View from the lunch table
Status:
Chum Antonio came over for a long overdue visit today. We became good friends about 20 years ago when I was realising I might be an artist and he, along with the redoubtable Nikki Pugh, gave me a model of artistic practice I could apply my techy nerdery to, because Ant and Nikki are, as well as being great artists, nerdy as fuck.
Co-incidentally Fi had taken great-neph M to check out the new train line because he too is a massive nerd and I was really pleased he got to meet Ant. I feel it’s my duty to expose M to weirdos who are living the weird life as best they can, so he can see that being on the spectrum isn’t just a problem to be managed like it seems to be at school. The best bit was when Ant got out his bag of USB adaptors which he carries everywhere and M was entranced.
Ant got his ADHD diagnosis a few years back, surprising nobody, and I was a little wary about him visiting as his verbosity could be exhausting. But I just sat back and let it wash over me and it was hugely enjoyable, like a big verbal hug, and when we did get into proper discussions that could trigger my brain fog I set a timer and took breaks. It all worked swimmingly.
Reading:
- Laura Snapes on West End Girls — Fantastic piece of writing from 2020.
- Why NASA sent a 10-Year-Old Nikon D5 DSLR to space. — short answer, it has really good low-light capabilities and is therefore the best camera for the job. Nice titbit that the Earth in shadow photo that’s been posted everywhere was shot at ISO 51,200.
- ‘For leftist Jews, the Bund is a model’: the radical history behind one of Europe’s biggest socialist movements — Lovely to see Molly Crabapple’s new book getting a decent amount of attention.
- OpenAI bought a livestream no one watches — Your weekly Garbage Day dispatch from the bad side of the internet.
Music:
- Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith — The track Thoughts of the Future caught my ear while listening to Night Tracks (in fact that whole programme was full of stuff I intend to follow up on) so I went hunting for more. Her recent full album Gush is more poppy and vocal, which is not a bad thing (paging Julia…) but I’d like more of the Terry Wiley-esque stuff. Will keep digging through her back catalogue — I like the sound of an album called Useful Trees!
Books on the go:
🎧 Finding Albion by Zakia Sewell [######----] 62%
📖 Stone Junction by Jim Dodge [#######---] 76% (+14)