This was an exhausting week at work, and that sort of vacuumed up all the energy I might have put elsewhere. Took on some work in a new area, straight to the deep end, trying to absorb context on the fly. Add in our usual backlog and a critical incident or three, and poof, the workdays fly right by… and continued into the night a few times. It’s nice to know that, when needed, I can just crank out a 12-hour day and come back for another one. People are resilient!
This week I also had a last-minute hang with a friend in town, one I hadn’t seen in a couple years. A huge and immediate boost. Highlight of the week.
Reflection #2 (1959), tapestry by Kay Sekimachi in plain-woven linen, cotton, and rayon.
Books Life and Fate. Feels like I’m losing my grip on this book. Found myself skimming over, rushing through, attention drifting.
Bright Young Women (Knoll). A little bit of trashy killer thriller to liven things up. I think this will end up as DNF.
Running One of the things that fell by the wayside this week. I did return to run club yesterday for a rainy 38° run over the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges. A familiar route, but made sure to liven things up for myself with a couple detours. Needed that dose of selfishness.
Jon Hopkins, Music for Psychedelic Therapy. On the lighter, wispier side of electronic vs. the pulsing EDM flavor of the previous.
Harms Way, Posthuman. Metal. “The Gift” is easily the least like the others, but I like it’s nightmare-ish basement-of-horrors energy.
Movies West Side Story. The first and only time I saw was when I was a kid, must have been elementary or middle school. I also played the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story orchestra suite in college. So it was fun to revisit a story I barely remember set to music I know really, really well. The brownface and accents are rough, but it’s still a pretty lovely movie.
The Sacrament. Inspired by events at Jonestown. Gene Jones gives a tremendous performance. The rest of the movie, I could take or leave. The wikipedia is haunting enough on its own.
TV The X-Files, s4e13 “Never Again“. Scully wrestles with her inner demons by getting a tattoo.
Bosch, s1e3-4.
Severance, s2e10. Finale! I don’t need another season, but I’d 100% tune in if we get one.
Abbott Elementary, s4e18. One of the funnier episodes I remember.
Yesterday we took a day trip to Washington D.C., which is a kind of trip I don’t do often enough. I got the idea when I spotted a new exhibition at the Renwick Gallery, We Gather at the Edge: Contemporary Quilts by Black Women Artists. And so a couple months ago we scheduled a trip to see it, and I was so looking forward to it…
…and I left the building disappointed. I think I’ve long had resistance to political or activist or tribute art. There was plenty here. And I had trouble seeing past it. I remember having the ungenerous though for a few of them, “Why is this a quilt?”. And leaning into my cynicism further, feeling like it was roughly equivalent to, e.g. bronze sculptures of military heroes. I like portraiture, but memorial work, message work, documentary work… not quite as much. So I left there feeling a little deflated. Nothing like the thrills I’d gotten from previousquilt stuff recently.
It’s not fair, but that’s the way it happens sometimes. I walk in with hopes and curiosity and it just doesn’t land. But then we walked across the Mall (passing through huge protest crowds that renewed my faith in America a little bit), and saw some cool stuff at the National Gallery.
Books Life and Fate, cont.. Enjoying the vignettes but also hoping to find some larger arc to hold on to.
Running Enjoyed another evening trail run in the middle of the week, and a Friday evening run to fully transition away from the workaday work. I’ve not run with my run club much lately, for accidental reasons. It’s funny how quickly the ties can dissolve if you don’t regular invest in them. I bet when I go back again this week I’ll think, “why did I ever fade out?”
Articles & Episodes & Twoots “From 1984 to 1988, I worked in the Telephone Reference Division of the Brooklyn Public Library.” (via) When I worked at a public library, reference work was one of the more stressful and satisfying parts of the job, a rollercoaster that could go from “How am I supposed to know?” to “I can’t believe I pulled this off.” in a few minutes.
Books The Modern Myths. DNF. I didn’t expect this, but I think I wanted more essay-like editorializing/theorizing, and fewer academic analyses of other examples? Not bad, though.
My Brilliant Friend. DNF. Kind of amazing in its compulsive readability, very colorful, but I never felt like it was adding up to anything. I wonder if I’d feel differently with older protagonists.
Life and Fate. Enveloping so far. Might be my next Big Book™ for the year.
Finally got around to renewing my library card, so now I have Libby access again if this one falls by the wayside.
Articles & Episodes & Twoots “Around a dozen members is the sweet spot of social motivation: small enough to know everyone, yet large enough that the group won’t collapse if one or two members’ enthusiasm wanes; small enough that you are not daunted by competing with the whole world, yet large enough that you still need to be on your toes to keep up.” (via)
“Don’t end the week with nothing. Prefer to work on things you can show. Prefer to work where people can see you. Prefer to work on things you can own.” (via)
Music Favorite of the week: Gino Vannelli, Brother to Brother. I first heard “I Just Wanna Stop” in the grocery store last week, and I just wanted to stop and tell you what I feel about it! So good!
Masahiro Takahashi, Humid Sun. Delicate electronic, like RPG village music.
Max Oazo, Moonessa, Once Upon a Time (Melodic House & Techno). Maybe I should listen to more remix albums? Played this a lot in work crunch-time this week. It’s a good thing I’ve never tried any drugs – there’s a plausible alternate timeline where I got lost in the club scene.
Movies Rumble Fish. A story of a younger brother and an older brother and forming yourself on your own. With the benefit of hindsight, a totally loaded cast. Matt Dillon! Nicolas Cage! Laurence Fishburne! Diane Lane! Dennis Hopper! Mickey Rourke! Sofia Coppola! Tom Waits!
Elevation. An economical monster thriller. I had fun with it.
His Girl Friday. Madcap screwball antics. I wish they still wrote dialogue like this.
Birth. I love the way this movie looks, and Nicole Kidman puts on a show. Disturbing and depressing.
Den of Thieves. Compared to my week 3 viewing, not quite as fun. I like seeing the MARTA trains scoot by during the shootout.
TV Bosch, s1e2.
The Pitt, s1e1. Under-recognized part of being an E.R. doc is you must repeatedly walk away from people who are in crisis.
The Residence, s1e4. Just parachuting in for a quick taste. Good example of the power of storytelling by charismatic people.
Severance, s2e7-8. I’m glad that Gemma is no longer an icon, but something more grounded. Cool to see factory town roots of Lumon.
Words of Wisdom “Breaking the problem down and then actually changing behavior to get different results works surprisingly well provided you’re willing to do it. Often success doesn’t come to us the way we want to receive it.”
Movies Conclave. Modest gossipy drama that evaporated as soon as I turned the TV off. It sets the stage, puts the pieces in motion, and we see who is left standing. I see what they did there, with the ending, and with the way women step into and out of the action througout, but… it felt a little cheap, after so much petty personal conflict and politicking, it suddenly wanted us to care about ideas?
Drive-Away Dolls. Horny and juvenile, but I appreciate how they play with the transitions, soundtrack, and moments of heightened acting. The bit parts were the best parts.
Speak No Evil (2022). A vacation from hell (see: The Rental). Like many good horror movies, we build unsettling dread and discomfort from the small ways that people fail to trust their instincts around other people who constantly push the boundaries. “Because you let me.” An incredibly uncomfortable climax, sickening. Not sure I could watch that again – I immediately swore it off – but the lead-up was great.
Red Riding: 1974. A journalist gets hooked on a case, pays the price. It’s good.
Speak No Evil (2024). After I cooled down from watching the original, curiosity about the remake won me over. More straightforwardly dramatic, less tense. More of a character piece, with much more focus on our main villain.
Heretic. I really appreciate late-career Hugh Grant. Seems like he’s having fun. Mounting stress, a rich conflict, and heroines that surprise you.
Bill Evans, From Left to Right. Jazz with piano and Rhodes piano and orchestra and it’s all good.
TV The X-Files, s4e11 “El Mundo Gira“. Back from a little break, and the show is back on track. I loved this episode. In style, like a telenovela, heightened soap opera desperation, but with a chupacabra.
A week of ups and downs – a trail race, an injured finger, a random Sunday evening adventure, a 24-hour stomach flu, a miserable workday, an invigorating professional conference, a beautiful evening run, a long call with a friend. Let it come, let it be, let it go.
The highlight was finishing Middlemarch yesterday, in one long final push. It’s one of those books where I’ll miss living with the characters for so long, each of their personalities and arcs so vivid. Some overall themes in the book: the importance of who you marry, how community inertia can defeat or deflect idealism but also help you find purpose and place, how financial struggles can multiply your frustrations, the value of a happy compromises and ordinary virtues.
Books The Faerie Queene. Just dipped my toe in. We’ll see if it lasts.
Middlemarch. Finally done, loved it. One last round of quotes:
“He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?”
“The lights were all changed for him both without and within.”
“What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.”
“He had begun to perceive that Mr. Brooke’s mind, if it had the burthen of remembering any train of thought, would let it drop, run away in search of it, and not easily come back again.”
“He looked almost angry. It had seemed to him as if they were like two creatures slowly turning to marble in each other’s presence, while their hearts were conscious and their eyes were yearning.”
“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new.”
“Caleb was very fond of music, and when he could afford it went to hear an oratorio that came within his reach, returning from it with a profound reverence for this mighty structure of tones, which made him sit meditatively, looking on the floor and throwing much unutterable language into his outstretched hands.”
“It was one of those gray mornings after light rains, which become delicious about twelve o’clock, when the clouds part a little, and the scent of the earth is sweet along the lanes and by the hedgerows.”
“He was now a prey to that worst irritation which arises not simply from annoyances, but from the second consciousness underlying those annoyances, of wasted energy and a degrading preoccupation”
“For the majority, who are not lofty, there is no escape from sordidness but by being free from money-craving, with all its base hopes and temptations, its watching for death, its hinted requests, its horse-dealer’s desire to make bad work pass for good, its seeking for function which ought to be another’s, its compulsion often to long for Luck in the shape of a wide calamity.”
“Rosamond played the quiet music which was as helpful to his meditation as the plash of an oar on the evening lake.”
“that beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live calmly”
“Damme if I think he meant to turn king’s evidence; but he’s that sort of bragging fellow, the bragging runs over hedge and ditch with him”
“There is no sorrow I have thought more about than that—to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail.”
“Shallow natures dream of an easy sway over the emotions of others”
“We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves.”
“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
“Beyond interactivity, what a video game promises is not just rendered image and sound, not just narrative, not even just the joy of play, but inhabitation of an imaginal realm that is both deeply interior and collectively shared.”
Movies Touch of Evil. Dynamic and quickly-moving, everything tainted.
TV Scandal, s1e1. Speaking of quickly-moving, this is breakneck TV. “My gut tells me everything I need to know.”
Bosch, s1e1. Felt good to dip back into the series, like putting on comfortable shoes.
Severance, s2e6. Burt is sketchy, huh. I liked the speculative fiction angles here: jealousy of yourself, jealousy of your partner’s innie, innie/outie adultery, innies with souls distinct from their outies, etc..
The last week was a blur! I felt most days I came back home feeling wound up but fuzzy-brained, and every morning I felt like I needed an early start to not feel overwhelmed.
I’m glad I ended the week with a race, the 11-mile event at the Squatchapple Trail Party at South Mountain Reservation out in New Jersey. Friday night, I didn’t want to go – long week, bad training, low energy, wishing I had more time, etc. etc. etc.. Saturday morning, I kinda wanted to go, but not really, but I wanted to follow through on my commitment. Three miles into the race, I was so, so happy to be there. I wonder why I get in this kind of cycle.
I wiped out twice (both times on ~flat ground, and never on the reckless downhills!) and hyperextended my finger crash-landing during the second one. Worth the price
“These tools have removed a lot of the friction from coding and because of that, I am less likely to give up.”
RIP, Gene Hackman. “To watch him, in any one of his almost insanely varied roles, often meant sitting there with your jaw hanging in disbelief. What was he doing? How was he doing it? Why am I buying it?” and “That’s the actor’s magic: capturing the attention of the camera and the viewer on the other side of the screen and transforming from Just A Guy into The Man.” and “Hackman stood out by appearing ordinary while setting up bespoke fireworks displays […] a vivid illustration of what we might call the Gene Hackman Principle of Transformative Acting: The best special makeup is talent.”.
Music Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars, Radio Salone. I love the reverb in the opener, “Chant It Down“, but didn’t love most of the album. One exception, with more drums and chorus and reverb: “Toman Teti M’Ba Akala“.
Luther, Never Too Much. I’ll need to spend more time with his discography. Lots of stuff I like from e.g. Barry White and Lionel Ritchie shows up here. Can’t beat the title track, and the backing vocals in “Don’t You Know That?” add to the intrigue.
Gidion Kremer, Songs of Fate. Violin meanderings, didn’t love it.
Movies The Wild Robot. Visually, beautiful. I like the hand-painted look. The tory was stale and preachy, though, and music felt like replacement-level inspirational schlock. Still funny here and there. A far better movie about a robot learning to love and find common cause: The Iron Giant.
Gladiator II. I literally sat up straighter when Denzel came on screen. The movie is better when he’s on screen, and fine when he’s not. I appreciate how they escalated the Colosseum battles.
TV The X-Files, s4e10 “Paper Hearts“. Mulder has the longest leash any employee has ever had. Tom Noonan plays our villain so well – a calm approach, “I’m already in jail so, meh, let’s just see if I can get anything out of this…”.
Severance, s2e5. I kinda wish I got a perfect-bound volume for performance reviews?
The White Lotus, s3e2. This show is so strange. Sometimes it feels like watching a travel brochure, but with some very light plotting. Just a good long soak in a warm bath.
Recently I moved up to the ChatGPT Pro subscription, and was surprised I felt mixed feelings about it, a sort of self-consciousness. I found myself thinking through a talk track to justify it, from a humanities perspective. I don’t think I have well-informed thoughts on the methods – theft, presumptive use, plagiarism, rights of the creators, etc.. I’m sure that’s written elsewhere and better.
But I did think about the history of humanity, and culture as this technology to promote ourselves forward – what we honor, stories we share, mistakes we’ve made, progress we’ve gained against the terrors we create or stumble upon, the collective wisdom of the ages. And now have a place where it’s consolidated. That’s cool, even if it’s a fuzzy composite.
I also think about the idea of scenius. where in a time and a place, people come together and form something special. I’m not sure you can do that with just yourself and an LLM, in the same sense, but there may be something analogous – a willing and skilled collaborator at hand, one that by definition some experiences much vaster than your own. That’s cool!
I grew up a library kid, in large part because my mom is a library adult. The type of library adult that gets a temporary visitor card at the local branch while on vacation. And now the library is right here, and you can have it be a teacher, too. “The great thing about dead or remote masters is that they can’t refuse you as an apprentice. You can learn whatever you want from them.” While it’s not individual, and we’re I’m not sure we have any new and distinctive works from AIs to inspire us… if you just want to learn a variety of things, you really can just dial one up and join the guild.
This week I had a teammate at work break down in tears. What a deviation from the norm! I’ve only seen this a couple times. Interesting experience to have to show up in a familiar way, in a totally different context.
I made a calendar of my 2024 running routes and finally got around to a test print. Need to do 2023 and get’em properly framed.
Books Middlemarch. Need to pick up the pace. I’m still loving it, 2/3 complete, but also getting restless!
Articles & Episodes & Twoots A vision of peak male performance, from an Economist profile of Tyler Cowen. “There is no concrete return on most of the data-accumulating he does. He has been researching, unpaid, for decades, at a rate that would put most people in hospital.”
“For better or worse, when you start thinking about tractable problems, you’ll almost always find that you’re doing less than you could be doing and you might start to feel guilty.”
“The place’s dual nature — its existence on the border between utopia and dystopia — has always been a part of the aesthetics.” On the Severance building.
Amadou & Mariam’s Dimanche a Bamako didn’t really click, but I did like the desert blues in the last track, “Gnidjougouya“, the way the melody rises and falls and loops back, the dueling electrics, the harmonies crowding and clearing.
Speaking of desert blues, Tinirawen did click pretty well:
Elwan, especially with the grungy guitar and unison vocals in “Sastanàqqàm“.
Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 7 rec. Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra cond. Simon Rattle. There’s a lot happening in this piece. I remember really liking it when I first deep-dived Mahler years ago, but it didn’t hit the same!
Movies Final Destination. It has a proper opening credits sequence, an efficient opener with good suspense and ensuing anguish, and then veers into Rube Goldberg death machines lol.
Running I underestimated how much regular running improves my mood. Hard to recognize the value without the contrast of going without it for a while, but: it’s great to have something consistent in your week that will put the juice back in.
TV The X-Files, s4e9 “Terma“. Back to the larger arc, with an action-movie feel. Mulder’s re-entrance with a tan and a smirk is A+ television.
The White Lotus, s3e1. This is my first exposure to the franchise. I get why people would watch it.
It’s nice to spend time differently, to give a familiar situation a new flavor. I worked Monday, a holiday for many, and so I was working largely solo. And then took the Friday off, so I could feel the reverse – goofing off when most were plugging away. I also had the chance to catch up on admin stuff in the morning, at ease, when usually that gets filed away for the evening time.
This weekend we had a “spa night”. Where ordinarily the evening might be pizza and movie, we put on face masks, moisturizers, serums; listened to a spa treatment playlist; ate fresh ceviche, granola bowls, probiotic juices, etc.. It’s not something I want every day, but the change gave me a new appreciation, like stepping into a parallel universe and arriving back to the norm refreshed.
Composition, by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. “The many colorful patterns […] derive from azulejo, decorative ceramic tilework common in Portugal and Spain, which the artist collected and admired.”
Books Middlemarch. Steadily chipping away and just past the halfway point. Let’s do some more quotes:
“We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire.”
“I can’t wear my solemnity too often, else it will go to rags.”
“Mr. Casaubon, indeed, had not thoroughly represented to those mixed reasons to himself; irritated feeling with him, as with all of us, seeking rather for justification than for self-knowledge.”
“Time changes the proportion of things, and in later days it is preferable to have fewer sonnets and more conversation.”
“Will was not without his intentions to be always generous, but our tongues are little triggers which have usually been pulled before general intentions can be brought to bear.”
“She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception.”
“They were looking at each other like two fond children who were talking confidentially of birds.”
“Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.”
“Her anger said, as anger is apt to say, that God was with her – that all heaven, though it were crowded with spirits watching them, must be on her side.”
“What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by the best judges?”
Articles & Episodes & Twoots The wisdom of Tom Cruise: “You know, no one asks Gene Kelly, why do you dance? If I do a musical I want to sing, I want to dance. And I want to see how I can do it. You got to figure it out, it’s not just doing it. It’s how is it part of the story? How do we invest the audience in that? It’s always better to go for it, it’s always better to try than to tend to not do it. It’s always better to ask the question, and don’t be afraid.”
I’m glad I never spent time in school pickup lines as a kid. A bunch of times, we’d talk our bus driver into letting us off early so we could take a shortcut through the woods, rather than sitting on the bus another half-hour to wind its way to our door. It’s smart to stay on good terms with your bus driver!
Running My first run back after illness was deflating. So much lost, so much to regain. :'(
Music Marshall Allen released New Dawn at age 100. When you listen, you can understand why this guy would get along with Sun Ra. “African Sunset” and “Boma” are my faves.
Movies Da 5 Bloods. “War never ends for those involved.” We’re so lucky to have Spike Lee. Complicating complex issues, no one comes out innocent. Familiar methods at work: lots of history lessons and documentary imagery mixed in, direct address to the camera when reading letters.
Sisu. Nazis try to steal gold from a lonesome Finnish miner out in the countryside, and… he is not pleased. Carnage! Pretty ideal 90-minute taciturn action-western.
The First Omen. Now I understand why kids named “Damien” are always evil. The suspense is better than the climax, but that’s most of the movie, so, thumb-up.
I got sick this week, catching some local plague that had me down, but not out. This is what happens when I laugh in the face of the gods. I’d just had a conversation last week about my run of good health.
In hindsight, pushed it just a little bit too far on run last Sunday – heading out to run in the snow because it’s fun, regardless of that slight hint of a sniffle and tickle in the back of my throat.
It turned into an opportunity of its own. To skip the commute and work from home so I don’t infect people. To take a little extra time with the morning coffee ritual. To cut out evening commitments and recognize how much time I have, to recognize the choices available when I get back in the swing of things.
Art Terra cotta vase by Fritz Albert. I love the twisted pedestal base, like long leaves.
Citibike Stories. Bike rental travel patterns in NYC neighborhoods, lovely mapping.
Jane Austen Math, “ranking all of Austen’s single men across four weighted dimensions — fortune, morals, manners, and [sex appeal] — to develop secondary insights, calculate their individual total status, and analyze their relative marital desirability.”
“Organize your travel around passions instead of destinations.”
“The most significant criteria to use when selecting travel companions is: do they complain or not, even when complaints are justified? No complaining! Complaints are for the debriefing afterwards when travel is over.”
“Although it tries, money cannot buy what time delivers.”
“Laser out, meander back.”
You Need More Lux. “Lux are the measure of how much light you get. Summer sunlight is about 100,000 lux. An overcast winter day is 1,000 to 2,500 lux. This is a huge difference!”
Nosferatu (2024). Seductive, horrifying, beautiful, crushingly sad. Eggers is such a talent. Has me thinking about revisiting The Northman again.
Love & Basketball. A sweet story with characters are charming and frustrating. I really like the parallel sequences of games/practice, with each on their same-but-different journey.
I Saw the Devil. Korean revenge flick. We spend a lot of time with the villain, and he is tremendously haunting. Seeking vengeance will poison you.
Arcadian. Post-apocalyptic monsters out on the farm. Nicolas Cage delivers, and the monsters are right up there with the inventiveness in Attack the Block and Annihilation. There’s a few moments of counting here, feels like they could have extended that somehow. It’s fun!
I watched 125 movies in 2024. That total was down from 178 in 2023, and I’m glad for that. The year before felt like too many, too indiscriminate. I took 2024 at a healthier pace, and I feel like my choices were pretty dialed-in. The top ~20% of those 125 are easily recommendable, so I’ll share those.
For the very top tier, I’ll excerpt my previous write-ups. These are the first-time viewings that really moved me, or stuck with me long after, listed in the order I saw them:
You see that Margaret is different – or at least that this won’t (only) be a typical coming-of-age/tween romance story – early on when we first see her bedroom. We see maps and star charts, and in her voiceover prayers, a search for place and meaning.
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!
A school community frays when a thief runs loose, frustrations rise, and accusations start flying. This will make my best-of list at the end of the year. But you don’t have to take my word for it: “It’s probably the best thriller of this type since “Uncut Gems,” another movie where just watching realistic characters making bad decisions was so nerve-wracking that it made you want to crawl under your seat.“
Crooklyn. What’s that line about happy families being alike, and unhappy ones in theor own way?
Love the hilarious chaos of a 5-kid household, and the variety of “characters” on the block, and the lively soundtrack, and the shock of travel to foreign lands (Virginia).
Gosford Park. Not sure I’ve seen any movies that juggle a web of relationships as well and as lovingly as this one. Flows effortlessly from scene to scene.
Gossipy upstairs/downstairs intrigue and murder mystery, constantly mocking Americans, Hollywood, buffoon cops, catty elites. Kristin Scott Thomas is a natural at snobbery. Love how it takes huge cast and makes it feel natural. You assemble the collage as you go along.
Hundreds of Beavers. No other movie pushed its ideas as far, and then further, and then a little bit more, and why not, how about a little bit more.
Made me feel alive again! Talk about a palate cleanser. A masterclass in escalation. Zany blend of animation and practical effects, Looney Tunes silliness and an improv troupe’s “why not?” go-for-broke attitude.
Red Rooms. Can’t recall any recent movies that burrowed under my skin like this one. It is true horror in the moral sense. A cautionary tale for the web!
This draws you into the most queasy, vile territory. We never directly see much violence, but we see the harm it does to people who feed on it. Our protagonist is uncomfortably lacking in affect – except a horrifying climax where she participates in an auction.
Here are the other worthy contenders from my watching year. If you told me you were going to watch one of these, I’d be excited for you and curious to hear what you think. Links are to my previous posts, again in order I saw them.
For the last week, I’ve been obsessed with my new CO₂ monitor. It’s been so fun to keep tabs on it throughout the day. I notice how it spikes when I get trapped in a meeting room, or after cooking; and how it gradually trends upward over the course of the day indoors; and how quickly it drops when I throw a window open.
I didn’t have much reason to get it other than curiosity. I’ve seen snippets about how high levels of CO₂ affect cognition, drowsiness, etc., but wasn’t sure I was actively suffering in that way. But I suppose it’s like that business idea that you can manage what you can measure, but translating more to a personal skill. I remember learning how to use a ruler as a kid, and a thermometer, and counting heartbeats, and then running around and using them on stuff and seeing different numbers. Eventually you can guess how tall that building is, what the temperature is right now, what 25°F will feel like, or that your heart rate is oddly high for what you’re doing.
Maybe I’ll be able to do the same for CO₂ and humidity at some point? Anyway, another way to learn more about the world! I’ll probably do more purchases like this this year.
A textile fragment from the Paracas culture of Peru. “Composite beings celebrate the importance of the agricultural cycle. Both figures carry strings of lima beans in one hand while chili peppers emanate from a staff in the other and tubers float above their heads.”
Running I’ve now run every street in Park Slope. And that makes 5 additional neighborhoods where I’ve run every street, since finishing up my local Crown Heights stomping grounds. Sunday morning runs in fresh powder, highly recommended.
Books Middlemarch! So fun. More quotes:
“‘The theatre of all my actions is fallen,’ said an antique personage when his chief friend was dead; and they are fortunate who get a theatre where the audience demands their best.”
“It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self – never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our unconsciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action.”
“There are answers which, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room, and to have a discussion cooly waived when you feel that justice is all on your own side is even more exasperating in marriage than in philosophy.”
“As the sore palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendoes.”
“In all failures, the beginning is certainly the half of the whole.”
“She felt that her tears had risen, and it was no use to try to do anything else than let them stay like water on a blue flower or let them fall over her cheeks.”
“The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action.”
“The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.”
“Employees are at an established company because they made a decision in life for stability. Embrace that, continue to provide stability (currency for employees) in these uncertain times as it will be key to steadying the ship and retaining talent. […] If your company employee age is trending younger (ie. folks have only just started pushing out babies) then you’ll need create space for them to be able to grow on the job.” The management politics of implementing AI will be interesting to watch.
Movies Crime of Passion. A driven newspaper journalist rejects the roles that society wants for her, plots a way to power. What should we make of Rivera’s “Cargador de Flores (Flower Carrier)” framed in the main couple’s bedroom?
Tampopo. A stranger rides into town and helps a woman with her struggling noodle shop. The feeling may fade a bit with time, but right now I’m in love with this movie. Such a big heart. And expansive enough that the main plot is interspersed with vignettes with unrelated characters, snapshots of a world beyond, full of concerns and worries and dreams just like our own.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. Franchise complete. I don’t remember the different movies/plots in this franchise all that well, but I’ll put this one pretty high on the list. I like the wartime/battle scenes, and Ron really redeems himself from the previous, making himself useful again. Appreciate how many people get to contribute throughout the series (e.g. destroying horcruxes). It’s not just the Harry show.
Music AYRTBH, Bust Fossil. Electronic textures, I suppose? Not sure what to make of it all, but I like “bicycle” and “beverage“.
Mdpri & Git Busy Trio, BA*. Jazz/funk/hiphop. “又鸟鸡鸡鸡鸡” is sampling/homaging something but I can’t put my finger on it…
Sestetto Dino Piana & Oscar Valdambrini, 10 Situazioni. Some of it sounds like ’70s TV show themes (complimentary!). “Placido” is v. nice.
Kibrom Birhane, Here and There. Ethiopian jazz with a lil’ bit of butt-shakin’. Check out “Maleda“.
TV The X-Files, s4e7 “Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man“. I had a strong negative reaction after I first watched it, but then I did some reading around, and now I rank it pretty high? Regardless of the literal truth of the story we see, appreciate the reflection on CSM’s loneliness, and an opportunity to ponder the character beyond the plot purpose to foil investigations.
Severance, s2e2. Interesting to see more adventurous camerawork here. Milchick is the creepiest person in town and I don’t understand why people keep inviting him inside their homes!
This week at work I had to reckon with not being as productive as I could have been. A bit embarrassing to take a look back at previous weeks, and see with 20-20 hindsight, so much under-used capacity. But as with many things in life, big dividends can come from renewing your focus, cleaning up bad habits, and taking on a little more than you think you can handle. Like I talk about with running a lot, I like checking in every now and then and see where my limits really are. An emotionally exhausting week but it also opened up a lot more. The ceiling is higher than it was a week ago.
Art A Taino ceremonial seat (duho) or platter. “The large eyes, gaping mouth, and curled toes of this figure suggest a heightened state associated with the consumption of cohoba. This vegetal hallucinogen was used by Taino spiritual healers and leaders to communicate with supernatural forces. The figure lies on his back with fists clenched behind his head, and wears a woven skull cap and bands around his arms and legs. He is identified as a zemi, a deity or ancestral spirit that permeated the Greater Antilles.”
Adam Rudolph, Archaisms I and Archaisms II. I remember a moment listening to this at work last week when I was growing more and more frantic and unfocused and it’s because “Archaisms A2” was taking over my brain.
Caroline Shaw continues to be one of the most interesting composers. A few singles, choral works, presumably for an upcoming album:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1. Everything is grey! At least we get more color on the core friendships. Ron is exasperating, though. I like the “travel around the world to collect stuff” aspect (a core RPG element), and especially like the zombie/apocalypse movie vibe on the return to Godric’s Hollow.
TV The X-Files, s4e6 “Sanguinarium“. Witchcraft and cosmetic surgery! This was fun, if gruesome.
Severance, s2e1. At long last, started the new season. Putting out this theory before I continue the season: Ms. Casey is in a coma or something – basically accidentally severed – and she can only wake up and function as a partial “innie” version, and MDR is helping with some sort of sketchy scifi brain repair work.
Yesterday I went to an afternoon choral concert put on by the Park Slope Singers, a local amateur community group. The main work was C.H.H. Parry’s Songs of Farewell.
There was something pleasantly low-key and make-do about the whole thing. It was a refreshing change from the military polish you’d find at your major orchestra and operas and ballets, every moment from arrival to tickets to entrance to first notes drilled to perfection.
It was informal and welcoming, the audience talked back to the conductor, a man got up to use the bathroom during the singing, and there were miscues and wrong notes here and there. And it was lovely. A group of people volunteering their own time to do something they love and share their gifts. A beautiful thing, to gather with others and do your best.
There is an old belief, That on some solemn shore, Beyond the sphere of grief Dear friends shall meet once more. Beyond the sphere of Time and Sin And Fate's control, Serene in changeless prime Of body and of soul.
That creed I fain would keep That hope I'll ne'er forgo, Eternal be the sleep, If not to waken so.
Books Middlemarch, cont. What a fun book. Happy to keep going. Another round of quotes in the meantime…
“Money’s a good egg; and if you’ve got money to leave behind you, lay it in a warm nest.”
“Their eyes met with that peculiar meeting which is never arrived at by effort, but seems like a sudden divine clearance of haze.”
“I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.”
“Time, like money, is measured by our needs.”
“One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!”
“I don’t translate my own convenience into other people’s duties.”
“A sense of contributing to form the world’s opinion makes conversation particularly cheerful.”
“I call that the fanaticism of sympathy. […] If you carried it out you ought to be miserable in your own goodness, and turn evil that you might hae no advantage over others. The best piety is to enjoy – when you can. You are doing the most then to save the earth’s character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates. […] Would you turn all the youth of the world into a tragic chorus, wailing and moralizing over misery? I suspect that you have some false belief in the virtues of misery, and want to make your life a martyrdom.”
Movies Oppenheimer. I like how it takes care to situate you in the time – The Wasteland, Stravinsky, Cubism, etc.. Emily Blunt’s voice/delivery is so good, and don’t think I’ve ever seen Josh Hartnett so fully in the moment. Maybe the best moment is when the man at the center of it all is suddenly no longer powerful. What do you do next?
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The greyest film to date. Wish we had more Snape story. Good to see relationships building among the students, and to see Harry less angry, and seeing his caring side. Also interesting that Harry doesn’t battle in the end, but only witnesses. I don’t think the mourning scene stuck the landing. One cool thing about Hogwarts I’m just now noticing: the kids have phones, no TV, no Switch, etc.. Just newspapers and books and fireplaces and each other’s company.
TV The X-Files, s4e5 “The Field Where I Died“. Multiple personalities and past lives and doomer cults. Mulder/Scully relationship is more volatile than usual here, with Scully calling Mulder out on his constant selfishness. I like the rich contrasty images in this episode.
Severance, s1e6–9. Rewatch complete, really glad to have done it. Can’t believe it’s been so long.
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Challengers OST. If you’ve heard their other work, you know it’s good and you know what you’re in for.
Berlioz, open this wall. Jazz/lounge-inflected house music, see the muted trumpet + found vocal snippets on “nytmp“.
Running Back-to-back long runs this weekend, practicing running while tired. A few runs in the teensºF, and luckily not windy enough to make it terrible. Race coming in a month and a half!
I’ve mentioned goblin mode a couple times (2024 week 4 and week 36), and this week I had another go-round, a shortened version. For me it usually involves an intentionally horrible diet, and playing videogames too long, and not going to bed on time, and so on. Minor sins, available for a limited time only.
I think about it like a bizarro mirror image of New Year’s resolutions. Every so often, it’s good to think about getting your act together. But it can warp your perspective, turning your life into a never-ending battle of shoring things up. Designing your goblin mode gives you a program for letting go for a time… and a chance to prove you can snap back to your standards. Permission to “fail” is a valuable thing.
Articles & Episodes & Twoots RIP, David Lynch. Kyle MacLachlan remembers his friend. I didn’t love the couple of Lynch films I’ve seen, but appreciated the spirit of gentle, earnest, insistent optimism and goofiness, maybe most apparent in the daily weather reports he did for a while. And I was glad to see the bits of folk wisdom that surfaced in my feeds in wake of his death:
“Anger and depression and sorrow are beautiful things in a story, but they’re like poison to the filmmaker or artist. They’re like a vise grip on creativity. If you’re in that grip, you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You must have clarity to create. You have to be able to catch ideas.”
“It’s like dipping a white cloth into gold dye; you dip it and that’s meditation, then you hang it on the line in sunshine and that’s activity. The sun bleaches it until it’s white again, so you dip it and hang it again, and each time you do that a little more of the gold stays in the cloth. Then one day that gold is locked in.”
I loved this conversation between Zena Hitz and Henry Oliver on The Common Reader, especially the linked part, analogizing the great literary works to great songs: “Me reading Lady Macbeth’s speech when I was 14 – what use did that get me? Nothing obvious. Except that sometimes the words are still in my head, and they echo in my head the way a great piece of music does.” I’d never thought of it this way, remembering snippets of plot or quotes or emotions, the way we might feel things again when we remember a chorus or a swelling of violins or what-have-you.
And they discuss living with these works, and how it’s good to read the great books early, so you can re-read and grow with them, and draw different meanings. (Made me think of how so many Motown songs were so fun as a kid, and as an adult, I can better recognize the anguish and frustration behind many of them.) The episode also has good critique of common methods literary criticism – “explaining things away, rather than raising problems.”, and a recollection of George Steiner’s encouragement to memorize poetry because it gives you ballast against the tides of life.
Let the user help solve their own problem. “The algorithmic-only model admits only one remedy: Improve the algorithm. But because no algorithm will ever be perfect, you’ll be playing this game of whac-a-mole forever.” This feels most true in e.g. Twitter feed and Spotify Weekly playlist. They will both nose-dive, quickly, if I don’t give it them hard shake every now and then. (via)
Oliver Burkeman on the right dose of self-discipline. “Somehow, I’d turned the thrilling prospect of a better life into a sequence of lifeless tasks I had to execute – and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
Art Farm near Duivendrecht oil on canvas Piet Mondrian. I don’t think I’d ever seen a Mondrian that wasn’t abstract color blocks, so this was really neat peek into the past, trying to imagine the steps in between.
Movies Den of Thieves. I never should have waited so long to see this. I was expecting something more schlocky (like, Expendables-level antics?) but this was tighter than expected. The main characters were all a little… off? I like when a movie can surprise you not for plot reasons but character reasons. That’s good stuff. You can see the fingerprints from Heat throughout the movie – dumpsters subbing in for airport substations might be my favorite. Appreciated seeing Eric Braeden in a small role here – his Victor Newman in The Young and the Restless back in the ’80s/’90s filled me with envy and fury.
Rebel Ridge. Opens with an Iron Maiden song, nice. Echoes of Rambo, with the opening confrontation passing over a bridge, and the contrast of military decency vs. police cravenness. I appreciate the inciting incident is a straightforward abuse of power, civil asset forfeiture, that isn’t strictly personal. At least not at the start. Really liked our main character’s calm, mostly polite, deliberate delivery – you can tell it takes effort, and that makes you more curious than a direct threat might. Excited to see what Aaron Pierre gets up to next.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It’s good that the core three has loosely expanded to six, because Harry is exhausting to be friends with. Ron and Hermione could use a breather. I love the Death Eater masks!
Books Middlemarch, cont.
TV The X-Files, s1e4 “Unruhe“. Spooky predictive death photos + an exploration of mental illness.
Severance, s1e3–5. I like see Cobel/Selvig put on the back foot a little bit by the Board, and clawing her way back. She’s can’t-look-away awful!
Last week was my first full week of work this year, and Monday was tough. I woke up physically well-rested and ready, but my mind was… not in the mood. From eyes-open, my mind was delivering a comically-enthusiastically-worst version of my inner monologue – sour, pessimistic, cynical, dreary.
I flip back and read my old journals every now and then. And in the periods when I was in deep depression, I can recognize myself, like an old friend. But can’t relate to those feelings in the same way. It’s very past-tense. My mindset is so different now from those years living in an emotional fogbank. At some point I decided – more or less – that I was done with it, and as I found my way out, I grew an important skill: knowing when to ignore myself!
So that was Monday: my inner voice had a lot to say about how miserable he was. But these days it’s easier to say, “cool story, bro, but we have things to do”. That sour version? I can wait him out while I move on with my day. A bit of keep-busy here, some mindless scrolling there, an attentive version of “going through the motions”, and counting on a night of sleep to wash it all clean. Worked like a charm, Tuesday was lovely.
Running I finished running every street in another neighborhood. At least, where I drew my boundaries for one – the Lefferts/Flatbush area between Empire, Parkside, Linden, and Utica.
That last run was a very “thinky” one, similar to my Monday experience. Temps were in the mid-20s, strong winds, and I was just tired. I had to fine-tune what I paid attention to in my body, balancing exertion to make progress and stay warm vs. overheating that leads to sweating and chills.
And same for my mind, starting out with a steady stream of “I don’t want to go. Is this worth it? I’m tired. This is boring. I could turn back – it will be here next weekend. Etc.” That was the first two-thirds of the run. And then it flipped. Suddenly I was 2 or 3 miles from wrapping up a months-long goal, new wind in my sails, and the jog home felt easier than when I first stepped out. The mind is a funny thing.
I also took accidental pocket photos.
Books Middlemarch. I’m loving how detailed the characters are. We understand their mannerisms, their differences in speech, what they say, their own thoughts on what they’re saying and reacting to. Eliot uses the omniscient perspective well. I’m charmed, hope it keeps up. Perhaps I’ll share some quotes every now and then…
“Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.”
“The mere idea that a woman had a kindness towards him spun little threads of tenderness from out his heart toward hers.”
“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, “Oh, nothing!” Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts-not to hurt others.”
“Brooke is a very good fellow, but pulpy; he will run into any mould, but he won’t keep shape.”
“He was gradually discovering the delight there is in frank kindness and companionship between a man and a woman who have no passion to hide or confess.”
“His efforts at exact courtesy and formal tenderness had no defect for her. She filled up all blanks with unmanifested perfections.”
SML, Small Medium Large. Exploratory… jazz? Electronic? Whatever you can do with bass, synthesizer, saxophone, percussion, and guitar, you’ll find it here. It’s cool!
The Durutti Column, Fidelity. I have a hard time situating this album in 1996. Maybe with so much of the band’s history in the ’80s, it’s impossible not to have some of that sound carry on with them. I like the submerged feeling of “Grace“.
Ajate, Dala Tuni. High-energy afrobeat. I love the buzzing marimbas in “Waya Yawa“.
Movies Foe. Kind of clunky. It has an interesting concept strangled by weird choices. At first I thought the method was roundabout Malickian dreaminess, but later concluded it’s just… bad construction. The leads are supposed to be sad and torn, but they come off as inconsistent, wooden, and a little insane. Aaron Pierre is a compelling presence, thought, so I’ll move Rebel Ridge higher on my watchlist.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Hormones are raging at Hogwarts! Continues the darkness from #3, and we even get our first death. Interesting to see an increase in embedded handheld/steadicam shots.
TV The X-Files, s4e3 “Teliko“. At the very least, it led to a fun use of ChatGPT: making it tell me a few Bambara folktales.
Severance, s1e1-2. Really happy with the rewatch so far, connecting the tidbits that I didn’t know what to do with the first time around.
For the first time in a long time, I didn’t make it to midnight on New Year’s Eve. Jetlag took me down early, and I was too drowsy to set the 11:50pm alarm I’d told myself I would just a little while earlier. But I woke up and took a walk in the park and saw a new sunrise on familiar streets, a celebration in its own way. I appreciate how many good things came my way in 2024 – wedding, graduating school, new job, family visits – and plenty of other small victories here and there. What do I want from 2025?
I like how the checkerboard quilt from Rita Mae Pettway, “My Way (2017)” used a few different shades in the lighter-colored squares, and the overstitching guides your eyes across.
The photo of “Star Bright (2023)” by Mary Hall, Doris Mooney, and Elaine Spencer doesn’t quite do it justice – the ruching gives it a three-dimensionality that only translates in person.
Running Returned to running after 10 days away while vacationing. Felt good to get back out there. Now I’ve got a three-month window to prep for a 20-mile trail race in early March.
Books The Path of Daggers, finally done. I’ll wait a while before tackling the next in the series. Glad to have momentum again.
Middlemarch. Only a few pages in. I’ve heard raves and I’ve heard rants. What will I think?
Articles & Episodes & Twoots I’m loving Issue 1 of The Metrograph. Great collection. From the “Movies Come To This Place for Magic” interview, a couple of fun excerpts:
“Michael Weber: We believe that as magicians, we don’t keep our secrets from our audiences, we keep secrets for our audiences. […] Derek DelGaudio: […] There’s this dictum, ‘Magicians guard an empty safe.’ It’s about the disappointment laymen experience when they discover a secret is something simple or banal, like a mirror.”
And when telling a story, magic and drama are somewhat at odds:
“There is a fundamental difference between drama and magic. Drama aims to keep the audience wondering, ‘What happens next?’. But an audience’s reaction to magic is the opposite, it’s reflective. They see something magical and ask, ‘Wait, what just happened?'”
Enjoyment is a skill. You should buy into this idea, and I like a lot of the suggestions here. “Sometimes, when I encounter creative work by someone from a location I’m not familiar with, I’ll go on Google Street View and take a poke around a neighborhood they’re from, or might be from. I feel like it gives me hints about the lived texture that they’re drawing from or commenting on.”
Using LLMs and Cursor to become a finisher. There will be earth-shattering discoveries and breakthroughs to come, but AI will also unlock a lot of progress by unlocking small, incremental progress that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Mary Halvorson, Cloudward. Angular jazz ensemble. I like the layers in “Tailhead“.
Movies Alien: Romulus. I have mixed-to-positive feelings, but it is decidedly an Alien movie, and delivers everything you’d expect. I love that our main android is not especially smart. He’s slow, loyal, vulnerable, needs babysitting. “Let me borrow your robot” is a great starting point. Too bad some of the digital effects looked pretty cheap, the sweeping space vistas for one, but most especially and tragically the rival android – really poor choice. I struggled with the young cast, too. They seem too fresh and healthy for indentured laborers in a mining colony? Nice touch with the dipping birds and the canary in the mine. Lots of fan service, cliches, and echoes, but it ties into the mythology well, and it’s all fun!
TV The X-Files, s4e2 “Home“. Maybe the grossest, most uncomfortable episodeinbreds, gross, so dark
CSI: Miami, s6e9. Calleigh’s life is threatened! I’m astounded by the number and length of time-killing filler scenes – their main use of the crime lab.
Cross, s1e7–8. What a stressful ending! Great wrap-up, and I hope we get another season. The fake-out with the sedatives and faulty execution was brutal. I love the occasional swerves into Shaft mode, in music and tone.
Last week I went to London, which I can confirm is one of the world’s greatest cities. I had one previous whirlwind as a teenager, but remembered it mostly in snapshots, or occasionally unlocking a memory when I retraced the same steps. Visiting during the holiday week was a great choice. Everything was quiet and uncrowded for the first week, and we had an easy time making our own fun when some attractions were closed for a few days.
On this trip I realized how nice it is to do a vacation on “easy mode”. Sure, it took a couple days to adjust to some basic differences: which side to walk on, how to get from here to there, some vocabulary swaps. But there are huge advantages in using the same language, ubiquitous and speedy public transit (and here I thought I was lucky in NYC), never needing cash, a density of attractions, and pleasant strolling in any direction you care to walk. Big contrast from other international trips, where everything had a bit more friction. It all adds up. Not better or worse, just different.
We saw a lot of the usual highlights, but I really liked the London Canal Museum. A small one, a bit out of the way, but the narrowboat tour helped crystallize the history and geography I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Seeing the maps of England’s canals criss-crossing the country over the centuries helped understand how coal, ice, and limes – for example – would arrive from Leeds, Norway, and beyond, and how London helped center it all. And seeing how I could take a boat to the places I’d walked just a couple days before. It all felt very alive and connected.
Another highlight: sitting in bed, propped up with pillows against the headboard, book in my lap, coffee on the side table, nowhere to be and nothing to do but exactly what I wanted.
Another highlight: finding the WatchHouse family of coffee shops. We ended up visiting five of their locations (Belsize Park, Hanover, Somerset House, Spitalfields, Tower Bridge), each with their own local flavor. I’ll have to check out their only NYC location soon.
In the time leading up to this trip, if the topic ever came up, I’d ask people for their advice, requesting two items: a “must do” and a “don’t bother”. You can learn a lot this way. There’s a lot of information e.g. in whether or not the answers come easily, and how I respond when I hear them!
Art My favorite work of art from the trip was The Three Fates / The Triumph of Death, a tapestry from 16th c. Netherlands at the Victoria & Albert Museum. It’s huge – 8ft x 10ft – and so richly detailed. I learned the word for one style I like more generally – millefleur. (I think there’s a parallel here with some music I like – the piles of notes in the Bach-era baroque organ, for example, or polyrhythmic layers in classical Indian percussion, or in 20th-century Steve Reich compositions, etc.).
Lady with Fruit, paper collage by Benode Behari Mukherjee. “Mukherjee turned to paper collage as a medium for artistic expression in 1957 when he lost his sight. […] His sight loss restricted him to working with simple shapes in flat colours, with which he was able to compose complex images from memory.” Cool!
Los Moscos, mixed media on canvas by Mark Bradford.
Fire! Fire!, oil paint and meccano on woven fabric by Enrico Baj.
Running Not applicable during this travel week. I thought about packing extra stuff for running, but we already had a healthy interesting schedule. Away from the areas crowded with foreigners like me, London seems like a really fun city to run and get lost in. Next time?
Books The Path of Daggers, continued. As usual for Robert Jordan, things pick up quite a bit in the second half. Looking forward to finishing in the next couple days.
Articles & Episodes & Twoots Jimmy Carter, cyclist. Got my photo taken with him after a Sunday school session down in Plains, Georgia. Glad he represented my home state so well in office and after.
An appreciation of Zakir Hussain, RIP. I’m lucky I got to see him perform when I was in college. His charisma was off the charts, contagious joy.
Yes, Americans are much richer than Japanese people. It’s easy to look at other countries and get jealous, so I appreciate the nuances added here, aspects that don’t make the headlines and that I don’t readily consider – more overtime, more elderly still working instead of retiring, longer commutes, etc..
Movies Deathtrap. Fun! Full of twists, violates your expectations. I love seeing evil Christopher Reeve.
Twisters. It’s fine, gets the job done. Leans a bit too hard on American and trauama, or maybe the problem is that it rushes through it? The spectacle in the movie theatre is cool. No kiss!
Freaky Friday (2003). I had no idea this was a remake, several times over. I get it, though. Fun, lively, tugs at the heartstrings at just the right moment.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I really loved this one. It’s dark and dreary, heavy vignetting, Dementors looming. Harry carries more anger with him. I like that we don’t have as many record-scratch moments to watch things be magical, we just see it as the story moves along. I wish Ron had more to do, but I liked seeing Hermione’s early reflexive draw to him, and her using magic to… attend more classes. 🙃 I need to get one of those marauder’s maps.
And that makes 125 movies seen this year. I’ll share my favorites soon.
TV The X-Files, s4e1 “Herrenvolk“. We’re going to keep going back to the disappeared sister.
Columbo, s5e1 “Forgotten Lady”. Janet Leigh as a tragic, murdering dreamer clinging to youth and celebrity that will never return. I found this surprisingly touching?
Cross, s1e6. I knew the pregnant cop would have a role to play. “Only the road knows.”
This week I went to a white elephant party. Aside from a renewed appreciation of Brooklyn brownstones, we took away our prize – a handful of scratch-off lottery tickets. I had no idea they were so awful. Just a really terrible experience, the manual labor, the numbing futility of it all. I felt very… repulsed by it. (That said, I think I’d get a kick out of picking numbers and then watching the TV inevitably not say them.)
I was thinking the other day about detective shows, and how it’s so common for the protagonists to work cases at a couple different levels across a season. Maybe the primary case is a new string of crimes that’s hot in the community, and that drives the day-to-day. And in parallel, they’ll work something older, more deeper, more personal. Minus the murders, I wonder if that’s a useful frame, the detective mode of living: give your best to something present that needs your more urgent, frequent attention… and also to continue chipping away at something deeper that’s gnawing at you. Do we all need a cold case?
Art I wish heard sooner about the Gee’s Bend: My Way Today exhibition at the Nicelle Beauchene Gallery. Hope I can pay a visit early in 2025 before it wraps up.
Running Returned to the Tuesday/Thursday run club cycle after some irregular weeks. On some nights, it’s really annoying to have made the commitment to lead the group, and have to follow through on it. But it’s in the repeatedly showing up that makes it valuable. “We dedicate ourselves daily anew.”
On Saturday morning, my first snowy run of the season.
Books Native Nations, cont. The Path of Daggers, cont.
I’m trying to decide what my loose reading goals should be for next year. My goal this year was to start 50 books – mission accomplished, 58 started, and many proud DNFs to get there. Back in 2021 I caught up on a bunch of Shakespeare plays. Next year, I think maybe get I’ll back to tackling some Big Books™? Middlemarch, War & Peace, that sort of thing. We’ll see.
The Underrated Joy of Being a Working Mother. “To focus only on her struggles is to miss an equally vital truth: the joy that comes from holding two worlds in tandem, and finding pleasure and meaning in both.”
An interview with Annie Rauwerda from Depths of Wikipedia. “I think that one shared quality of every single person I’ve met who has stuck around Wikipedia for a long time is that they have very little hesitation to work hard, and they put a low value on their own time.”
“Agathonicity is usually described as the property of objects getting better with use.”
“An Anti-Tag Cloud shows you the most common English words that never appear in a text, visualizing the “negative space” of a literary work.” (via)
In Waves perf. Ars Nova Copenhagen. I really like the “spray”- or “steam”-like sounds the chorus makes here and there.
Rectangles and Circumstance perf. Sō Percussion. Big fan of this album. “The Parting Glass” is so lovely – vibraphone + voice is a winning combo. I love the way the percussion droops out of tune, turning the harmonies a little sour and bittersweet.
Movies Happer’s Comet. Vignettes from the middle of the night in the suburbs. Almost no speaking, just observation, very meditative… and weird, because people are! Roller skates, corn fields, glowing lights, chirping frogs and bugs.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The kids grew about 5 years in the year between movies. I’m glad they dialed down the “look how magical” moments, and amped up the stress levels – I audibly gasped when Hermione got petrified. And while last week I complained about quidditch, I recognize now that those scenes are useful for a bathroom/snack breaks. Only two movies in, but so far I’m glad to be rewatching this series.
Batman Returns. This time around, I really appreciated all the kooky sets. And I like the chaotic circus henchmen, and the Penguin’s theatrical flair, always playing to the cameras. I should watch more Michell Pfeiffer? For as long as she’s been going, I haven’t seen that many of her films. (my previous viewing)
TV Cross, s1e5. I like that we spent most of the episode in one building, a good way to escalate this turning point in the movie. The almost-escape scene was really solid – I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it. Cross’ pride will be his ruin – don’t play with your food!
This week my team at work had an off-site gathering. Highlight was learning improv for a couple hours. Mark of 10 years ago would not have been so ready to fully commit. It’s really cool to see and feel how much more comfortable I am in my own skin, a feeling of safety, new perspective on what counts as risky.
I also did my first escape room, which was amusing.
Lowlight was sitting down for dinner in a fancy restaurant for a couple hours. I appreciate the generosity, but… they’re not for me. I find restaurants more and more tedious. Impatience? Casualization of taste?
We also had an office holiday party this week, which I skipped entirely. It made me think back to earlier in career, another period where I was fully bought-in to a role and team, and how much more time I invested in the social side of things. Spending time with out-of-towners, joining team events, etc.. I remember how I felt a little mild annoyance with the never-joiners… and now I am one. Perhaps I can take it as a sign of better boundaries and more compelling opportunities outside of work, the perks of growing older and wiser?
Running Yesterday morning I ran the NYRR Frosty 5K and set a new adult-era PR of 24:07, a full minute faster than I ran the Harlem 5K back in August. I could have broken under 24 minutes, but [if I had any excuses, they’d go here], but more importantly – it was super fun! I think I enjoyed the Harlem race more for the surprise of running on streets I don’t know very well. But I can’t deny the boost I got from racing on a loop I’ve done hundreds of times. Big advantage on the climb up Battle Pass Hill – no need to get psyched out, I done it twice a week for years, it’ll be over in a minute, keep pushing, harder!
Another great reason to get out of bed early on a 24º morning: sunrise on a lake.
“Not everyone learns best from the top teacher out there, not everyone enjoys the writing of the most prolific blogger you know, and not everyone uses the most popular app for their problem. You don’t know who might benefit from what you offer.”
6 lessons I learned working at an art gallery. “It is not that I’m some grumpy person who thinks that some people are great and others aren’t, in some predetermined way—I think you can to a large extent decide which kind you want to be. But if someone else isn’t measuring up, I have no idea how to convince them to do so. So I look for people who have already decided.”
Books Meditations for Mortals. Finished, recommended! “Going through the world with the default belief that it’s full of people or things that need holding at bay is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Native Nations, cont.
Build a Large Language Model from Scratch, cont.
Music Blood Incantation, Absolute Elsewhere. I like how this album balances metal with Pink Floyd-style stadium/galaxy rock.
Galina Grigorjeva, Nature morte perf. Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir.
Movies Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Dated effects, but I’d forgotten this thing is a couple decades old now. We spend a LOT of time showing how magical everything is. Quidditch is not interesting, never has been! The chess match also kills momentum, goes on a bit too long. I forgot that Voldemort was barely present. I appreciate the skill of the talent scouts, they did a great job finding these kids. And I appreciate the characterization through costume – e.g. Hermione with necktie sharply knotted and cinched, Harry’s knotted loosely under an unbuttoned collar, Ron’s untied and draped over his shirt.
Farewell, My Lovely. The line delivery felt really stilted here. Like they were reading or reciting what they’d memorized, rather than speaking. It didn’t fully make the transition from the page. Fun to see young Charlotte Rampling – don’t think I’d ever seen her without wrinkles, grey hair, etc..
P2. I like when horror movies play on common everyday fears, e.g. being trapped in a parking deck with a creep.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League. It is a vision all its own, which is great. Surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting a movie where I’d end up half-watching while scrolling Twitter, but… I was lured int. Like a bunch of 25-minute stories strung together. We need more episodic movies! (I liked that about Furiosa, too.) And the 4:3 aspect is cool! Widescreen ≠ inherently epic. For as many epic events we see, it’s a shame that our heroes merely look… deeply concerned? when someone dies. Also a funny contrast where Gal Gadot has such limited range, but Wonder Woman is very fun to watch in action scenes. I really like those Parademons henchmen, cute waspy cannon fodder (like the flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz!). Having Joe Morton as the father of Cyborg is a really great touch, seeing as how he also led to Skynet. I wish Superman would use the ice breath more.
Monkey Man. The action is bloody and frenetic. I won’t pretend to understand the connection to current Indian politics, beyond the broad strokes. Hijras play a fun role in the film, and the goat Zakir Hussain is a minor but prominent character, too, so that’s another good reason to watch.
TV The X-Files, s3e24 “Talitha Cumi”. I lost the plot here! Aliens, an ailing mother, The Smoking Man, Mr. X, The Bounty Hunter. All systems going… somewhere.
Cross, s1e4. My prayers from last week were answered: we got more scenes of Cross thinking through things. There’s even a “he’s wired in“-type moment!
I’m typically in the office ~5 days every week. The rare, random days when I decide to work from home are a real treat. That may be the key for me – regularity, with potential for a surprise here and there?
I was supposed to run in a race in Central Park on Saturday: an irregular event in a place I’m very familiar with. The thought of it became less and less appealing as the day grew closer. Going out of my way to do two laps I’ve already seen plenty of times?
So I skipped it. And did my usual Saturday morning long run (regularity), filling out my map in Brooklyn, exploring some new-to-me streets (potential surprises) on a sunny 28º morning. I’ll never know what sticking to the plan would have been like, but can’t say I regret my choice.
Art “Woodland Elves VII“, bone china with transfer-printing, hand-painting, and lustre glaze by Daisy Makeig-Jones.
Music Highlight of the week: Kevin Puts, Marimba Concerto, The City, & Oboe Concerto No. 2 “Moonlight” perf. Katherine Needleman, Ji Su Jung, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra cond. Marin Alsop. Marimba was my favorite instrument to play, back when I was deeper into music in high school and college. The concerto is a beautiful piece, had me falling in love again.
…and Johannes Ockeghem, Missa “De Plus en Plus”; Chansons, perf. Orlando Consort. I remember studying the mass in college. Funny feeling, that little tickle of recognition after 20 years.
…and Guillaume de Machaut, Sacred and Secular Music perf. Ensemble Gilles Binchois. Monk chanting kinda stuff.
The Human League, Dare!. It’s sad how many bands I know for one (1) great song (“Don’t You Want Me“), and only many decades later do I learn they have a lot of great songs (like “Do Or Die“)! A good reminder as the year wraps up and best-of lists arrive: there are treasures to find everywhere you care to look.
Lucio Battisti, Una giornata uggiosa. Italian pop recommended to me at work. Reminds me a bit of Gipsy Kings crossed with… something else I can’t quite put my finger on. The guitar in “Gelosa cara” made me think of “Used Ta Be My Girl“. The soft rock in “Con il nastro rosa” made me think of “Seabird“.
Red Rooms. Along the same lines of tech-enabled perversion when chasing down a story… phew! This draws you into the most queasy, vile territory. We never directly see much violence, but we see the harm it does to people who feed on it. Our protagonist is uncomfortably lacking in affect – except a horrifying climax where she participates in an auction.
Lots of medieval allusions at play. She uses the screenname “LadyOfShallott“, and has a painting of the character on the wall of her mostly-empty apartment (which is high in a tower, where she observes the darkest parts of life remotely from the web, mostly nocturnally, and comes out because she finds a male figure so compelling…). The killer’s last name is “Chevalier”. She drinks wine from a silver chalice, and wears a cross bottony. And there’s an olde-style period instrument soundtrack, but with modern (dis)harmonies.
Really solid movie I probably can’t bear to watch again. An even better movie about a woman obsessed with criminal court proceedings: Saint Omer.
Hundreds of Beavers. Made me feel alive again! Talk about a palate cleanser. A masterclass in escalation. Zany blend of animation and practical effects, Looney Tunes silliness and an improv troupe’s “why not?” go-for-broke attitude. One of my favorites of this year.
TV The X-Files, s3e23 “Wetwired“. TV transmission brainwashing! A reappearance of Mr. X and the Smoking Man. Surprising impact from the scene of Scully paranoiacally tearing apart her hotel room in search of a bug – really well done.
Cross, s1e2–3. The main villain seems a little too perfect, too slick. His chaotic sidekick is more uncomfortable to watch. Props to grandma for cutting the wires. I like the scenes where we see Cross flexing is psychology expertise, drawing connections, following hunches from longtime experience – more of that, please.
Words of Wisdom “Never listen to people who want you to enjoy fewer things.”
Mark Larson 
