Occasional Weeknote #5

Weeknote #5, staying alive was no jive.

Some Links Worth Sharing

• Facebook is asking to use Meta AI on photos in your camera roll you haven’t yet shared - Come on. GTFO, Meta.
• Oliver Burkeman: “Acting because you don’t have to” - “… there exists another, very different sort of productive action: the kind you take not because you feel you have to, in order to feel OK, but precisely because you understand that you don’t have to – because you already feel basically OK about yourself, so now of course you want to take action, because action is how you express your enjoyment in being alive, being good at a few things, and being able to use your talents to make some kind of difference in the world, alongside other people.”
• Bears Will Be Boys - The Pudding’s data analysis of animal gender in children’s books.
• The Antilibrary - “a collection of books that are owned but have not yet been read” (via Robin Sloan)
• The Wet History of Media in the Bathroom
• Probe lenses and focus stacking: the secrets to incredible photos taken inside instruments
• The hunt for Marie Curie’s radioactive fingerprints in Paris

(Those last three links came from the enjoyable Curious About Everything newsletter.)

Media Notes

• I finished reading Natsume Sōseki’s Kusamakura (loved it) and Nam Le’s 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem. I started a novelization of Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday as well as Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World.
• Sleeping with Celebrities: One Thousand Sodas with Chris Gethar is an episode of a podcast meant to put you to sleep, but it’s actually way too interesting for that. Or maybe it’s just me that classifies someone nerding out about regional sodas as edge-of-your-seat listening.
• Some good videos
  • Beau Miles is raising money to plant a forest worth of trees. You just need to watch his video to contribute.
  • Mystery Benches Popping Up in the Bay Area
  • Painfully Awkward Interview With Psychic Tarot Reader - I’ve been rediscovering the joy that is the Found Footage Fest channel.
  • Nutrition: The All-American Meal - RiffTrax doing their thing with this great 70s promo video.
•  Music recs
  • The Blassics - Much of this Finnish band’s stuff is funky, but I also really dig the more post-contemporary jazz flavor of Odd Jazz Vol 1.
  • Wachiwara - Recommended to me by Ryder. Digging this modern cumbia quite a bit.
  • La Banda Chuska - Some of their tracks have definite cumbia influence, but they’re pretty hodge-podgy (in a good way)… psych/surf rock, latin, etc. I like ‘em.
  • Point of Departure: March 10, 1996 - Just uploaded this recording I made of the late night jazz show on Temple Public Radio when I was a sophomore in college. Host Ludwig Van Trikt passed away unexpectedly this week and he was very influential to me in terms of how I viewed jazz thanks to episodes like this one. He loved the music and it showed. Dig the interview with Max Roach! (I interviewed Ludwig for my short-lived podcast back in 2014.)

Site(s) Notes

• Added a review of one of my favorite under-appreciated hip-hop albums of all time, Raheem’s The Invincible. I have completed four reviews of my 100 (well, 98) favorite albums so far.
• I got started on an old favorite: a blogroll.

Life Notes

It’s been relatively quiet around these parts. The new cat is doing well, though he bit my eye (!) yesterday, so he still has plenty of that demonic kitten left in him. Weather’s been too humid and hot… it’ll be autumn soon, right?