notebook / @tww

Links, 16mar2021

Israeli archaeologists discover new Dead Sea Scrolls for first time in 60 years, via The Washington Post.

Listen to Wikipedia: A Web Site That Turns Every Wikipedia Edit Into Ambient Music in Real Time, via Open Culture.

High-schooler and her mother hacked school records to steal homecoming queen election, police say, via The Washington Post.

A poignant eulogy to both: My father was famous as John le Carré. My mother was his crucial, covert collaborator, via The Guardian.


In which The Morkie continues to come out of the morning’s anesthesia.


Side effect status update: overall humanity remains restored, though blood sugar remains batshit insane. Anticipating another few days of said insanity while my immune system calms down.


Guard dog.


I’m always amazed by my dogs' talent in waiting until the exact moment I sit down and let myself get comfortable to broadcast their demands to go outside.


Links, 15mar2021

The filibuster is an oddity that harms American democracy, via The Economist.

Darwyn Cooke’s widow asks DC not to use her husband’s work in Batman NFT crypto art, via Newsarama.

Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes' trial could be delayed by pregnancy, via The Guardian.

Zack Snyder’s Rough and Tumble Ride With ‘Justice League’, via The New York Times.

Evoking Fire and Air, Intricate Paper Masks by Artist Patrick Cabral Honor Filipino Culture, via Colossal.

Brian Eno Explains the Origins of Ambient Music, via Open Culture.


Monday.


Spike Lee’s DA 5 BLOODS remains, as it has since I first saw it, my favorite film of last year.


Side effect update: humanity fully restored.


Side effect update: feeling remarkably better, 70% human. Fingers crossed that I’m on the other side of the worst of it.


Stealth mode.


Reading:


Why, hello, side effects. I see we’re going for the “muscles feeling like how a metal ball bat against a metal pole sounds” varietal. Still, doing far better than when I woke up - and the long-term benefits (and science!) leave the alternative suck in the dust.


Watching: RED DESERT (1964), dir. Michelangelo Antonioni.


Saturday.


Vaccine received. Palpable sense of relief = significant.


Links, 12mar2021

What is an NFT, and how did an artist called Beeple sell one for $69 million at Christie’s?, via The Washington Post.

LEAK: DC Comics To Creators “We Have Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) Plans”, via Bleeding Cool.

10,000 Letters Dangle from the Ceiling in an Immersive Installation by Artist Chiharu Shiota, via Colossal.

First Pill for COVID-19 Could Be Ready by Year’s End, via Medscape.

Revealed: Metakovan, pseudonymous founder of ‘crypto-exclusive fund’ Metapurse, is the buyer of Beeple’s $69.3m NFT, via The Art Newspaper.



SitRep, 12mar2021

The morning of (early access): re/emergence0002 is now available for newsletter subscribers; next Wednesday, 17 March, for everyone.

Pitches for elsewhere on my mind. Just one problem: I have no ideas to pitch, not even the scintilla of one. I’d love to be published elsewhere again but I see where the aforementioned lack could present a problem.

T-minus one day to Johnson & Johnson jab.

P.S. Thanks for the advice re: my inability to skip.


Links, 11mar2021

Panda Express staff forced to strip at team-building seminar that seemed like ‘a cult initiation ritual,’ lawsuit says, via The Washington Post.

Twitter is working on a ‘big overhaul’ of TweetDeck, via The Verge.

Women Report Worse Side Effects After COVID Vaccines, via Medscape.

Iowa reporter acquitted in a trial that shocked press freedom advocates, via The Washington Post.

Repetitive, Mandala-Like Paintings by Yuri Shimojo Remembers the Victims of March 11, via Spoon & Tamago.

6 Questions Officials Still Haven’t Answered After Weeks of Hearings on the Capitol Attack, via ProPublica.

Queen and David Bowie recorded Cream covers in Under Pressure sessions, via The Guardian.


In other news, I revealed my dark secret to my wife: I can’t skip. My working theory is that I’m such a natural curmudgeon that any demonstration of happiness requiring a modicum of coordination is beyond me.


Smartest move I’ve made this week (probably the only one) was to move my second workblock back to after lunch, after the day’s run. Understanding how important that post-run clarity is to The Work - and why I get so irate if I have to sacrifice that chunk.


Reading:


EarBliss, 11mar2021: KVAL, by Henrik Meierkord.


SitRep, 11mar2021

Waiting, as usual, for The Morkie to decide that she’s ready to come inside; this, after waiting until I had sat down to potentially scribble something (this, in fact) before deciding that she needed to venture out. This is the way.

Awful night of sleep, dreams of some form of brain surgery but that wasn’t the bad part: the bad part was people constantly coming to visit me when all I wanted was to be left alone. Apparently this undetermined procedure didn’t make me more sociable. Go figure.

Efforts being made to improve my handwriting. Working to not connect my block capitals as I’ve done for decades in my bastardized hybrid of cursive and all-caps. Closing the tops of letters, all that. Wouldn’t it be lovely if my handwritten notes were useful five minutes after I wrote them?

The Morkie calls.