I already had a lot of experience when I joined my team at work. Through some internal moves and a wave of new hires, I've accidentally become one of the longest-tenured. I am The Veteran. Welcoming the recent crop of ~new-grad hires and helping them find their footing has made me realize how much I take for granted. So much just comes easily. Makes me think back to my days working in a public library when I was shortly out of college. I had a couple teammates nearing or past retirement age. Nothing phased them. Objectively, I understood why – they'd seen it all for decades. But of course I couldn't muster the same ease in the same way, though I tried. And I was glad to have the model. So, on my mind lately: what do I want my version of leadership to look like? What's the stamp I want to make? And who am I looking up to now?

Art
Landscape (Bordeaux II), oil on canvas by Amédée Ozenfant. Hautajaiset (Funeral), sculpture by Axel Robert Petersson. Portrait of Joaneta Obrador, oil on canvas by Joan Miró.

Books
Winter's Heart. Done. 9 down, 5 to go?

Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over by Nell Painter. DNF. Memoir just isn't for me.

Brave New World, Huxley, DNF, dreadful.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. Just started.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
In Praise of More Hangout Modalities.

Summer Travel: Less Phone, More Sketchbook. (via)

"That's why I encourage everyone to walk and take buses whenever you can, because you end up dealing with people who remind you what humanity actually is. Not the polished cartoonish version we're supposed to aspire to, but the far more common messy, complicated, and resilient version."

"We owe our electric age to scientists who were crazy, ignorant, or both."

Idea for a "cover index" to measure great songs.

RIP, Mark Snow.

Music
Mozart Piano Sonatas perf. Angela Hewitt. Cool to hear how much change there can be over a decade and a bit. You can hear really Beethoven bubbling up by the time you reach K.457.

• Piano Sonatas K.279–284 & K.309
• Piano Sonatas K.310–311 & 330–333
• Piano Sonatas K.457, 533, 545, 570, & 576

A bit of nostalgic return to Washed Out…

• Life of Leisure EP. "Feel It All Around" feels like stepping into a shower. "Hold Out" has the perfect drive for a workout.
• Within and Without. "Soft" has a nice mix of melancholy and hopefulness. I have such a vivid memory hearing "You and I" for the first time at one of their shows, bass player vamping in front of a box fan tilted up and blowing his hair.

Addison Rae, Addison. It's not for me, but it goes down smooth and leaves no aftertaste.

Movies
Fast & Furious. This didn't hold up at all for me. It was sad that I felt so remote from it all. Action pieces didn't land, relationships felt thrown together. Felt like I was mixing essential context from a TV show or something. (Has it really been 12 years since the last time I saw it?)

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Now this is a movie! Dudes being dudes. Naval warfare is one of the craziest things we've ever done.

TV
The X-Files, s4e24 "Gethsemane". A bit of an underwhelming season finale, but maybe there's some courage in not relying on traditional cliffhangers. We've been watching every Sunday night for the last 18 months or so. Taking a break for a little while!

Ballard, s1e1–2. So far, scratches the itch. I need a beach house.

Art
A Mayan blackware ceramic vessel modeled in the form of an owl. [Untitled] (Sax Player), print from engraving on plexiglass by Scott Smith. Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx, oil on wood by Joachim Patinir.

Books
Winter's Heart. Homestretch.

Running
Feels good to steadily pick up my volume and consistency since late winter. Yesterday I went on my longest run of the year so far, and today, no ill effects. Still one of my favorite ways to explore the city. (Mill Basin is a strange little self-contained world. Felt like I was in Florida.)

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
From a profile of an archaeologist couple: "One of the reasons we’re able to make as many contributions as we have is that we stayed put at one site for a long period of time and we just kept asking questions."

"Given Canada’s vast size and low population density, I was surprised to discover that the country feels more urban than the US, with far more skyscrapers per capita."

Young families have stopped leaving big cities, for now.

Thoughts from buses across America. "In any town such as Harrisburg, you can have two very different experiences, one optimistic, the other pessimistic, and that is the defining feature of the US."

‘No One Else Has a Bike Like Mine’: How Deliveristas Trick Out Their Rides.

"AI feedback (“you raise a profound point”) creates a new market niche for the offhand, the critical or slightly dismissive, the kinds of response only a slightly jaded human being can currently provide."

"I painstakingly printed out my social media feeds FOR AN ENTIRE MONTH so I could read them like a newspaper, as god intended."

NYC art schools see record-high application numbers as Gen Zers clamber to enroll.

"I’ve been sober for six years now; and that kind of milestone does something to your perception of time. It creates a before and an after, and it invites you - gently at first, then insistently - to take stock."

Growth, not gain.

A visual research tool that maps out a Wikipedia rabbit hole.

Music
Cerrone, Christine and the Queens, Catching feelings. Fun! Good pop/EDM/disco feel.

Laura Cannell, A Compendium of Beasts, mixing olde medieval and folk traditions:

• Volume 1
• Volume 2
• Volume 3

Domenico Scarlatti, Sonatas, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 perf. Angela Hewitt. I'm partial to the B minor, Kk.27 and the G minor, Kk.426 seems to anticipate Chopin or the like.

Movies
Red Eye (2005). Tight thriller. I like the focus on only two actors for most of the runtime. Helps that both are charming.

Battle Royale. Second viewing. I love the melodrama – heightened with teenage hormones – and how we learn about so many relationships in the school. Beautiful soundtrack mixing in classical orchestral work.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Still so fun. I think the characters actually work on their cars more than any other film in the franchise. That's cool. I think this is the third or fourth time I've seen it? (Previously.)

TV
The X-Files, s4e23 "Demons".. Feels like I've seen this one a few times before (i.e. Mulder perseverating on sister trauma → unhinged behavior → getting arrested).

I fear that I haven't paid much attention to my day-to-day life lately.

Art
Approaching Storm, print by Grant Wood. A 19th-century Earthenware pitcher, made in Bangor, Maine.. A male figure in the Nomoli style.

Books
Winter's Heart. It feels good when you learn how to read a particular book.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
"It wasn’t because I was smarter or more dedicated, but simply because I’d been looking directly at a specific problem they only encountered as part of a much larger institutional landscape."

"By their late thirties, nearly two-thirds of people born in Wyoming have moved to other states."

"Here I pause for one moment, to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding, when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind, and the most to be distrusted."

Road House: The Perfect '80s Western. "Dalton is Fonzie-cool, Eastwood-mysterious, and physically pristine."

Why are movies about research so addictive?

The Sustained Two-Shot.

Ryan Coogler talks about film stock and aspect ratios.

Beatrice Chebet breaks the 14-minute 5k barrier.

Music
Taylor McFerrin, Early Riser. Jazz/soul/electronic. I like all all the layering in "Postpartum", and I think that's also what I respond to in "Already There" – something to latch onto no matter where you put your ear.

Daoud's soda single. "plato's twins" has been on repeat, with a restlessness that reminds me of Harmony of Difference-era Kamasi Washington. The full GOOD BOY album was merely good.

Muslimgauze, Single #One.

Movies
You Hurt My Feelings. Such good heart in this one. Love how it portrays how we all seek and need validation outside ourselves (even though we might know better?), and the payoff that can come from trusting, again and again.

The Hunger Games. The shakiest camera you've ever seen. (Previously.)

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Charming as usual. I always wish these were paced just a hair faster.

Transporter 2. Cross an Audi commercial with CSI: Miami b-roll, mix in some Jackie Chan-tics, you got yourself a stew.

Skyfall. So dreary. I give up! I don't like James Bond! (Previously.)

TV
The X-Files, s4e22 "Elegy". The events/mystery side of this is a mess, but appreciated some nuance in the Scully/Mulder relationship.

Couples Therapy, s4e13–18.

Department Q, s1e9. I don't like watching someone get tortured for a full season, but hard not to like a grumpy, swaggering detective.

CSI: Miami, s8e19. Young Alan Ritchson!

I'm just hunkering down and avoiding the heat as much as I can.

Art
Bird on a branch in front of a skyline, illustration by Leo Gestel. Illustration (Typhoon), woodcut by Edward Alexander Wadsworth. Mithila/Madhubani school illustration of Three Figures: woman with two children playing ball. Drying the Linen, or Moonrise at the Priory, oil on canvas by Maurice Denis.

Books
Winter's Heart. I guess we're doing this!

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
How to Surf the Web in 2025, and Why You Should. "To surf, you must begin on a normal website with outbound links, and avoid all the algorithm-driven thoroughfares (Reddit, YouTube, X, any 'apps') that direct most of today’s internet traffic. You also have to be on a real computer, not a phone. If you end up on social media, you’re no longer surfing."

macOS Icon History.

The trend in book covers with bright type over a painting.

Which book genres are men or women more likely to leave reviews for?

NYC bakeries that sell one thing.

Can AI speak the language Japan tried to kill?

Why Does Every Commercial for A.I. Think You’re a Moron?

Heir Ball: How the Cost of Youth Sports Is Changing the N.B.A..

Music
The Knife, Tomorrow, In a Year. Reminded me of mid-19th-century opera.

Bronski Beat, The Age of Consent. I like the slinky, bluesy city feel in "Love and Money".

Billy Idol, Rebel Yell. So good! "Rebel Yell" is eternal. Ditto for "Eyes Without a Face".

Mark Pritchard, Thom Yorke, Tall Tales. "Back in the Game" and "The Spirit".

Movies
Avengers: Endgame. Too many speeches, and the number of storylines to touch on kills the momentum, and its too timid to land the sentimental Americana register it dabbles in here and there… but still a good conclusion to this arc. (Maybe I just prefer the gloom of Infinity War?)

TV
The X-Files, s4e21 "Zero Sum". "A man digs a hole, he risks falling into it." See Proverbs 26:27.

Couples Therapy, s4e7–12.

Our Great National Parks, s1e2.

Dept. Q, s1e7.

I got a photo from family recently. My grandpa was a lifelong craftsman, mechanic, carpenter. On the day he died, three tools had been left out on the table saw in the barn. A combo square to plan and check; a notched wooden guide to steer boards safely over the blade; a screwdriver for the hundred little tasks that screwdrivers are useful for. Measure, plan, push forward, adjust.

Art
Exhibition coming soon to the High Museum: Faith Ringgold: Seeing Children. See you in ATL!

Man of the Night, statue in bronze by Germaine Richier. The Tilled Field, oil on canvas by Joan Miró.

Books
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights. Maybe it's because I'm too familiar with them, but surprised by how… dry? factual? the stories were. Like reading very straightforward reporting. Not bad, though. Just not as dramatic as you'd think in this telling.

It. DNF. I've never read Stephen King before! I think I should look to his other, shorter works.

Between Two Fires. Historical Christian horror? Interesting! Getting a better sense of the time period (Black Death-era France), how desperate and destructive and confusing it must have been.

Running
I'm acclimating to summer weather. This weekend I continued my irregular series of running to the end of various subway lines, with a journey east through Forest Park to the Jamaica–179th Street end of the F line. There's something interesting on the other side of every intersection.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Captchas in textiles.

"Your time and energy are the key bottlenecks in your life, and thus choices are always being made."

What Happened to Working Your Way Up from the Mailroom? "The measure of how efficiently talent is allocated in a society is how young you are when your dreams are crushed."

"We learned this about platforms a long time ago: following the old newspaper schematic, they aren’t the printing presses, but rather the assignment editors."

"'What about x, y, z? They’re really pushing the boundaries of fiction as a medium.' I don’t want to be mean, but I doubt it."

Is embracing AI intellectual or anti-intellectual? and the value of academic silos.

Invite knowledge through randomness with WikiRadio and WikiTok.

"The basic fact is that you cannot defend democracy if you cannot meaningfully contest a wider range of Senate seats."

Music
Two more from The Knife this week:

• Deep Cuts. I like "You Make Me Like Charity" and videogame melancholy of "Behind the Bushes".
• Silent Shout. "Silent Shout" feels like it has a lot of early synthwave Kavinsky-type sounds percolating in there. Not a complaint. "Like a Pen" is great, too.

Movies
Avengers: Infinity War. Captain America's phone has an Atlanta area code! The deaths of Vision and Spider-Man hit hard. Respect for movies willing to end on a sour note. Well done.

Gosford Park. I'll just echo everything I wrote about my first viewing. Still one of my favorites seen in 2024.

TV
Couples Therapy, s4e1–6. What an addictive show! And so rare for me to feel emotional about any reality TV. So much hurt that goes so deep.

The X-Files, s4e20 "Small Potatoes". Another good silly one.

Dept. Q, s1e4–5.

I remember getting really grumpy that first Sunday in June. Lots of waiting, and random empty timeslots to fill. Nothing clicking. This last Sunday, stark contrast: up at 530am, out the door before 6am, and a morning of trailrunning ahead of me. Always the balance of planning enough that I don't feel lost, but not so much that I feel hemmed in. Self-management is hard!

---

Last Friday evening we went to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at BAM. Treading was an excellent duet (Steve Reich soundtrack!), but I looooooved Grace. It opens with a delicate solo that had this edgy restlessness lying underneath, then turns into a huge ensemble piece switching between gospel, house, afrobeat soundtracks. High energy, super cool, great costuming, too.

---

I got a new laptop and it's great and perfect and… underwhelming. I no longer feel the quiet fury and resignation and impatience I'd feel watching the old one slowly grind through clicks and keystrokes. But in the end, just another screen and keyboard?

---

Some friends visited the city earlier this week, their kids in tow, and enjoyed the brief window into the kookiness and chaos that is the young mind. The one who barely looked at me when introducing myself soon latched on, eating up every morsel of attention. The distinct personalities with just a handful of years. The way brothers alternately admire and despise each other in 5-minute cycles. What a ride.

Art
Tapestries by Sam Dienst. Meditating Frog by Sengai Gibon. Aztec figure carrying corn.

Books
Extinction. Finished, glad I read it, good change of pace. The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James, a magical realist western, didn't click with it, DNF'ed. The Story of King Arthur and his Knights by Howard Pyle, just started.

Running
Most recent highlight was doing some trailrunning up along the Hudson River valley. We took the Metro North train up to Manitou, stepped off onto a quiet country road, ran up into the hills and ridges, eventually descending back to Garrison (where we saw the train coming around the corner and finished with a desperate, exhausted last-minute sprint) to catch the train back home.

I'm feeling… excited for summer long runs!?

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Musical stars we're forgetting and when pop music went supernova.

Italo Calvino’s 14 Criteria for What Makes a Classic. (via)

How to Live on $432 a Month in America. "For the right young person — there are many opportunities to stop pointing the finger at the boomer and to become the boomer, if they so choose." (via)

Things To Do While Waiting.

It’s a great time to be a human philosopher.

"[LLMs] devour schlep, and clear a path to the important stuff, where your judgement and values really matter."

Nice rocks.

Federal law enforcement funds would be better spent solving all murders instead of deporting people.

Music
A couple albums from Of the Trees…

• Harvest
• The Tale of the Elegos. I like this one more, felt more cohesive, more natural flow.

André 3000, 7 piano sketches.

Zeena Hawkins, Three Harps, Tuning Forks & Electronics. I feel like this album title is directly marketed to me, specifically. "Tuning Forks" is great.

Ghost, Skeletá. Theatrical metal, so fun.

Brahms: Symphony No. 4 perf. Wiener Philharmoniker cond. Carlos Kleiber.

Two from Justice, both fun in the moment, but not a ton of staying power for me…

• Justice. "Genesis" is a good start, like a movie overture. Then turns into a good stank-face romp.
• Hypderdrama

Some quiet piano albums from Elijah Fox…

• Ambient Works for the Highways of Los Angeles
• City in the Sky

Steve Reich, Music for 18 Musicians. Heard this again at the Alvin Ailey show and remembered why I love it.

The Knife, The Knife. I like the messy jagged guitar reverb in "I Take Time"

Movies
For a good while there I was burned out on superhero movies and Marvel specifically. I've been playing catch-up, and enjoying it.

The Incredible Hulk (2008). I've never spent much time with Hulk comics or otherwise. I think I prefer how Ruffalo carries the role, but I love how this one looks, and gave me a new appreciation for the character.

Avengers: Age of Ultron. Probably the best villain in the whole arc?

Spider-Man: Homecoming. Spider-Man/Peter Parker is at his best when he's a teen, rather than a bumbling adult. (Or maybe you need to be Christopher Reeve to pull it off the type?)

Thor: Ragnarok. It's fun. I wish more of the movies were this colorful and silly.

TV
The X-Files, s4e18 "Max". "Men with spartan lives, simple in their creature comforts, if only to allow for the complexity of their passions."

The X-Files, s4e19 "Synchrony". Surprised it took so long to do time travel. Or am I forgetting other episodes?

Reacher, s3e8. Each season has gotten worse. Disappointing trend!

I don't miss Twitter and for the first time in a long time, I gave serious thought to deleting my account. Doesn't feel the same when I hop on. The magic is gone. Some change in audience and content over the last decade+, sure, but maybe it's just I have changed? I keep bringing this up (like in week 18) because I didn't full expect it to happen. I thought I was just going to take it off my phone, refocus a bit. In the past, while never a heavy poster, I was a diehard at-least-daily reader and generally unabashed fan. It felt like the nerve center for all my interests. Now, it's a place I find interesting for a few minutes every week or so. Things change.

---

Highlights from last week include the Liberty vs. Valkyries game (wiped the floor with them), and the Powerhouse Arts Community Day, where I learned about Mucky the Dolphin.

Art
Almondsbury to Temple Quay, map in stitched canvas with hand painted silk applique by Kate Tarling. Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic), painting by Francis Picabia. Bōtarō's Nurse Otsuji Prays to the God of Konpira for His Success, color woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. A 2nd-century Roman brooch in the form of a dog attacking a boar.

Books
Rainbows End. Finally done! Appreciate the amnesia revival, wearables, competing augmented realities, asshole protagonist

Extinction, by Douglas Preston. Fun murder mystery with debts to Jurassic Park. There's a lot of value in "whatever keeps the pages turning".

Running
After a great stretch last week, this week I barely ran at all. On the bright side, got to fill in some big gaps in my map. I really love learning all these Brooklyn neighborhoods first-hand.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
The case for more public youth art.

Adjusting for demographics and income, the South is an educational powerhouse.

In the U.S., more people work for the MTA than in coal mining.

Very strange and cool to see an LLM talk about how it thinks.

What happens when the intelligence goes out?

Scott Sumner suggests some overlooked films.

The Entity: On the Technologies of Late Cruisedom.

Clint Eastwood: "There are directors who lose their touch at a certain age, but I’m not one of them."

Music
A few more form Jon Hopkins. Enjoyable, but none of them latched onto my soul the way my first exposure did back in week 15.

• RITUAL (nothing is lost)
• Opalescent
• Late Night Tales
• Immunity

Blackbraid,"War Drums at Dawn on the Day of My Death". Metal!

Elliot Cole: Percussion Music. Inventive, exploers the full spectrum of possibilities. Enjoyed this more than I expected.

Movies
Now You See Me. Did not enjoy! Wish we spent more time with the magicians instead of the cops. Maybe it all works better on a big screen?

The Return. I like how this film takes the events of The Odyssey for granted. We see everyone exhausted with this era of their lives, reckoning with what must come next. Ralph Fiennes is shredded! I hope I look as good in my 60s as he and Binoche do.

TV
The X-Files, s4e17 "Tempus Fugit". A hangar and a cliffhanger!

Reacher, s3e6-7. Ready for it to end.

Words of Wisdom
"Nibble, and your appetite will grow."

Feels like work kinda took over this week. Demanding mostly in just raw hours, but not really difficulty. Crawled to the finish (a walk to our favorite pizza place) and had a wild Friday napping on the couch. A good life, all in all.

Art
Harlem Street Scene, screenprint by Jacob Lawrence. On the Bank, oil on canvas by Frederick Carl Frieseke. White Moving Forms on Black Background (TNT), sculpture in painted metal and wood by Jean Tinguely.

Books
Rainbows End. A bit more than halfway through, hoping I can pick up steam and move on to others. Winter's Heart. Other Thing by Craig Mod.

Running
Good mix this week: weekday evening trail runs, morning runs before work, and exploring some new streetsin Dumbo and Gowanus on my long run.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
"Let’s let them be young and have fun, even if we cringe at it."

The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction.

A family that makes art together…

"Kids won’t flatter your ego. If it’s not fun, you’ll know."

Music
A few more with Sō Percussion and…

• Bryce Dessner, Music for Wood and Strings.
• Steven Mackey, It Is Time.

BLAAP, Of the Trees, Freddy Todd, Volcanology. I like "LIFE CONTROL", puts a little snarl on my face.

Movies
In the Cut. A sick romance and murder mystery all wrapped up. I didn't love it but I feel like it's so fresh and disorientingly different I eventually will.

X. Horror on the farm. Interesting commentary on ageism.

Trap. Good to see Hartnett explore so many moods and facets. Falls flat in the last 10-20 minutes or so, but plenty of fun beforehand.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. A little flabby and dour. It's lost the spark of silliness that makes the franchise great. But the biggest setpieces were as good as you'll find.

TV
Reacher, s3e5. Teresa!

Bosch, s1e6.

One of those periods where life runs away with me and other things fall away. A busier period than usual. In the middle of the worst of it, I felt oversaturated and exhausted. After the fact, not too bad? There's a lesson in there.

All started on Sunday night a couple weeks ago, random dinner out at a new place… before leaving the next morning for a three-day work retreat the next morning. (One big adjustment: my wife travels for work much more often than I do, so it felt weird to be the one leaving her behind.)

Our company went up to MASS MoCA, and took over the museum. What a treat to have a place like that to ourselves. One morning, after a 5am wake-up, I got to have a James Turrell piece all to myself for a while. The huge Sol Lewitt collection was probably my fave, though.

---

Came back to reality and been playing catch-up since then. But I lucked into a concert on Friday with Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion at BAM. Really awesome performance. Loved how they played with lamps, and used the instrument blankets to build out the set as the show went on.

---

Last Saturday and Sunday, I took a two-day workshop about weaving at the Textile Arts Center. I know how to use a loom now! Started from yarns, measured out the warps, strung it all up, and then played with different patterns.

Mission accomplished for me: I have a much, much deeper appreciation for the history of the tradition, and the incredible labor and thoughtfulness that goes into this craft. And I'm really happy with how my little sampler turned out:

Maybe it will move from casual exploration to a classic hobby?

---

I continue to be Twitter-less or Twitter-lite these days, keeping it desktop-only. Yesterday I put it back on my phone, stayed up too late scrolling for nothing in particular… and then woke up and immediately started scrolling for nothing in particular lol. It's amazing to watch the casino addiction re-form so quickly – deleted again!

Books
Rainbows End. Library loan expired. Guess I gotta buy it now.

Winter's Heart, cont.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Designing for constraints in education. "We have to design for the standard days not the ideal ones."

Mississippi Schools Are Better Than Yours. "Painting the Deep South as an embarrassing cultural backwater is one of the last socially acceptable forms of prejudice among elites."

3 thoughts while pushing a wheelbarrow.

"If the United States had matched the rate of improvement in road safety since the 1970s seen in, for example, the Netherlands, Sweden, or Spain, it would have prevented 2 out of every 3 road deaths."

Appreciating the architecture and optimism of Radio City.

Music
Inspired by the concert, dived back into Shaw/Sō again, all strongly recommended…

• Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part
• Partita for 8 Voices
• Ringdown, Lady on the Bike and Ghost
• Fleishman Is in Trouble OST
• Glenn Kotche: Drumkit Quartets

Also played:

• Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Ex Tenebris Lux. String orchestra texture and swells.
• Francisco Mora Catlett, Outerzone. Free-spirited jazz and noise.
• Howie Lee, Event, Fact, and Those which are emphasized. Glitchy electronic patches and samples and explorations.
• Harald Grosskopf, Synthesist. German electro!
• Songs from the Kitchen Disco: Sophie Ellis-Bextor's Greatest Hits. Listened to this after hearing "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" on the dancefloor.
• Leyla McCalla, A day for the hunter, a day for the prey. Haitian-inflected folk.
• Bela Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, The Melody of Rhythm. It's an interesting mash-up from insanely talented people, but I don't think it's a successful one?

Movies
State of Play. Fun re-watch. Journalism can be really compelling – underdogs, persistence, troublemaking.

Practical Magic. Totally charming! Really enjoyed it, and appreciated how many odd little turns it took, and tension drawn out from people who aren't sure why they're behaving the way they are. And briefly, one of the best road trip scenes you'll ever see.

The Order. Really like this one, too. A crime drama that's not quite gritty or grim, just... worn down? (And maybe I need a mustache again...)

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Desert sandstorm shootout is really cool, the chase scene with the little yellow car is still perfect, and so is the fight in the narrow alley. Warming up for the grand finale.

TV
The X-Files, s4e16 "Unrequited". Vietnam vets again!

Reacher, s3e4. Reacher is too sociopathic. I'll still finish the season, I think.

CSI: Miami, s7e18.

I don't remember when I took Twitter off of my phone. A month ago, a month and change? It's become more like a weekly treat on a Saturday or Sunday morning on the laptop. I feel like I'm missing out on a ton, but mostly don't think about it. I feel less distracted, less twitchy, reading more, having fewer "where did the evening go?" moments. It's a good change.

Art
Vessel in the Form of a Circular Pyramid from Colima, Mexico, c. 300 BCE–300 CE. Blue House (from Food Clothing Shelter portfolio), 1996, photogravure on paper by Laurie Simmons. Pueblo vase in sterling silver, 1893 by George Paulding Farnham. Brooklyn Summer Friday Night, 1954, oil on canvas by Diana Korzenik.

Books
Rainbows End, cont.. Favorite part so far is this idea of reviving people afflicted with Alzheimer's, what they might experience as they return to full understanding of the world.

Running
A fun week of running – a Sunday long run visit to Marine Park and the salt marsh, another touring through Red Hook this morning. Running with new friends, a sunset run on Tuesday and an impromptu club run before work on Friday. It's felt pleasantly erratic.

Articles & Episodes & Twoots
An appreciation of Revenge of the Sith. Do we make "downer epics" anymore?

Robert Daniels and Odie Henderson talk about Sinners.

Your next best friend.

Who’s most likely to change (or hyphenate) their name after marriage?

"The TikTokers documenting themselves wading into the sea, reading by the beach, drinking espresso, and riding Vespas for the sake of #eurocore are live-action role-playing Europeanness, in Europe. Which is, of course, what tourists have been doing for centuries."

"People like to psych themselves up by talking about how there’s no point in winning elections if we’re not going to stand up for our core values, but the converse is equally if not more true — there’s no point in articulating a policy agenda that stands no chance of being enacted."

Lamenting the kerning on Pope Francis' tomb.

Music
Various, Sinners OST. Ginz Zilbalodis and Rihards Zalupe, Flow OST. Harald Grosskopf, Ümit Han, Magnetfeld. Darkside, Nothing.

Movies
Gone Girl. Fourth viewing (my notes on the previous three). It has such a mesmerizing pace. The media angle really struck me this time, the need to play to the cameras.

Ex Machina. Third viewing (the first two). Felt a little impatient this time, but I think I appreciate each of the individual performances more. Nuanced work.

Along with The Social Network last week, these made for a fun accidental trilogy on tech/media/misogyny.

TV
The X-Files, s4e15 "Kaddish". Golem!

Reacher, s3e1–2. When I say this I mean it literally: I don't know what's going on.