Status:
The big news today is hedgehog videos. The footage from Monday night was exciting but the footage from last night was astonishing! Our two hogs had a proper face-off at 4am with whole minutes of grunting, circling and head-tilting. All of which must mean something, though even my personal hedgehog expert (hi Roo) was at as loss as to exactly what.
Turn your volume up and watch the shit out of this.
In more personal news I had my monthly occupational therapy session and it was pretty positive. I went though how I’ve approached various challenges over the last few weeks and I’m generally doing things right, and when I’m not I’m interpreting my body and mind’s responses in a good way. Still very low down on the recovery ladder but making progress.
Reading:
- The Red Hand Files #364 — Reassuring to know Nick Cave listens to podcasts like I do. “This podcast generally amounts to one person who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, talking to another person who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, about something I know absolutely nothing about, and this triumvirate of stupidity generally lulls me into some approximation of sleep."
- Save For Web claws — Being the shape your hand has to make in order to press all the keys needed to invoke this in Photoshop. My daily version of this is Paste & Match Style which requires the finger jujitsu of ⌥⇧⌘V but it’s worth it because who ever wants to not do that?
- Impatience: killer of governments — Was hoping for a “fear is the mind-killer” reference but will settle for a clear headed rant. Sidebar: has been rather disconcerting today to see references to “allies of Wes Streeting”, implying those people actually exist. Brrrr.
- Safe and cozy in your doomsday bunker — Garbage Day on the Bluesky Bubble. I have thoughts about this but no headspace for a full ramble tonight. In short, I think mainstream culture (which is what Xitter is, sadly) has always been broadly toxic in this way and any space you can carve out away from it should be celebrated, not fretted over for not winning some unwinnable war, because that’s where you can plan and build and survive. Good on BlueSky for being irrelevant. Keep it up.
Looking:
- Ryan McGinley’s photography — An astonishing body of work I’d not come across before. Reminds me in places of Nan Goldin. Cited in Marisol Mendez’s best photograph as “nudes … where the bodies didn’t feel sexual, it seemed so rebellious to me. Being naked is being oneself. It doesn’t necessarily have to be sexual, or allude to desire. It can just be the comfort of being in your own skin." And nice to discover he did a Sigur Ross album cover that I’ve always liked.
Watching:
- Shell as ready-made globular aerophone (1:08) — Oh Sam, never change.
- A Song for Eurotrash (1998) (50:54) — What you have to remember when watching this is we were all very very drunk at the time.
- I took Not Just Bikes cycling in London (41:05) — When I lived in central London circa 2001-3 I walked everywhere but even so it’s fascinating to see how the traffic has changed in 25 years.