Week 29/30-26 - Curiosities
Greetings from the Mesa
We've been enjoying the afternoon thunderstorms, and free "a/c" of strong easterly outflow winds. Even though it hasn't rained much, it's enough to keep the garden watered without supplementation. The peppers and flowers are loving it! I've been in a bit of a slump creatively and otherwise the past couple weeks. Trying to claw my way out of it - it happens, it's life. I suspect a lot of us are feeling a general and overwhelming malaise. When I get like this I tend to dive into the comfort of books, and that's definitely been the case. The Rufous and Calliope hummingbirds have arrived on their migration back South, so we have feeder overload and wars every day between 4 different hummingbird species. It's a small joy to watch them zoom around the house. Where are you finding small joys these days?
Curiosities
- Whose Known Rule of Warfare - Is an undistinguished destruction of all ages (An Irritable Métis) We are "expected" to self-rescue, but that's not a realistic future for anyone to thrive in. We've been thinking a lot about community lately - always in some respects. This slogan just makes me sad and activated simultaneously.
- Fortunately we are not experiencing the epic bad air quality conditions that much of the US is, but it's a good reminder that everyone should know how to build a Corsi-Rosenthal box air filter. I'm about to build one for my studio, because it gets a bit musty smelling after it rains.
- Jerry's Map I love a brilliant obsessive art project.
- Coffee is under threat: how scientists are fighting to save it from extinction (Nature)
- Let AI Burn (Where's Your Ed At?) The AI burn is coming, for sure. The funny money that it is built on is sure to collapse. Also, F'elon's SpaceX stock is tanking as I expected. Bye...
Consuming
Books:
Currently Reading: Us Against You by Fredrik Backman and Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Recently Finished Micro Reviews:
On the Calculation of Volume Book 1 by Solvej Balle
Tara relives the 18th of November for one year. The book starts in Paris where Tara is on a trip to deal/buy rare books. She owns the book business with her husband Thomas who is back in their home in rural France. Tara starts her time-loop in Paris, but moves back home to be closer to her husband, and to enlist his help to figure out the parameters of her loop. The days are wonderfully written with extraordinary detail of the ordinary. But it is Tara’s relative unimaginativeness living the loop where problems with the book arise. Will she escape?
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
I DNF’d this book. There are certain authors who write in a certain style that feels like fingernails on chalkboard to me. Did not care for the characters, the storyline while interesting is a little too close to current dystopia, and his funny is not my funny. Maybe I’ll return to this later, but now. Not so much.
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
AI takes over and attempts to assimilate all remaining tech after causing the extinction of the human race. The bots left behind are fighting against their own personal extinction in the face of this very Borg like AI. Brittle is one such bot who carves out “her” existence scavenging parts to trade and upgrade when parts start to fail. She meets a variety of bots to help her along the way in the desert-like former U.S. Midwest. Raises interesting questions around what it means to be human or not-human. How do robots think and are they even safe from AI?
TV/Movies: The American Buffalo (PBS) - a Ken Burns in depth examination of the near extinction and resurgence of Buffalo in the US. The first episode is horribly depressing. The series raises some important questions about what makes/why Americans do the things they do.
Music: RIP Jennifer Finch
https://youtu.be/ifyq_OFuxOI?si=f5MVFtkcrzDceR4Y