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Currently reading: It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism by Senator Bernie Sanders 📚
Our economic debates should not revolve around questions of resources. They should revolve around questions of intent, of will.
A-bloody-men.
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Finally, 30 years later, watched The Crow. I can see why it’s a cult favorite and why my goth friends adore it. It certainly has pathos and a 90s sense of style. If this is the best in the series, though, I think I’m good stopping here. 🎬🐦⬛
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My bluetooth keyboard died, and I don’t have any spare batteries in my house. Instead, I’m using a huge wired keyboard kept just for emergencies like this. It’s… annoying. ⌨️
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A calm, comforting indie folk tune for your Tuesday. 🎵
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Currently reading: It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism by Senator Bernie Sanders
Got this as part of a donation, then completely forgot it was coming. 20 pages in and it sounds like an extended stump speech, but it’s early yet, so we’ll see. 📚
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Finished reading: He/She/They by Schuyler Bailar
If you need to hand a relative a book on trans issues and why respecting their identities and pronouns are important, this is an excellent option. It’s thorough and empathic. He might need a better copy editor for his next book, though. 📚🏳️🌈
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Are you a music person or a lyrics person? I’m definitely a music person, but the literature and poetry loving part of me considers lyrics so essential that inanity can kill a song no matter how banger the rhythm is. 🎵
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To whoever did today’s Strands puzzle, well done. Very well done. 👏🧩
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I could smell this lilac bush a block away! 🌸📷
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Obsessing Over Trees in the Forest
Peter K.G. Williams writes about The Small Web and Science. It’s more an overview of the small web movement as a scientist for other scientists, but it echoes a lot of what many have been saying for a while.
This paragraph stuck out to me, though, and I think it bears repeating (emphasis mine):
We can’t, however, take for granted that the architecture of the web will always be quite so friendly to independent operators – protocols and expectations are always evolving. The proverbial “someone” needs to apply pressure to keep the infrastructure of the web friendly to small operators. … My worry here is that the small-web ethos is definitely susceptible to the tendency that you can get in environmentalism and other underdog movements: hoping if enough people just display enough personal virtue, the large-scale problem will solve itself. I doubt that many people would seriously argue that there’s no role for public policy or other forceful efforts in trying to achieve these goals, but I worry the DIY approach can easily become a trap. _Small-scale effort is much easier and yields rewards on much shorter timelines than large-scale action. From what I’ve seen it easily soaks up all of people’s time and energy, leaving nothing left for the big stuff._
It’s good to keep in mind that, just like productivity systems and writing systems and anything that involves upkeep and passion, we can get wrapped up in the details and not pay attention to the larger point of doing it. Like an organizer getting wrapped up in the latest todo app or sorting scheme, and missing the point of doing the work and having the time to do what one wants, that the organization was supposed to enable.
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To the tune of The Final Countdown:
“It’s the berry muffin! Nomnomnom nom, nomnomnom nomnom!” 🎵☕️📷
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I got a lot done today, x-ing tasks that needed crossing off: closed a bank account, replaced smoke alarms for my mother, grocery shopping, and more. Friends and family have told me how much they appreciated me.
Right now, sitting tired and expended, I feel like today has been wasted, that needed things were done but nothing necessary was touched.
Thing is, I can’t figure out what that necessary is.
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Seen today during my walk to my morning reading cafe. 📷
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A beautiful, playful way to start your weekend: Deaf artist Christine Sun Kim leads a short call for better music captions, then presents a poetic art piece using captions from a deaf person’s point of view to describe the world. It’s unlike anything you’re likely to see this weekend. Enjoy! 🎵🎥🧏
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Watched today’s Apple Event. Between the stilted speaking tempo, the wooden body language, and the staged scene direction, I really wish they’d go back to live presentations and let the presenters be themselves. Whoever is coaching these people needs to be replaced. 🧑💻
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Found these canes while helping my mother clean Patsy’s house. I thought my friend could use them as backup, but neither were interested. Makes a nice photo, though! 📷🩼
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Just as my friend’s band is about to go on, I get this in my inbox. The Columbus is just a few blocks down from my place. It’s been an institution for decades, long before the current owners, hosting national and local artists too big for local venues but too small for the main ones. Damnit. 🎵😢
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My project for the day: set up my Mother’s new laptop. My goal for the day: have it done before I leavee for my friend’s cover band gig tonight! 💻🎵
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A view of Providence, RI, looking towards downtown, as the sun began to set a few days ago. 📷
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The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has an amusing “Please don’t use your phone” warning video. 🎥
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I watched Not Just Bike’s recent video on highway lane expansions, which referenced Austin’s Rethink35 campaign and their amazing 1-35 Frogger game illustrating the insanity of a 20 lane highway. If the game doesn’t make the point, NJB’s video will! 🛣️🚗🕹️
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Come summer, this will be a hard perk to ignore! 📷🍜
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Dune: Part Two had all the amazing cinematography and arrangement from the first part, so of course I loved this.
I do hope there’s a part three, not just so I can see more, but so Dennevue can hopefully counter our culture’s tendency to lionize the problematic aspects of classic sci-fi novels. I know Frank Hubert wrote Paul as a cautionary tale, but our collective media literacy isn’t the best these days. I think we need to see the results of Paul’s successes in this film. 🎥
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Speaking of my argument with a book club interlocutor last night, here’s @ayjay talking about it with much more eloquence than I, as usual.
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Mirrors
The book club went successfully last night, despite a misunderstanding on what room was reserved. Then I sat across from a young PhD student who argued about the merits of the book, Light From Uncommon Stars.
We went back and forth until I zeroed in on what I thought bothered me about their analysis: it wasn’t the book for them, for where they were in life, which is fine, but the language they were using made it sound like a critical analysis of faults in the book. It was a valid opinion couched in the wrong schema, akin saying “Ice cream isn’t my thing these days,” in terms of the agricultural food complex and its systemic problems.
But they didn’t agree, or rather, they said they agreed, then doubled down and insisted their take wasn’t just valid, it had to be couched in their schema because it was important. They’d learned this in college from a very convincing humanities teacher. Stories had themes, and characters and plot lines had to be referenced to create a coherent and compelling narrative, and ideas like that. I argued the book had those qualities, but they didn’t back down, and I was grateful for the waiter delivering food for the table at that moment.
I couldn’t pinpoint why their take bothered me, until this morning. I’d had my worldview on literature changed by theory and the arguments of those who studied literature too. Same with philosophy, with programming, with movies, with blogging, with cooking. And I don’t like how I acted when I let my changed worldviews lead me to act like a self-important ass, so sure that these truths meant something that I ignored the simpler and more present perspectives that were just as important. I used to be like my interlocutor, and I cringe at how I came across back then.
To be fair, they weren’t nearly as cringe last night as I was in my youth! I just wish I’d realized this last night, and had a way to explain that to them. At the very least, I could have avoided minutes of inadvertently treating them like a mirror of my past, and steered the conversation to more pleasant topics.
And for the record, Light From Uncommon Stars is a wonderful dancing hug of a book, and even if it doesn’t fit some humanities scholar’s checklist of good literature, you should still read it if you’re into sci-fi, trans stories, Asian-American diaspora experience, and found families.
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