Kicking myself because I just missed being able to buy/download this collection from Nyege Nyege (now it is 666 Euros to buy and it can’t be streamed.)
But I found a decent mixtape based on the collection on Soundcloud.
Started reading The Selected Works of Audre Lorde last night. Wow.
Making some little moves again on my website in prep to possibly come out of social media retirement.
Been like a year - remains to be seen whether I can finally dissuade myself from getting distracted, disheartened, disinterested, dispirited, or otherwise discouraged.
I watched Born in Flames (1983), written, directed, and edited by Lizzie Borden.
I watched the movie Soul last night, and I loved it.
Here are some of the things I’m working on and thinking about now…
Did I somehow call forth the winds and fires by listening to this album so fervently last week?
I was just excited about fall, and autumnal black metal…
For nearly the past two months I’ve been tracking all my reading updates just in a OneNote page. Transferring it here for transparency/accountability, or just some form of conspicuousness. Think I’m about to go onto Goodreads and log all of this, get caught up, be a social human of some sort, &c. Maybe I’ll post specific things about some of these books on here as well if I have time and inclination.
My kids and I have been casually talking about turning our yard into an orchard, and re-reading this book in my backyard today inspires me to get completely serious about it. Impossible to read these poems and not want to start growing stuff.
Arrangement by William Whiting. Photo by me.
I had a dream that I listened to this song on a different streaming platform and the guitar solos were missing from the track. I feverishly scoured the internet trying to find the original version with the guitar solos and figure out what was happening. Tabs kept closing on me and websites glitched into oblivion. I wasn’t sure if the streaming platform or record label had demanded their removal, or if she had somehow become ashamed of them and self-censored, or if it was the Mandela effect, or some other kind of weird conspiracy, but I was going to somehow get to the bottom of this cosmic scandal against musicianship and bring the lost guitar solos back to light.
The next day I had to listen to the song several times on different platforms just to be reassured that the guitar solos had not actually disappeared, but still remained on the track in their fulness.
It’s actually kind of inspiring how bad this film is.
I feel like every moment of my life going forward could be another scene of this film.
I think she might be the most hilarious actor I’ve ever watched.
Exceeded my expectations, and I can’t remember the last time a new album from an artist I already liked has done that. There is a warmth here that I haven’t heard in any of his work up until now. This is the electro psychedelic yacht rock I’ve been prepared for my entire life without realizing, every single track an absolute adult contemporary jam.
Don’t know much about this guy but I came across a couple of his guest spots and singles, most notably “Still Sun” and “God’s Own Children,” last fall, and have been anticipating hearing more of his Afrobeat/Afropop/electronic/soul/hip hop/? music ever since. This EP collects those great singles along with some new tracks, all of it extremely solid.
I posted a review of The Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip-Hop, by Carole Boston Weatherford and Frank Morrison, on Goodreads, and I’m expanding on it slightly below.
I was excited about this book and assumed I would love it because of the subject matter, but I guess I’m a little disappointed and feel the need to talk about it.
Read: February 12, 2020
I want to give this all the awards. It probably should have gotten even more awards than it did.
(A little ashamed to admit that I’m just finally getting around to this, but I’m repenting of my unreading ways and doing what I can do now. And despite my claims to keep track of all my reading here in 2020, I’m back on Goodreads as well, I guess…)
Started Reading: January 16, 2020
Started Reading: January 4ish, 2020
Started Reading: January 10, 2020
Finished Reading: January 11, 2020
I used to be meticulous about tracking even my most minute reading updates on Goodreads1, but I’ve fallen off in the past few months, and I’m not entirely sure why.2
In the meantime while I try to figure that out, I’ve decided to post random3 updates4 about my reading on Twitter and also to experiment with creating a new thread/series here on this website that will serve as a running log of my reading life.
This review may contain spoilers.
Can’t stop thinking about ghosts in the basement and cockroaches scurrying under the furniture. And how maybe children’s fears should be taken seriously. This is a metaphoric spoiler.
Kids singing rhymes
Dogs barking
Car ignitions turning over but failing to start
This bitter earth
Scuffling and throwing rocks
An ice cream truck on the next street over
That’s America to me
The other day at work I was going through some new MARC records for a school and came across this book they had purchased, and it covers the precise topics that I’ve been meaning to learn more about since a dog came into my life.
Thanks.
I forgot to observe Life Day several days ago, but I’ll observe it today on the Internet and on my website. I did share Life Day with my kids (just about 7 minutes worth) soon after when I had come to myself and realigned my priorities. They kind of loved it, and kind of thought it was terrible, which is just as it should be.
(This embed is queued to start at the key celebration of life moment at the closing of the special, so have no fear in pressing the play button.)
I forced the kids to listen to my Sung Tongs vinyl today while they made snowflakes and swung around.
I’m retconning my website. I might as well be transparent about it. I feel like my lack of consistently sharing anything out from this site to the wider Internet*, along with the fact that it is my little corner of the Internet and I can do whatever I want with it (and that’s kind of the whole point) gives me the freedom to add, change, shuffle, and randomly publish new posts as though they were several months backdated, as well resurrect content from my old zombie websites, &c.
This site, https://jdwhiting.com, shall become the center of a new and expanded JdwhitingDotCom/Froz-T-Freez Drive-In Internetical** Multiverse. Will this center be a singularity? A black hole? I don’t know yet, it remains to be seen. It’s a bizarre exercise done in darkness, but nevertheless it is going to be an ongoing aspect of this project since I plan to use this site as my personal all-inclusive internet archive.
Here are some of the things I’m working on and thinking about now…
So years ago I remember coming across a thing called Digital Writing Month from some educator-writer type people I followed on twitter, and when seeing the usual pre-November hype for NaNoWriMo (which I always like the idea of but don’t actually want to do) I suddenly remembered it and thought I might try it this year, because it kind of fits with the project of this site.
But I guess it’s not really a thing anymore.
It is currently 4 AM and I am awake for some reason, and I just heard a noise downstairs of unclear origin.
Maybe I shouldn’t have watched this with my 4 month old puppy around. Was that a mistake? Will she live deliciously now? Will she grow up and randomly kill us all one morning like that damn goat?
If I had a ‘Favorite Albums of 2019’ list I’d be adding Big Thief’s new album Two Hands to that list.
I can’t think of a band that seems more devoted to the work right now than Big Thief. This is their second release this year, and it seems they’ve been touring and recording almost nonstop for several years now.
I’ve decided that I’m just going to start sharing more of my demos, drafts, fragments, and improvisations, so they are out in the world before they become irrelevant, instead of languishing half-finished in my notebooks as I wait for some mythical moment when I will have endless time and energy to create the thorough, perfect thing.
I wanted to write a full essay that thoroughly explores my thoughts about this album, Mesita’s Twitter song project, and how it all is actually impacting my views on life, art, &c., but since I already have notebooks and drives and clouds half-filled half-empty with so many other such good intentions that I never follow through on, I’m just going to post this now, and state that I think that Mesita’s You Are Beautiful is pretty much one of the most honest pieces of art I have ever encountered.
I’m reading Weird Little Robots by Carolyn Crimi and Corinna Luyken to my kids right now, and so far it feels kind of like if Kate Dicamillo had collaborated with Stephen Spielberg on one of his 80s Amblin projects. In other words, I’m enjoying it. And my kids like it, too.
Mesita made me a 5-second song on twitter. I love that he does this and that I finally got the guts to ask for one, and he did it.
@jdwhiting pic.twitter.com/6I5rb9aZVB
— 小さいテーブル (@mesitamusic) September 29, 2019
My daughter really wanted to be immortalized as a ghostly figure on google maps so I decided to make this photosphere public. See also: our deconstructed puppy’s detached floating tail.
“House” by KAINA. Beautiful, timely song opening a killer new album.
I’ve now watched every single item in this collection of films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul at least once, and I’m getting pretty obsessed.
Ever do that thing where you start building a new website, and even write and publish a few things on the website, but never tell anyone about the website or link to the things on the website?
A few days into March I decided that, for the remainder of the month, I would only listen to music created by women. We’re a week into July now and I haven’t gone back yet.
My 8 most-listened-to musical artists of the last 30 days (last.fm profile screenshot)
Some of the things I’m working on and thinking about these days…
I reviewed this book last week, and in doing so made some serious mistakes, which I’m hoping to learn from going forward.
Think I’m going to try writing a poem every day in April.
Last night I posted a grumpy response tweet about my wild hope that Facebook and Instagram would just stay broken forever.
Then I thought that maybe that was a little too mean, and I deleted it.
Some of the things I’m working on and thinking about these days…
I’m chairing the Children’s Fiction Committee for the Beehive Book Awards. Our committee recently finalized the list of nominees for the 2020 awards, and I’m preparing to announce and booktalk those nominees, along with some of my colleagues from the Children’s Literature Association of Utah, during a breakout session of the Utah Educational Library Media Association Conference on March 8.
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