Back to work in full this week, and back to the office. So nice to get warm welcomes and questions about my travels. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? The ability to work from home so often is priceless. Full-time WFH, though… not for me!
Books Crossroads of Twilight, cont. This book is living up to its reputation (but I will finish it).
Running
Took the last several months away from run club, and returned this week. Felt good to be back. After so much vacation time, my weekend long run was a bit of a struggle. Build, decay, rebuild.
Arvo Pärt, …Lente. Mostly familiar material, glad I revisited.
Movies Compensation. Loved this movie. Told in silent-film style, a story of two deaf Black women, in two different eras, finding love. Love the borrowing from pan-the-photograph documentary style, and vivid captions that let you imagine and dream along with the stories. It will make my end-of-year favorites, top tier.
Sick for most of the last week. Travel catching up to me, or something I caught on the last leg of travel. Coughing and coughing and coughing. The cabin fever is excruciating. But with 20/20 hindsight, I'm glad my norms have shifted. Better to be sick at home and working than going into the office and blithely infecting people.
Noticing a new acquisitiveness since I got back from Japan. I think I'm see my old stuff in a new light, feeling a big urge to replace it, overturn the old ways. Not yet sure what's trying to be expressed. Listening.
Around the Web Please take one, wonderful essay on museum brochures.
"Part of “good practice” (deep focus, lots of iteration) is having properly-sized feedback loops. Too short a loop, and it subverts the development of voice (too many other voices jutting in, telling you how to be). Too long a loop, and you might lose momentum (some feedback, properly timed, is critical)."
"If Americans sometimes seem crass or like they take life at an easy stride, it is largely because they are not idle. To the British temperament, there is something vulgar and unsettled about this lack of idleness. And yet the Americans are quite relaxed. Being busy puts them at ease."
Movies Black Bag. Took a little while to get on its wavelength, but ended up really liking this spy-couple story. Tight focus. Interesting visual choice to have that shimmery soft lighting glow. Appreciate the nod to "Let's Get Lost".
Trap. Not sure how I missed it the first time I watched it, but the small profiler role is played by Hayley Mills from The Parent Trap. Interesting that a movie like this can still succeed overall even when prominent characters are badly written/weakly acted. Good bones, good mechanics. Loved the angry conversation over pie.
Tremors. The time I watched this was on TBS or something as a kid. Never could track it down again, though I was generally aware of it. Enjoyed the setting in a dusty little western town, if it even amounts to that much. Don't see that often.
TV
The X-Files, s5e4, "Detour". So glad to get back to a monster-of-the-week episode.
Hannibal, s1e4–6. Episode 5, "Coquilles", is so good, the way it ties together themes of shelter/abandonment, fear/mourning, loss/escapism. Beautiful script, connects the killer-of-the-week to the main characters' developments, moves the season arc forward, great stuff.
I spent the last two weeks traveling in Japan. The trip started from NYC to Tokyo, then quickly relocated to Osaka for a few days, and to Okayama for a few (day trips to Imbe, Kurashiki, Hiroshima, Naoshima), and then the last few back in Tokyo. Very different from my only other trip there, where I spent most of my time in Tokyo with brief visits to Hakone and Kamakura. I'm going to dump some of my notes I wrote down along the way.
Fun to feel complete disorientation on first arrival, trusting years of public transit instinct to navigate the first trains. Anything outbound looks good, if not, yolo, we can turn around and try again.
I forgot how lush Japan is. Damp and green, buildings overtaken by where it's not hemmed in. Mountainsides ready to move downhill if not paved over. Fluid. And decaying. Narita airport is far from the city center, so you pass through a bunch of podunk towns on the way to the megalopolis.
It's also very rugged. When I think "rugged" I usually think "rocks", but here it is hills everywhere, steep forested hills just outside every town. Life squeezed in where it can be. In several places I'd seen baseball fields in the middle of houses, like right next door – nets put up around and above so sport can take place while protecting what's nearby. Just like all the retainment walls on the hillsides or concrete embankments on the rivers. Protect with walls so what's inside can be preserved, or exist in the first place.
Shinkansen, like Waymo, was utterly mindblowing for the first few minutes and then I quickly took it for granted. But it's amazing that you can just walk up, buy a ticket, walk directly on the train, and 10 minutes later be traveling at 200mph or whatever.
It's good to have small bits of travel mixed in with the overall trip. An hour or two of calm on a train or bus. Just enough to pull out a book and be in the moment in a different way.
Learned a lot about celadon pottery, and was especially curious about all the peonies and chyrsanthemums I saw carved in them. Also learned a lot about Bizen ware pottery. So great to have LLMs to ask about what I'm seeing and deep-dive on random questions throughout the trip.
Washlets/bidets are such a great invention. We should spread these in the States. Even coffee shops have them!
Interesting to travel and not have all the social cues. Here at home I can glance at someone and have a pretty good sense (confidence, at least, if not accuracy) of where they fit in – nerd, finance pro, Bushwick hipster, "cool" or "uncool", etc.. Not so much there. I can tell when the overlap is obvious – skater chic travels – but plenty of everyday looks I couldn't place.
I love eSIMs. Data is so cheap, no-brainer for future trips.. I remember my first trip to Japan, I bought a cheap burner flip phone so I could have service and text with a few friends I was meeting up with, and call for basic things that weren't easily internet-able ("open today?"). This was 2007 if I remember right. Using Art Space Tokyo and paper guide I guess, and a map, and a willingness to just be kinda lost or not find things. Different times.
Averaging ~20,000 steps per day makes for a pretty good lifestyle.
The towns of Minoo and Imbe made me think about my birth place in rural Georgia. I respond to the familiar, smaller size of each, and the closeness to nature right out the back door. But they also add density, and neighbors, and trains. Best of both worlds? They were like a more ideal form of where I grew up. (Also makes me think of The Goonies or Stand by Me, for example – small town + plenty of friends nearby + plenty of nature for adventure.)
I have a new appreciation for ukiyo-e prints. I especially like the prominence of ghosts, people sitting in waterfalls, toads, goblins. It's all much more lively and weird than I'd thought.
The ideal city size is one that's large enough where it's worth having a bike to run errands across town, but small enough where you don't feel a need to brace yourself and armor up to do it.
As an experiment on this trip, I kept a regret log. Just jotting down poor decisions and 20/20 hindsight to help shape the trip. Among those:
Not adventuring the first night we arrived, instead letting myself crash and nap too long.
Not learning much of the language, and having more basic phrases locked in. I felt both rude and helpless during a few basic interactions. I'm smart enough to remember these things, and had plenty of opportunity to prepare.
Over-relying on the big train stations. It's tempting to navigate to big central stations instead of smaller, less convenient ones. But they tend to be harder to get out of, to navigate through/around, harder to get oriented when you emerge, and a bigger pain to access on foot.
Not eating enough early enough. I always eat breakfast at home, but let that good habit slip. I like an early start, but coffee and pastry will only last so long, and the extra time for a reasonable meal makes a big difference in how the day plays out.
Going to the known tourist trap/shopping area just in case it wasn't as bad as I feared. (It was. (It usually is.))
Movies
All of these were watched as the creators intended: on am airplane seatback screen with tinny headphones.
Little Shop of Horrors. I had no idea what I was getting into – didn't know it was a musical. Quite a fun one. Levi Stubbs singing as Audrey II seems like a clear bluesy/sleazy ancestor of Oogie Boogie and that crab in Moana. (I wonder if there are earlier examples in this lineage?) Fun to see Steve Martin's precise theatrical choreographed movement (see also the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels training scene).
Tron: Legacy. It's clunky. Interesting set designs, but not as thrilling, visually, as the original. Plot-wise, familiar father-and-son stuff, again not as fresh. Lots of "catch-up" explanations that slow things down. I like some of the religious undertones. Not sure why computer villains would spend time declaiming to vast ranks of soldiers.
Woman of the Hour. A blunt instrument at times, but effectively chilling.
TV
The X-Files, s5e3 "Unusual Suspects". The Lone Gunmen origin story! Richard Belzer playing a square!
Hannibal, s1e2–3. The Abigail Hobbs character is a tough role to play.
Crossroads of Twilight. Chipping away at the WOT series until I find my next novel. Seems like consensus ranks this as the worst of the franchise.
Running
Kept my mileage in check, short and steady except for a very fun weekend loop. Looking forward to a couple weeks off.
Around the Web Will it internet? Spencer Chang time-travels with a watch.
"Subway Builder is a hyperrealistic transit simulation game. Build a new subway system from the ground up while dealing with real-world constraints and costs." Made by @Colin_d_m.
"Even when telling the history of a country, Shakespeare’s worlds are small; Melville’s, despite being substantially hemmed to a boat, is somehow large. Maybe Shakespeare in some way captured all there was to be captured at the time; if so, in Melville we can see how much larger humanity has become: industry, trade networks, energy, science, anthropology, firms with multinational labour, knowable continents beyond great seas."
Klaus Schulze, Deus Arrakis. Been killing it for decades. I should spend more time with his work.
Fusilier, Ambush. I didn't end up loving the rest of the album as much, but I audibly said "wow" on my walk to work when I first heard one of the transitions in "LLC". I love how adventurous the album feels.
Various, Tron OST and Nine Inch Nails, Tron: Ares OST. Fun compare/contrast – the electronic+orchestra hybrid in the first, with some pop mixed in, and then the more stark band/studio sound in the most recent.
The Consolers, Jesus Brought Joy. Gospel duets. You can't not smile.
Movies The Silence of the Lambs. Still great! Would love to see it in theaters someday. When the lights go off and the night vision clicks on…
Manhunter. Still great! On this watch, struck my how quiet and thoughtful so much of the runtime is. Newly appreciated the climax, with our hero fully inhabiting the villain's mindset and behavior, creeping through the moonlit forest to approach the house.
Tron. The cutting-edge visuals of the time are so different in style, and relatively crude compared to what we can do today, that they circle back around to become foreign and strange and wondrous again. Love that the in-computer world also had a bit of silent film look. Beautifully lived-in live-action interiors, too.
TV
The X-Files, s5e1–2 "Redux I & II". We're back! Tough watch in the first , so much talk talk talk talk talk talk. Things picked up in the second one. Mulder is getting so affectionate! I'm ready for Scully to get out of bed, and for both of them to get back to weird middle-America spooky investigations. This main government conspiracy arc is never going to go anywhere! Remember who your friends are.
Hannibal, s1e1. Revisiting this for a third perspective on the Hannibalverse. I think Mikkelsen is my favorite Lecter of them all.
Words of Wisdom
Irving Berlin: "Life is 10 per cent what you make it, and 90 per cent how you take it." (Thanks, James)
This weekend we celebrated our anniversary. A highlight was a trip to the Metropolitan Opera, on my local bucket list. I love that we still have grand occasions and spaces like this: tuxes, chandeliers, gold, red velvet, broad curving staircases. Rituals and visuals that dial up your expectations, call your attention to share something outside yourself.
As for the opera itself, we saw Mozart's Don Giovanni, which I've only heard a few excerpts of – the overture and the Commendatore's re-entrance Great music and great singing (an untrained ear on this part), but I struggled in the second act a bit, where it felt like the momentum lagged. I was most disappointed by the bland staging, tough. Just like the spare set in the production of The Tempest I saw last year. It was all solid blue-greys colors and empty planes, uniform costuming. The transformation at the end was nice, but saving it for the very last few moments made for a leaden visual experience for most of the run – "It's a famine of beauty, honey!"
"Crudele? Ah! no mio bene" was my favorite aria. There's a romance to the lyrics, and an earthy practicality: the loving, patient, compromise sometimes needed when committing to a shared vision.
Worked late a lot this week. It eventually caught up with me – I wonder if it contributed to my late-week sniffles? – but i don't regret it. I had a thought that maybe I've been leaving too much buffer, not enough pressure. I default that way, a natural caution and conscientiousness. But it leaves opportunities on the table.
Books Sense and Sensibility. Finished this yesterday and loved it. I'd rank it below Pride & Prejudice, along with most other books.
Running
A steady but lighter week, tapering a bit before a race next Sunday. This morning was a map-filling run to finish off the last few streets in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood.
Around the Web Brian Eno in conversation with Ezra Klein. A fun idea: "Children learn through play and adults play through art" (of course not the only way). And this was nicely put: "When we look at any piece of art, we are not looking just at that piece of art; we are looking at this piece of art in terms of our personal history. It’s like you are hearing the latest sentence in a conversation you’ve been having for your whole life."
Selling Lemons: The hidden costs of the meta game. "If a buyer can’t distinguish between good and bad, everything gets priced somewhere in the middle. If you’re selling junk, this is fantastic news"
Daryl Johns, Daryl Johns. Throwback-y pop/muzak/mall jazz/sitcom intro music, calling back to Sting or Toto or Rick Springfield or the like. "I'm So Serious" is a good example.
Last week I went bouldering for the first time in 6 years or so. So great! I need to work that back into my life. For me it's one of those pleasures like playing guitar or videos, where I never got very good, don't particularly care, and find a lot of satisfaction in re-learning the basics every now and then.
Books Sense and Sensibility. Things I'm appreciating: mixing dialogue with summary of dialogue and the way the narration undercuts and pokes fun at its subjects. Also appreciating how primogeniture and entailment make even the most comfortably wealthy women so vulnerable. An incredibly enjoyable book.
Running
This weekend I ran a long loop touring some of my least-favorite neighborhoods, and had a great time. It's not only where you are, but what you make of it.
Around the Web
Zadie Smith on The Art of the Impersonal Essay. "It’s in that optimistic spot that I set out my stall, yes, and my ideas and arguments such as they are, sure, but without demanding to see anyone’s identifying papers in the opening paragraph."
Encourage purposeful friction. "In general, if you can reduce the friction required to start doing or continue doing a thing, you’re more likely to do that thing, and keep doing it longer. Great! Helpful. Unless the thing is something you don’t want to keep doing."
Illiteracy is a policy choice. "If you live where I do, in Oakland, California, and you cannot afford private education, you should be seriously considering moving to Mississippi for the substantially better public schools."
Why Warm Countries Are Poorer? "A big percentage of equatorial population actually lives in mountains: The closer to the equator, the higher up the capitals!"
"Aphorisms never accomplish anything. Their whole talent is traveling beyond their occasion, gathering force as they go, to end up on a refrigerator magnet."
Movies Weapons (2025). Fun to watch but nothing lingering afterward. The vignette structure is a welcome change of pace.
28 Years Later. This is a good blend of high and low. References to Bible stuff, Bergman, Hamlet. I like the use of montage to unsettle and give some historical resonance. Appreciate that the father and mother are very imperfect. What's with movie dystopias leaving all the women in floral dresses?
TV
Line of Duty, s4e2–4. I love Hastings. An imperfect but forcefully moral leader, endlessly disappointed that others set such a low bar for themselves.
Last week I was out of town for 3 days, out in San Francisco for a work conference we were hosting. I've been there maybe a half-dozen times now, and I think it's gotten better each time. Or I'm just different, finding it a bit easier to get on its wavelength.
On the day of the conference itself, I didn't have formal responsibilities. So just tried to be a welcoming and friendly presence, using the opportunity to strike up conversations with customers, prospects, vendors. Not my natural inclination in a crowd – I was completely fried by the time I went to bed, after the after-after-party – but at the very least, a nice change of pace from the usual.
Two trips to the Pacific coast in the last month, but the view from the plane had me itching for a mountain edition.
Books
Sense and Sensibility. Inconsistency is hurting my moment. Need to get back on track.
Running
Heading out of town threw off my rhythm, and cut into my mileage but I rallied for a great long run yesterday. Cooler weather seemed to boost everyone's mood – lots of greetings and smiling faces. Even the seedier neighborhoods couldn't deny it.
Movies Get Out. Masterpiece, gets better every time.
Challengers. So fun! Sexy, messy, shot in interesting ways, makes dramatic mountains out of molehills. Interesting to watch a movie where I've heard the soundtrack before seeing it.
TV
Abbott Elementary, s4e22. I think I've seen more season finales than regular season episodes? Always surprised how gently they close things out.
Line of Duty, s4e1. They know how to start with a bang.
Last weekend felt like I barely had any time. Felt good to get back to routine, and by comparison, feels like I've been luxuriating in vast expanses of time to work with, happily filled. A good feeling.
Running
Yesterday's long run was tough. I bet the layoff/irregularity of the travel week threw things off, and odd timing last week. Filled in a few more pockets of the Brooklyn map, which feels good.
Baby Rose, BADBADNOTGOOD, Slow Burn. I like the backing music/arrangements a lot but the singing style, and the shound of awll the chewred-up shlurrred wuordsh, is really grating for me. :(
Movies Knives Out. Re-watch, still fun, and funnier than I remembered.
District 13. Another re-watch, still fun. There is a certain delight in seeing physical/athletic greatness on screen, often worth the drop in dramatic/acting talent.
Saved!. Light teen comedy skewering a certain strain of Christian moralizing. We don't often see people sincerely wrestling with their religion on screen.
TV Alien: Earth, s1e1–2. Some interesting additions to the mythology but something is just slightly off. Not sure if I'll continue (but I might!).
CSI: Miami, s6e18. One of the worst-written/looking episodes.
Last week I went to Los Angeles. My first time back since I moved here to Brooklyn. Took some trips down memory lane – my old apartment, favorite coffee shop, neighborhoods and restaurants with good memories – and also remembered what a lonely and strange time it was. I'd arrived there just a few weeks before the first inklings of a new virus, and a couple months later, lockdown. Happy to be there, and remembered what drew me west, but lots of old emotions shook loose, rose to the surface.
I remember when I first left I had a feeling that I might need to go back at some point and try again. I'm not sure that itch is there the same way. I'd be happy to live there again, but it's less… mysterious now? A known quantity for the right time of life, whenever that may be.
I rode in a Waymo for the first time while I was out there. It was such an odd mix of mind-blowing experience – wow! it's really happening! – and just completely mundane. After a few minutes, it felt totally normal and safe and pleasant. Hard to imagine going backwards from here. (I think I also feel safer as a pedestrian, seeing how well it picked up on runners!)
I also had my first experience on a diverted flight when thunderstorms shut down JFK, and my first time visiting (a hotel on the fringes of) Detroit. Lucky that I don't have more travel scars of this kind.
Running
Last week all of my running was in my old Santa Monica neighborhood. Mostly around 5am, to squeeze it in before work on east-coast hours. Nothing beats a run on a quiet moonlit street.
Music
Gabriela Ortiz, Yanga perf. Los Angeles Philharmonic cond. Gustavo Dudamel. I like the hand drums and general expansion of the percussion section, but I just could not get into this.
Violin Concertos Nos. 3 & 4 perf. Francesca Dego, Sir Roger Norrington con. Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Piano Concertos perf. Jeremy Denk with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. I used to read Jeremy Denk's blog quite a bit, so a novel surprise to see this one pop up in search. Timpani adds so much to the opening of the D minor piano concerto – a punch you simply can't get with just the strings and winds.
Movies Ingrid Goes West. The influencer cliches feel a bit dated and worn already, but luckily it's more focused on the obsessive fandom turned sour. Good physical comedy, too.
Zodiac. I think this is the 4th time I've seen it? It's so easy to watch this movie.
Drumline. Love seeing Atlanta on film. The main character is very annoying but loved Orlando Jones as the band director.
TV
Binging a new TV obsession one week, and then completely abstaining the next week.
Line of Duty, s2e6 and Line of Duty, s3e1–6. Interrogation scenes are consistently great in this show. Not sure I've seen many other TV shows use them as effectively.
Last weekend we made gumbo. Today, pralines. Rounding out the repertoire from my New Orleans side of the family. I've been making the oyster dressing for family holidays for a good while now, and I've got a decent handle on red beans & rice. These treats used to be reserved for special occasions, or the summer vacations down to Louisiana. Now as an adult, good reminder that I can… just cook them? Whenever I want?
Had breakfast with a friend this morning and reflected on how nice it is to learn about all the small little tidbits – grad school progress, the new hobby, work challenges, reflections from a recent trip – the collection of small facts (for me) that make their life their life. It's nice to have a rooting interest in other people's lives.
Sometimes reading my Kindle in the dark in bed feels like a very primal experience. Like being near a campfire, calm and quiet, safety and interest nearby, darkness surrounding.
Art Wooden face mask from the Bembe region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. #49, oil on canvas by Cy Thao. Portrait of Tah-Bo-Ho-Ya, oil on panel by Elbridge Ayer Burbank. Stokrozen quilt by by Ans Schipper-Vermeiren.
Running
Much lighter week. Wish I'd spent a bit more time stretching or cross-training or the like, but glad I took a lil' break.
Around the Web Frank Chimero took a sabbatical. "There’s a pressure to have noticeable outcomes to life choices like this. I made space, and after 3 months, all I have is a more internalized sense of that space."
Moderation is not overrated. "One of my rules of internet discourse is that whenever I see people talking about how something is not a “silver bullet” or a “panacea,” I know I’ll need to take the rest with a grain of salt."
While I've been reading The Eagle and the Hart, decided to put on some late 1300s/early 1400s music to keep the mood going. Can't say I deeply connected with any particular works in these collections, but they're all great, and a good reminder of how much talent you con find in any niche you care to look into:
Movies Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Quiet, observant mood-piece, rainy night at a movie theatre during its final screening.
The Invitation (2015). Third viewing. I really like this movie. (The first time I saw it), I liked for plot/suspense reasons. The second time, I appreciated but felt like I was missing something. This time, I connected much more on an emotional/character level. Repeat viewings can pay off!
KPop Demon Hunters. It's fun! I like how the animation style borrows from manga and such in more expressive moments. Also interesting that the fight scenes are largely "something to do", and presented as artificially high stakes – we know the heroes are going to survive, so let's just make it look cool and keep the story going. I know nothing about the musical scene, so I'll spend some time with the soundtrack, and I think I'll line up a deep-dive into K-pop in general later on.
TV
Line of Duty, s2e3–5. I love how quickly this show moves along. There's not a lot of meditative artistry or glamour. Just the facts, and messy people, and turning the screws a little tighter. Great interrogation scenes recently.
