justing.net

Week Notes No. 39: Media et al

By Justin G. on 25JAN22WED

The usual tour of all the things this week.

Another format change: the Appetites (recipes / food) section will move to it’s own post in Culinaria on Thursdays.

Media

1. Books
   • Finished Translation State by Ann Leckie. I appreciated the pronoun ambiguity in the end.
   • Making a go at Sederis’s Theft by Finding. I pity this guy’s earlier years. It sounds awful. People were barbarians, and uncivilized back then; evidence suggests that they aren’t much improved, just different. The surprise is that there are a number of things that I didn’t think would exist in that bygone era: bean-burger mix (p 55), food deserts (p 63), and Krispy-Kreme (p 51). “History” is weird.
   • Also staring on City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer. Just what is happening here. I mean the book as an object. It appears that half of the rather thick book is the main text. And the other half is appendices and collages and a lengthy section of bibliography? If I go read the wikipedia article to get the production notes, will there be significant spoilers? I hope something happens soon.
2. YouTube
   • Steve Hall’s Death Valley Discoveries series.
3. Music
   • Marconi Union Weightless, 10 hrs version (slyt) is good. Via Kottke.
   • Martin Stürtzer Ambient Liveset, Home Concert 68.
   • Futurescapes: Galactic is good, Juniper is ok, and Obelisk is fine. Ananta is good. Some other ones weren’t as relaxing as advertised.
   • The Royksopp Profound Mysteries continue to be excellent. I should make a list of “good for reading”.
   • I made a good for reading playlist. You’re welcome!
   • OK Go has a new music video? Hard to believe these fellas have been doing this for 20 years. I’m really not sure how they pulled off all this editing and filming and coordinating of these phones. There must be an app for that. More
4. Television
   • Continue with Brooklyn 99 rewatch. Gawd this show is funny.
5. Movies
   • The Dark Tower. B. Had potential, but something missing there.

Info

1. Words
   • Bourse: stock exchange in non-english speaking country. Via The Economist.
   • You know what’s a more intense version of penny-pincher? penny-fucker.
2. Links
   • The misinformation sphere is about to get a lot more intense.
   • The algorithm, it intensifies.
   • Some 2000 year old wine was discovered a few years ago in Spain, and that’s pretty cool.
   • New Glenn’s cool rockets.
   • The Instagram video of the Starship Stage 2 very rapid unplanned disassembly.
   • Did these two coordinate today?
   • Two moon missions launched this week. The Blue Ghost Lander is a NASA commercial contract to deliver instruments to the surface. The second lander is ispace’s Resilience mission, and it’s the second commercial attempt after an earlier failure.
   • If you’re in the low-, rarely-, or no-alcohol set like I am, The Oldster has a good edition on the topic. I’ve been meandering my way through all the mocktails and other flavored waters in the various grocery stores lately. As I mentioned the other day, it’s a glorious time to be exploring this stuff. Pity that the IRL places are missing the boat.
3. Quotes

   • This town is a crap circus.
     Brooklyn 99 S4E2. Or maybe it was E1.

   • Los Angeles, every day, hot and sunny, today, hot and sunny, tomorrow, hot and, for the rest of the… hot and sunny, every single day, hot and sunny. And they love it. ‘Isn’t great, every day, hot and sunny?’ What are you, a @$%^& lizard?
     Bill Hicks

   • …questions are the drive that make us who we are.
     Kyle Maclachlan on David Lynch.

   • Anyone who doesn’t understand the old gods has never looked up at the sky.
     Walknotes

To Reply: Email me about your media intake.