot of bangers on this one. My ears pick up some hints of Peter Gabriel/David Byrne. "Let's Go Out Tonight", "Headlights on the Parade", and "Seven A.M." are all great.

The Blue Nile, A Walk Across the Rooftops. "Stay" is straightforward '80s pop.

Soulja Boy, souljaboytellem.com. I love a good intro → opening track transition. "Intro" → "Crank That" is so fun. "Let Me Get Em" and "Donk" represent the best of joyful snap.

Black Coffee, Home Brewed. Took a minute to get used to longer track lengths – all but one over 6 minutes! Didn't know what I was getting into. "Mama" represents well the trance feel throughout the album.

I worked in a bunch more classical this week, especially woodwinds. I wonder what music of this era will still be heard in 200–300 years…

• Beethoven: Clarinet Trios. The Adagio in Op. 11 is lovely.
• Stamitz: Clarinet Concertos Nos. 3–5.
• Vivaldi: 7 Bassoon Concertos.
• Bach: Oboe Concertos.
• English Motets: From Dunstaple to Gibbons
• Handel: Water Music

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
USA Olympian heptathlete Anna Hall shared her competition journal, and it's just fascinating to see the blend of goals, tips, motivational talk, progress tracking, etc.. "Choose Violence!!!!!!"

What does a board of directors do?

How children refer to adults.

"Oftentimes when I just don't feel comfort, usually that means it's going in the right direction."

One Million Checkboxes is a lovely experiment, like something from the web of yore!

"Dribbling out details of a character’s past like breadcrumbs is a hackish and tiresome device: Filling in backstory shouldn’t be confused with character development." I've never watched the show in question, but really appreciate this criticism. I often feel ambivalent about flashback scenes, and now that it's been spelled out, I think this is probably one reason why.

Movies
Trigger Warning. It's not great, but it gets the job done. I appreciate Alba's heroine using knives and machetes instead of a gun. Tiptoes close to "Kill Bill" form at a few moments – I think leaning more in the western/martial arts direction could have been interesting. Also appreciate all the Mexican pride – leather jacket with the eagle and snake, embroidered blouse, etc. – and the varieties of southwestern lifestyle on display. I could do without the slurs to underscore the villainy.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978). Never saw the original, but got inspired to watch this after learning of Donald Sutherland's passing. It's so good. Creepy plant horror is under-explored.

TV
The X-Files, s2e20 "Humbug". Murderous intrigue in a circus sideshow community. Right from the jump, it toys with your prejudices and expectations. Fun episode.

The X-Files, s2e21 "The Calusari". Really appreciate how this episode was shot. One of the better climaxes in the series. Even if we've seen similar before in e.g. "The Exorcist", some sights just don't lose their impact.

The Leftovers, s1e1–2. I kept seeing this show pop up every now and then, even before the recent 10th anniversary appreciations. Finally piqued my curiosity to check it out. I'm in!

The Expanse, s2e11. I'm really growing to appreciate how much the political intrigue is becoming more compelling. They've shaped that arc and transition very nicely.

House of the Dragon, s2e2. The collective decision-making is just… come on, people! What a silly show.

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…

This week I was called to jury duty. I was so excited, and hoped to get on a case. But alas, I was not needed. As on previous jury calls, it's nice to see a big random-ish slice of your community, and to get a view of how things work. I was surprised how much paper-shuffling goes on. All those perforated mailers getting torn and re-sorted and passed around over and over and over.

School
Oh boy. Should be able to knock out one of three course projects tomorrow. Hopefully the next two not far behind. Two classes to go.

Running
I'm doing mid-week hill workouts this month. Mostly "just because". It's been fun to red-line and learn where the limit is, if only for 20-30 seconds at a time.

Books
Native American Folklore and Traditions. Last weekend I went to the library and picked up some coffee table books to keep lying around. This one has cool old photographs, illustrations, and as-told-by vignettes of the lives from a few different cultures.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Maybe it's because I kept trying to read this in bed with my mental battery at ~3%, but I simply could not follow a word he was saying. Another time! Great movie, though.

We Had to Remove This Post. A novella about a content moderator at a fictional social media company. Best when it touches on the socioeconomics that could lead someone into these roles. It is unrelentingly dark.

Music
Depeche Mode Week, cont.. Hit a rough patch and recovered!

• Exciter. "Dream On" has some outlaw country flavor to it, and also that slide guitar in "The Sweetest Condition". "Comatose" has some interesting electronics whoops and gurgles. I appreciate the experimentation, in the abstract, but did not love this album.
• Playing the Angel. Distorted noise? That's definitely "A Pain That I'm Used To", and appreciate. Overall, not into the vocals.
• Sounds of the Universe. "Fragile Tension" and "Jezebel" are the winner, maybe?
• Spirit. The processing on the vocals isn't my favorite, but I like the steady grind of "You Move".
• Memento Mori. We're back! What a rebound! One of my most-played albums last year. "Ghosts Again" and "Always You" both have a desperate achiness that gets me every time.

The Pointer Sisters, So Excited!. Saved By The Bell memes aside, the title track is so so so good. Honky-tonk piano adds a lil' somethin' you don't hear much anymore.

Candi Staton, Young Hearts Run Free. Again, that title track is electric – perfect blend of depressing lyrics and intoxicating disco. Stuck in my head for days. "Summer Time With You" delivers the Barry/Marvin/dancefloor/orchestra/whispered romance you need this time of year.

Koffee was recommended by a run club buddy who's into dancehall/reggae. Listened to Rapture and Gifted. I like "Gifted" and really like "Lonely".

Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 1.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Against optimization. "Optimization presumes a kind of certainty about the circumstances one is optimizing for, but that certainty is, more often than not, illusory."

"Mr. Jarndyce called me into a small room next his bedchamber, which I found to be in part a little library of books and papers, and in part quite a little museum of his boots and shoes, and hat- boxes. 'Sit down, my dear,' said Mr. Jarndyce. 'This, you must know, is the Growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here.'" (via)

"When you’re learning a trade, it’s almost impossible to be patient. You have no idea how it’s supposed to go, so you’re often doubting yourself. You charge through and see what it’s like first. It makes patience impossible."

The collage-wall immediately communicates to an audience: “here lies a teenage girl.”

NSYNC – I Want You Back. Looking at their music video is so revealing. The varying levels of comfort on-camera, showmanship, dance precision. Contrast with "It's Gonna Be Me" just a few years later (production value aside) – it's easy to forget the development from beginners to experts!

The Musical History Lesson Buried Beneath the Song of the Summer.

Look how neat this tiny little TV is.

Our Incredible Journey catalogs when companies get acquired and throw their customers to the wolves, lol.

Movies
Godzilla Minus One. Loved this movie, and it has taken the crown for favorite movie of my watching year. I appreciate this as a period piece, and not just in costume – also works in an orchestral soundtrack, and heightened acting and staging that wouldn't be out of place in the late 1940s. Fascinated by this idea of Godzilla being a creature known to locals, but barely a rumor elsewhere. Unresolved shame will keep you from love!

TV
The X-Files, s2e16, "Colony". A bit disorienting, didn't get the usual time to settle in. Clones being hunted down!

Abbott Elementary, s3e13, "Smith Playground". Are Janine and Gregory getting together or what?

Bodkin, s1e5. Most interesting episode so far in terms of structure. Also appreciate the mostly-Elvis soundtrack.

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.