Emma. Finished! Of the Austen novels, I've read, I'd put "Sense & Sensibility" first, then "Pride & Prejudice" (I think? It's been a while), then this in third place. But! Emma might be the best heroine. She's always getting carried away with her imagination and optimism, this over-confident meddling... followed by sincere regret and making amends. Repeat. It's great fun.
I'm not sure what's next, sampling a bit.
Running
Taking a few days off and a few days light. Mentally preparing for more time off of running during PTO soon, and trying to get a mild injury back on track.
A few from Fever Ray, moody, icy, vaguely demented...
Fever Ray. "I'm Not Done" is pretty good, love the cross-rhythms in the clapping/snapping. I didn't know I already knew "Keep the Streets Empty for Me", helped job my memory on the connection to The Knife.
Ariana Grande, Petal. The songwriting isn't good, and her voice gets too buried in (sometimes interesting!) synthesizer wash, but it's nice wallpaper and better at high volume. Felt some life breathed back into when we reached the harmonies in "Nowhere, Nobody", but too late by then. Bummer!
Georg Philipp Telemann, 6 Orchestral Suites perf. La Stagione Frankfurt cond. Michael Schneider.
Movies
Fight or Flight. Ideal sunny afternoon action thriller, Josh Hartnett tapping into some zaniness, great physical comedy.
TV
The X-Files, s6e20 "Three of a Kind". Casino setting is fun, but too bad they didn't take full advantage of it. Lots of talking in hallways and bedrooms.
Dark, s4e4.
The Expanse, s1e9–10. Glad I re-watched, if only to re-live the superior books by proxy.
I recommend: every so often to pick a random date, March 26th or whatever, and flip through all the things you did on that day over the years. Ideally you've keeping a journal to make this easy. I did a similar exercise while baking recently, paging through memories while licking batter off the spoon.
This week I played shuffleboard for the first time, on a long deck with the big sticks that you push'em with. Couldn't quite calibrate this time, but if I were retired, I can see how I'd make it a regular thing. I still like the tabletop version more – moves quicker, easier to heckle.
Lots of packages arriving over the last couple weeks, and mixed feelings about it. It's fun to have stuff! It's not fun to want stuff!
"I tallied the colour of every couch in IKEA’s (now discontinued) catalogues from 1960 to 2021. 3,500 couches later, I have confirmed my suspicions." How colour drained from our furniture.
In praise of the Midwest. "It’s not that they are more American than any other region, but that you can view America more easily, more inexpensively, and comfortably."
High School Musical. What fun! Growing appreciation for Zac Efron, but Lucas Grabeel stole the show for me, a committed performance.
The Bride!. Not perfect, but I loved it. Twisted romance, great costumes, not-quite-our-history historical setting. And Maggie Gyllenhaal cast Jake pefectly here.
Interstellar. Holds up! I wish Jessica Chastain had a little bit more to do. How was this twelve years ago?
TV
The X-Files, s6e19 "The Unnatural". Not sure I could say anything that will help you understand what it's like to watch this episode. What a ride!
Dark, s3e3.
The Expanse, s1e8. Feels good to see the plot lines converge.
A very educational week to start: doctor visit, webinars, trainings, reading. I was glad for the change of pace on the back half, a more gentle slope into the weekend.
We moved some furniture around the house and reset the energy a little bit. Friday night fingerpainting on the roof. Saturday snoozing after a long hard run.
I wish Spotify were more adventurous and opinionated in its recommendations. So often it's playlists and singles. The small section with full-album recs is so often more of the same, so rarely the adjacent possible. Take a chance on me! Take a stance!
Emma. Who among us has not been high on their own supply?
Running
Highlights of the week: Tuesday morning trailrun, and a Saturday morning long run to Shirley Chisholm State Park, and being the first one in when they unlocked the gates. :) (I wonder what it was like for long-time residents, seeing the old landfills changed to parkland.)
All Bach, baby! A couple weeks ago I had a breakthrough with The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080. I wanted to seal that in, so that's pretty much all I listened to, a few different recordings:
a piano version by Evgeni Koriolov, meditative bordering on ponderous, but you want to sit up and respect the listening a bit more than the others?
The weather lately – temps consistently over 90º, AQI at 150+ for several days – was really dragging me down. So much mental health and motivation comes from stable routines to click into, and a huge part of that is getting outside. When that's taken away, or just more annoying to do... things get tricky. But then Sunday morning was crisp and clear and all was right as rain.
Went to Lincoln Center to hear Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 and a couple other pieces. It's long been a favorite, but I'd never heard it live. So lovely to get a new angle on it – bass plucking I hadn't noticed, counterpoint in the woodwinds, and just to see the camaraderie among the violinists in the moment. Great experience.
After dilly-dallying for weeks on boring admin stuff, sometimes locking in on a good 3-hour block is better than a plan to chip away and make incremental progress. Better yet if you have a companion to lock in with you.
I think my art section below ↓ is one of my favorite weekly rituals. I should go to museums more often – the concert a couple days ago is a good reminder that "there's nothing like the real thing". But also: I'm always free to go looking for things that delight me. Glad I make time for it.
Caliban's War. This is such a slippery franchise. I like how it operates on a solar system strategic level but so many characters I just can't get a hold on, or find annoying. Ditto some of the writing, where sometimes we get lovely allusions to a broader world you're allowed to dream up on your own, and sometimes themes and motivations are just right there in tedious move-the-chains dialogue. And yet... I'd be open to book 3 after a break. We'll see.
Emma. I've read the first few pages of this at least a dozen times. Always seems to come up when I'm on a hunt for a new book – maybe this one? – and feeling like now is the time.
Running
Smoke put me on the treadmill for the first time in a long time. Whatever it takes! Glad to be back out in the neighborhood, though.
"All adaptations are acceptable. The real question is simply: is it good on its own terms, in itself, as a movie, standalone?"
"An easy way to tell if you’re really trying is to ask yourself, 'How would someone who is actually determined to do this go about it?'' Right away, you know whether that’s you."
Sophie Dervaux, La Folia Barockorchester, Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerti and Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerti II. These were nice. I wonder if I get more out of different recordings, as it's easy for bassoon to get a little buried in the mix.
Flying Lotus
Ash (OST). Glitchy and queasy and ominous electronics, fit the movie very well. The opener, "Oxygene" is great, also like the breathing in "It's Out There".
Los Angeles
More of a beat-lounge sorta vibe. I like the all the hand percussion in "Melt!".
Max Bruch, Violin Concerto No. 1, perf. Itzhak Perlman, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra cond. Bernard Haitink.
I've been thinking about a new role in my company. I never consciously declared "this is my path and my passion", but building up expertise over time, identity sort of forms itself. So it feels weird to even consider it, opening up deeper and longer-term questions than when I was first toying with the idea. We'll see!
A problem of affluence: muffins and cupcakes today are too tall. Food is better when you can get the full experience in one bite. Make them smaller!
Caliban's War. Going into the last quarter or so. I'll switch to something older next.
Running
Feeling summer's ticking clock. I need to reevaluate my running to-do list and make sure I'm prioritizing some of the more ambitious and novel ones in addition to routine maintenance.
"I contend that the 21st century has seen a dramatic loss of information on screen, making for a less luxurious and less satisfying experience for the viewer, and trace how this loss was manufactured, department by department."
François Couperin, Second Livre de Pièces de clavecin perf. Christophe Rousset. "Les Barricades Mystérieuses" is a banger. I hear it as one of those songs to play at a morning wedding during a hopeful walk down the aisle, quiet sobs as everyone overflows with joy and love. Many others to like on the album.
Apex. Going in, I was hoping more for battles with nature (like The Revenant, say), and less crazy villain, but still a good ride. Interesting to see the main character keeping her cool in situations where every single alarm bell is going off, a wary confidence. Charlize Theron is good for that.
The Greatest Showman. The music is overall not good, but also not for me. But also: sometimes the heartstring-plucking works, and I love the pace and choreography and melodrama. It's a fun watch. "When you're careless with other people, you bring ruin upon yourself."
Ash. Sturdy trippy paranoid spooky scifi. Perfect for a midnight screening.
TV
The X-Files, s6e16 "Alpha". "Scary dogs in the city", indeed.
What's happened lately... Had rainy date night in the city – starting very grumpy, but I came around – where the rained-delayed outdoor dance performance made a good excuse to pop into a library exhibition on Martha Graham. Took an online class. Spent a whole Sunday on my laptop on a project for work, and loved the happy buzz of relief when I got it all done and went to bed late. Got an idea on a lark and started (inaugural?) Meat Week™, eating a different animal every day, and finding a new encouragement to cook creatively instead of phoning it in. Found a good flow at work lately – maybe just more breathing room from a summer lull, but also bigger chunks of focused time. Made cyanotypes for the first time and loved the rush of ideas and excitement from new possibilities. Life is good.
Caliban's War, cont.. Still enjoying it. It's my morning subway book and my nighttime before-bed book. I often end up re-reading a fair amount that I slept-read, but it's worth it.
Running
Struggling with the heat, but getting through it, sweating through it. An early Saturning on forested trails was the right move to avoid triple-digit meltdown.
This week was back to Bach, though. 😈 Don't think I've ever listened to so much harpsichord in such a small period of time. Never had strong feelings either way, but the instrument is growing on me.
Boren & Der Club of Gore, Sunset Mission. Good one for when you pour yourself a drink and go out for a smoke on the fire escape on a hot summer night, and it's only getting hotter, and you're in black and white and are a scrappy private detective or something, as in
"Prowler".
The X-Files, s6e14 "Monday" and s6e15 "Arcadia". So good when they get in this silly register.
Couples Therapy, s5e4–5.
Big Little Lies, s2e4–7. Confession, repentance, inherited sin, false idols. Our characters have to transform their lives and reject their illusions before they can address the collective lie. Great show.
This week I had to adjust to getting back to work, and having opportunities fall in my lap. After my time away, definitely noticed myself just being nicer than I was before – saying hello, being more willing to detour into office patter, less rattled by distractions. I was riding on a vacation high... and then Friday I fell face-first into a rut. Too much time on the phone aimlessly scrolling, and envying, and doing nothing productive about it! One of those where I eventually could recognize the cycle but not quite recover from it right away. Decided to take the L and sleep it off. The next day brought the predicted rebound: a great run, a wonderfully community-oriented Saturday jaunt – glad I got to see the revival of the June Balloon festival – and all the good things.
More exploration in Canarsie this weekend, and a big jump in mileage. Feeling it, feeling glad I got out for a longer one even though much of it was a struggle.
Took this for granted, but wonder how my experience of elementary/middle/high school would have been different if I could just call my friends directly:
Phones were attached to homes, not people, and to reach a friend you had to make a phone call to their house. More often than not, someone else answered the phone and you had to speak politely to that person before the phone was handed to your friend. Everyone who made phone calls in those days was formed by those conversations, by the need to be respectful to your friend’s family, by the understanding that your friends lived in their own family unit, that your call was noted by others, that you might not be assured of privacy.
The past is a foreign country, and I am more and more a emigrant!
Paul McCartney, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. Had a hunch it wasn't for me, was right, but no worries.
The lesson of this week: it pays to keep your ears open.
While touring some open studios in Greenpoint a while back, I spotted a couple LPs on a shelf:
Alturas, a collab by Kawabata Makoto, Richard Pinhas, Manongo Mujica, Juan Luis Pereira, and Hiroshi Higashi. Trippy multi-instrumental/cross-genre stuff.
My first time listening to Billie Eilish was this week via Hit Me Hard and Soft. Hearing "Birds of a Feather" in a restroom was the initial hook, had to go look it up later.
The Ballad of Wallis Island. I loved this movie and expect it will be near the top of my favorites at the end of the year. Dances between silly and serious and bittersweet, and bitter, and sweet, and that's just life isn't it?
F9: The Fast Saga. These aren't getting better, so just get comfortable and let it wash over you.
Significant Other. Didn't know where it was going. That counts for something! A bit like Annihilation in that it all starts when something falls from the sky...
TV
The X-Files, s6e13 "Agua Mala". I love how this one escalates, just throwing it all into the pot and bringing it to a boil!
Back from a trip to the west coast. A week off came at a good time. Found myself becoming a keyboard warrior at work. I'm usually on the more diplomatic side of the spectrum, so when I'm coming in hot on a regular basis, good sign to step away. It helps to have good colleagues who can hear you grumble and rumble but refuse to feed your worst instincts.
The trip started with a wedding out in Pajaro Dunes, and then we were off to a few days of adventures in Santa Cruz (and a quick dip in San Francisco) and in Los Angeles.
The early early morning flight is always so brutal. I feel mounting dread the night before (though track: "I have a day off tomorrow! I should be able to stay up as late as I want!"), and regret the decision when I wake up... but then on landing with a full wide-open day to work with, it's all worth it.
Another highlight was driving up Highway 1 and using Apple Maps and Google Maps at the same time, both shouting directions and talking over each other, no social graces. The chaos had me cackling. Also interesting to hear the differences in how much info they give ahead of time, and with how much precision, and the in-the-moment encouragement.
Netted seven museums on the trip. Easy winner, by a mile, was the new Geffen galleries at LACMA – beautiful space, lots of room on a sunny weekday to mosey and absorb. The Broad continues to underwhelm and MOCA is an unsung hero in DTLA. Cool exhibition for the 100th anniversary of the Los Angeles Central Library and riding the new D Line subway extension rounded things out. Maybe in future trips I should keep making time to revisit like I did on this one. It's cool to see a city change, to pile up new memories in a place you don't see that often.
For no particular reason, I put my phone's camera in black-and-white mode and left it there for the last week or so. Given how much photos can influence memories, I wonder how that will affect what I recall a decade from now. We'll see!
Art
Hit and Miss, quilt by Mary Lue Brown. Ginza, quilt by Yvonne Porcella. Things on the Wall, oil and magna on canvas by Roy Lichtenstein. F.P.I. 19, pen on folded paper by Dorothea Rockburne. Seek, Find; Knock Open, glass beads and cotton by Liza Lou. Susannah at the Bath, collage with paint, ink, and graphite on board by Romare Bearden. Standing Woman with Jar, slip-painted earthenware from unknown artists of the Jalisco cultures, 200 BCE–400 CE. La Gerbe, ceramic tile embedded in plaster by Henri Matisse. Path of Light, stoneware with inlays of colored clay by Miyashita Zenji.
Taking my running shoes on vacation is very good for me. Ran along a quiet beach all to myself, along a quiet river with ducks, and into dense shrubbery where coyotes gotta annoyed and yipped at me.
Around the Web
On launching a nonprofit. "While waiting on approvals, I was churning out ideas at a rate that became absolutely unmanageable, immediately."
82-0 lets you try to draft an NBA roster that could go undefeated, each round limited to a specific team and decade. (Best I got on hidden-stats mode was lucking into a 65–17 roster with Walt Frazier, Tyrese Halliburton, KD, LeBron, and Anthony Davis.)
Boards of Canada, Inferno. I don't think I've ever listened to them before? Maybe heard some here and there, not sure. All that to say: I have no emotional tie to their reappearance, but glad I tapped in after hearing all the buzz. It's good!
Britten: War Requiem perf. London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus, Choir of Eltham College cond. Gianandrea Noseda. Not for me!
Movies
Goodfellas. It has such fluidity, momentum, you just get carried along but ultimately I deeply hated all these miserably awful people and their terrible choices.
Bend It Like Beckham. I laughed, I cried, I had my heart warmed! Mission accomplished.
Ballerina. Slow to start, but gains momentum. At its best when it lightens up.
Influencer. Enjoyed this twisty little thriller. Villains and victims stumbling into different roles, swapping who's on the backfoot.
TV
The X-Files, s6e12 "One Son". Spender's redemption? Once again, Scully stays on track.
Big Little Lies, s2e1. Meryl Streep is gonna torment everyone and it's gonna be fun.
Hannibal, s3e12–13. And with that, the rewatch is finished. Glad I did. The first half of this season is a drag, but once we transition from the Vergers to the Great Red Dragon, things pick up again.
Said goodbye to friends and neighbors last week, as they prepped for a move across the country. What a weird feeling to look over your friends' house from a stoop sale perspective. Trying their life on for size.
This week I tried some basic plumbing tasks that started with excitement, entered into a flow state, detoured into quiet fury, to desperation, and quiet calm resignation to try again later. Fun to learn, though, and cool to be able to take pictures of random parts and get help on the internet.
"One of the lessons of the synthesizer is that the first generation often imitates. This is not a failure of imagination so much as a necessary stage of grief: mourning the loss of the old constraint."
According to my notes this week, I had a good idea for something to write here and I forgot it. "Jotting this in case it comes back...?" It did not. But for the record, it was "pretty good".
Total Recall by Piers Anthony. I had no idea this was a novelization. DNF, switched to watch the movie instead. Maybe I'll check out the original PKD story at some point.
Yesterday's long run wiped me out. But I think my fitness is finally back up where it was before I went to Japan and took a few weeks off. It's good when your ability can meet your desire.
NFM Choir cond. Lionel Sow, Dialogue, featuring choral works by Penderecki, Daniel-Lesur, Marçot, Poulenc, Messiaen. Proud to have clocked Penderecki by ear on my first listen. Messiaen's "O sacrum convivium!" might be my favorite of the bunch.
Total Recall (1990). Good momentum throughout, and a good thinkpiece, too. I like when scifi futures so closely resemble our own world, just polished up a bit. Not everything ages well here but the practical effects still have visceral impact.
Too Late for Tears. Sturdy film noir. I love how our lead just instantly gets the greedy glimmer in her eyes – no mystery as to exactly when the trouble starts.
Married to the Mob. Loved this. So many oddball characters, "why not?" moments just to keep you on your toes. Movies don't feel weird like this anymore? Is it us?
Caddo Lake. Suspenseful and natureful science fiction, nicely done. I think one of the perks of an acting career would be picking up random skills like running a johnboat. Also, this movie helped me learn about the 160-mile long (!) Great Raft logjam that led to the lake's formation.
TV
The X-Files, s6e10 "Tithonus". So good! Appreciate the modern-day exploration of the new-to-me Greek myths. Top-tier acting. I like when Scully is uneasy and questioning, more engaging for me than Mulder's paranoid-obsessive questing.
Hannibal, s3e10.
Big Little Lies, s1e6–7. Great climax. I still wonder when the trivia part happens.
