status
Memorial Day and Platinum Jubilee Day fucking up my week and plans. I have to move fast on a couple of work things. Planning to write something about my free weekly newsletter and its move to Buttondown, but that will have to wait. Thirteen-hour work day.
Top headline: Solar Orbiter’s pictures of the sun are every bit as dramatic as you were hoping
Listening:
It is the Japanese microseason of The Safflowers Bloom.
Status: rain
On deck: I have someone’s entire outline to process and do notes on before I can write up full versions of the two ideas I landed over the weekend.
Listening:
Still to do: I get most of my books through the Kindle Daily Deal and this is my reminder to eventually look at today’s. Process and clean up the boards, clear email, figure out the week’s specific goals, do a pass at removing some more apps from the phone.
In the Japanese microseason calendar, we are in Silkworms feast on mulberry leaves.
Just arrived: THE YEAR UNDER THE MACHINE, Peter Danielsson.
Thunderstorms were booming over the Delta all night. No time for news today: I have emails to write and stories to fix and ideas to test. And also finish writing Sunday’s edition of the newsletter.
Listening: Fimbul Radio
Also reading: THE FOGHORN’S LAMENT, Jennifer Lucy Allan:
Who had decided that this terrible horn was a good idea? Where did such an obscene machine come from? Where could I hear it again?
Listening:
Failing at doing this today. Nothing especially intriguing in my RSS reader, and I’ve skipped the pages because I have a story idea I want to pursue. Also, it’s cold and grey and my muscles are complaining.
Screenshot from THE IMAGE BOOK, dir. Jean-Luc Godard, indicating that I am heavy into research right now.
Listening:
My free weekly newsletter goes out on Sunday. It talks about work and books and music and life in a different way to the posts here on LTD.
It’s a Bank Holiday here today, I’m told. I’m in the office anyway. The above is a fair summation of the thinking and processing I have to do today.
Listening:
Not enough time for all the things this morning. It’s go time over here.
Currently listening:
Currently reading: INVISIBLE CITIES, Italo Calvino (UK) (US)
Link of the morning: Virgil Finlay’s magazine illustrations.
STATUS: I have a lot of complex stuff to get done today, so this is mostly a “don’t break the chain” post.
Listening:
Reading: Primeval and Other Times, Olga Tokarczuk trans Antonia Lloyd-Jones (UK) (US):
Man is a stupid creature who has to learn. So he tacks knowledge onto himself, he gathers it like a bee, gaining more and more of it, putting it to use and processing it. But the thing inside that is “stupid” and needs learning doesn’t change.
Headline: Tanis: Fossil of dinosaur killed in asteroid strike found, scientists claim
Terrible night’s sleep, missed the morning entirely, got to get straight into work and thinking.
Currently reading: THE ANTHOLOGY OF BABEL, ed. Ed Simon
Currently listening:
Coveting: this record.
Woke up to a text telling me that Will Smith smacked Chris Rock and then won an Oscar. First news story I opened on the desktop was the death of Philip Jeck. I feel like today is going to be weird, so I’m going to take it slowly and quietly, and listen to some of this.
