Status:
Felt OK this morning so we joined my sister and our mum’s old friend at the allotment for tea, and saw loads of other friends there and on the way (including Roo who is dogsitting a huge friendly rottweiller who was a delight to meet). And then in the afternoon great-neph M hung out with me in the garden while I lay in the hammock trying to photograph birds. Had one success (above).
M had a go with the Nikon and seemed to not hate it – I think he might respect it as a piece of technology with loads of buttons and dials. I offered to lend him my old Nikon if he was interested and he didn’t say no. He’s very demand resistant so you just have to leave things open for him and let him come to them on his own terms, but it’d be fun if he did get into photography when he’s a bit older.
And then I had done plenty so had a nap. Tomorrow will definitely be a recovery day and then I’ll take stock on what was my first full rest week.
Overnight listening:
- Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by David Graeber - Finished this, and I’m not really sure it was worth it for me. I think the problem is Graeber is a proper anthropologist who does the work and I got a bit lost in the granular details while waiting for the big ideas. It’s good to know the work was done but I was satisfied with just the introduction and the conclusion. On the plus side, the detailing of the sociopolitical nuances of the various Malagasy people did help me get to sleep a few times.
Reading:
- We are living in a period of political anti-intellectualism. But in pop culture, clever is the new cool - While I tend to avoid anything about fashion and trends, because I have no interest in or knowledge of such things, I do have a soft spot for Jess Cartner-Morley’s writing, so I enjoyed this article in a slightly perverse way. Once you get past the “famous people are reading books in the same way they wear clothes” stuff there’s some interesting observations about how intellectualism intersects with culture. I’d say it’s always been thus and the book trade is no less superficial than the fashion biz, in its ways. And a young person reading a book has always been sexy.
- John Allison: Easy vs Hard - Delighted to see John has made his occasional musings on his cartoonist craft open to all.
- God is a comedian - “Three weeks into the Iran war, reality has passed through the looking glass, out the other side, and is now selling tickets to the gift shop. What follows is not satire. Satire requires exaggeration, and you cannot exaggerate something that is already operating at maximum absurdity. This is simply the news."
- Sentiers 395: Habermas and his coffeehouses ⊗ The case for radical solar optimism - Issues of Sentiers seem to be swinging like a pendulum for me right now. Last week I had zero interest in anything Patrick posted, this week it was like my own personal fanzine. And that’s cool. I enjoyed the coffeehouse stuff (I remember Ben Hammersley making this analogy with blogging around 2002, back in his longhair frock-coat days) and I always like a good solar story. Have lined up a couple of other links for reading later in the week.
- School book banning escalates in the UK as Greater Manchester secondary school censors scores of books - one for the “what right wing fuckers do in the US, they will eventually try here” files. That said, the mention of Greater Manchester reminded me of James Anderton’s reign of terror in the 80s, so maybe it’s home grown rot.
Watching:
- My Favorite Twilight Knockoff (1:40:32) - Jenny Nicholson is the OG long-form video essayist for me, talking at great length about subjects which I never thought I’d be interested in, in a manner which holds my attention to the end. I love how she just pops up every year or so with a video in exactly the same style and format, like nothing has changed.