Wednesday, February 14, 2024 →
The (very decorated) author (his first novel) spent time on the faculty in my Big Ten hometown. I already recognize some of the side characters. 👀 Currently reading: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar 📚
Microposts
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 →
Escapist and breezy. Finished reading: Seven Days in June by Tia Williams 📚
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 →
This smart graphic novel zooms in and out on engineered systems happening all around us: electricity, water, the internet. Fascinating and clever. Currently reading: Hidden Systems by Dan Nott 📚
I’m divorcing my Apple Watch because I’m in love with my Oura ring. I need fewer CTAs and notifications in my life, and more reminders to prioritize sleep and mindfulness. Plus, you can pay for one with your HSA.
V proud of myself because, despite going to the quilt store yesterday and getting everything BUT what I went there for, I found enough batting scraps to put together a quilt sandwich and began hand quilting it last night. She’s going to be cute.
Nicki does party songs, Megan does praxis.
The latest You’re Wrong About podcast about the pro-life movement is an excellent primer for anyone who knows a little but doesn’t feel like an expert. Covers the history of the movement, where they came from ideologically, how they organize and why it’s effective. yourewrongabout.com
Finished reading: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 📚
I liked this one mostly because it asks nothing of the reader, save for enduring the completely unnecessary side story about the biographer.
I’m looking for some lightness in my reading list for the next couple of months. Found this list of funniest novels from the Booker library: thebookerprizes.com/the-booke…
Devastating, bleak, relentless.
Finished reading: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan 📚
❄️ big, fat snowflakes ❄️
Currently reading: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan 📚
Dystopian, but not so far away.
First real snow today.
🍿 Saltburn, baby.
I am enjoying the Twitter/Tumblr feel of micro.blog and feel like I could settle in here. But it would be cooler if there was a quick reference for markdown near the input field to better format our posts.
The local story is ripe with corruption. Indiana likes to spin up private “growth” orgs to bypass legislation, after a long history of treating the state’s water resources like something between a highway and a sewer. Indiana’s Plan to Pipe In Groundwater for Microchip-Making Draws Fire
“The able and the disabled aren’t two different kinds of people but the same people at different times.” My Unraveling, by Tom Scocca for NYMag
The trailer for the next Mad Max movie, “Furiosa,” is out now: www.youtube.com/watch 🍿
Finished reading: The Forgotten Girls by Monica Potts 📚
Potts brings her reporting background to this memoir about coming of age in Arkansas, one of the poorest, reddest states, with lengthy explorations of the economic and social policies that create conditions in which women struggle to thrive. I really enjoyed this read for so many reasons, and was pleased that Potts’ voice is empathetic, smart and searching. Very recommended.
I’m v excited about the PJ Harvey Tiny Desk concert out today. 🎵
PJ Harvey is one of my favorite musicians because she is a weirdo and an artist in the same vein as a Kate Bush, or even a Bob Dylan, who concentrates on mythology, atmosphere, artistry and sense of place. For a lot of my life, my fav album was “Rid of Me.” It was present in a lot of formative moments as a kid and still resonates for me as an adult, despite some of its flourishes not aging well. As an adult, “Let England Shake” genuinely moved me. She draws on music and poetry traditions to explore what it means for England to be an empire, sitting atop a throne of bones and bloodshed. It’s ambitious and dark and sounds incredible, in part thanks to her use of the autoharp (yes, seriously).
She’s also among the artists who made a hard left in my musical interests as a kid, when she and John Parish released “Dance Hall at Louse Point.” This album was called career suicide when it came out because it is so atonal and avant garde. As an album, listening from beginning to end, it’s delightfully sinister. It could be a sister or a cousin album to Nick Cave’s “Murder Ballads.”
Need a brilliant bauble for the holidays? How about a beautiful box of blooming instant miso soup bombs? www.brooklynmisomaru.com/shop/p/mi…
Someone reminded me of the story of Charlie the goat, who played Black Philip in “The Witch,” and had two modes: sleeping or asshole. Method actor or brilliant casting? www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gene…
🚨 Cat in a basket 🚨 🐱
This is a real life nightmare. Nobody deserves to live this way, nobody deserves to die this way. www.npr.org/sections/…
For the old heads, “No Alternative,” the 1993 AIDS benefit compilation album, turns 30 today. www.stereogum.com/1541231/n…
Made the mistake of telling my family I’ve had “Like a Rock” in my head all day, and now my family is streaming Bob Seger videos and old Chevy commercials.
“More than one-fifth of college students are parents, and about one-tenth are single mothers.” www.nytimes.com/2023/10/2…
Here are some pictures of my cat sleeping like a weirdo. 🐱
My biggest complaint about the slow, excruciating car crash of Twitter/X is that all of my journalist friends moved to Bsky and all my geek friends moved to Mastodon.
One of the stranger parts of watching Golden Bachelor, which otherwise mimics the shiny gloss of the rest of the franchise, is how much they openly discuss death, grief and dying. www.nytimes.com/2023/10/2…