a stream

I admit, I absolutely thought this was a graphic novel that I was going to blaze through in an hour, until the moment I opened it the other night and found almost 400 pages of un-illustrated, small-font text. Started reading it anyway.

At this point I’m still only about 5-10% hopeful that it will have anything to do with My Bloody Valentine’s classic shoegaze album.

Standalone post link: Reading Loveless

[Inaugural entry!]

A log of my full album or playlist music listens from the past week, with occasional notes and context. Does not include completely random shuffles, unless something worth commenting came up.

[Next week look for a “Links Last Week” log feature as well.]

Date | Album or Playlist | Artist or Curator

Sun.2022.06.25 | Black to the Future | Sons of Kemet

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: cleanup at the cabin

Sun.2022.06.25 | A Light for Attracting Attention | The Smile

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: cleanup at the cabin

Mon.2022.06.26 | The Joshua Tree | U2

Format/Source: Vinyl LP

Location/Context: home stereo

Notes: My kids have been watching Sing 2 a bunch and I noticed that songs from this album kept popping up in the show, so I got this out and made them listen to it. And then it got stuck in my head, and I kept re-listening throughout the week. This was, for me, pretty much the definitive, ultimate album when I was a kid and teenager. Haven’t listened in a while, but won’t lie, I still really like it.

Tue-Wed.2022.06.27-28 | [Full Shuffle of 5 Albums] Lost Souls * The Last Broadcast * Some Cities * Kingdom of Rust * The Universal Want | Doves

Format/Source: combination of CD rips and Apple Music on my phone

Location/Context: over headphones at work, then while driving

Wed.2022.06.28 | Pink Dolphins | Anteloper

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving

Thur-Fri.2022.06.29-30 | [Playlist] The “Reconstructed” Joshua Tree | U2

Format/Source: CD rips

Location/Context: working and driving

Notes: As a teenager I read some obscure mention that The Joshua Tree was originally intended to be a double album, but that the producers or label talked U2 out of it. There was a supposed tracklist that incorporated the b-sides where they were supposed to be if it had been a double LP. I was obsessed with this, and even purchased on ebay the JT-era CD singles so that I could get access to these tracks. (They later of course released deluxe editions with all the b-sides, and now I think you can just get them via streaming.) Listened to my playlist of this expanded album for old-time’s sake. I do still love “Walk to the Water” and “Deep in the Heart” - “Silver and Gold” and “The Sweetest Thing” showed up later in other projects, but it is fun to hear the original versions in their original context. [This should become a digital garden entry and I should research out any truth to this and share the supposed tracklist.]

Thur.2022.06.29 | Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You | Big Thief

Format/Source: Double Vinyl LP

Location/Context: home while doing dishes, etc.

Thur.2022.06.29 | Butterfly 3000 | King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: laptop headphones

Notes: I got a Gizzyverse newsletter and then wanted to listen to their music. Also wanted to purchase a bunch of it on vinyl, but didn’t pull the trigger on that - yet.

Fri.2022.07.01 | [Playlist] New Music Friday | NPR Music

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: laptop

Fri.2022.07.01 | [Playlist - Partial] Wildflower | Apple Music Indie

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: laptop

Sat.2022.07.02 | Barbarism | Katie Alice Greer

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving around

Notes: First listen - discovered from the NPR New Music Friday playlist above. Not sure what I think yet, but there will be more listens.

Sat.2022.07.02 | Crest | Bladee & Ecco2k

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: laptop headphones

Notes: listened while setting up the template and details for these new ‘Listens of Last Week’ pages.

Standalone post link: Listens Last Week (July 3, 2022)

I’ve explored a lot of alternatives, but I’m going to continue with posting bespoke reading updates here; I’m also going to try and get back to sharing updates on Goodreads again.

[Note: I originally wrote this on 2/21/2022, and found it in my notes yesterday, 7/1/2022, as I was working through updating my reading here and on Goodreads. Seemed relevant still to what I’m doing so I decided to post it now.]

Longer:

One of the things I’ve been trying to work through as far as how I want this website to function and how I want to participate in, or, more commonly these days, avoid various social media platforms, is how best to explore and share my reading life. I didn’t attend, but today lurked and poked around with interest on the notes and blog posts associated with the recent IndieWebCamp Pop-up on Personal Libraries. I always learn a lot when I start poking around on the websites of participants in the IndieWeb, and today was no exception. However, I did not find in the discussion or posts a viable alternative for Goodreads, at least not for my needs.

The key for me is that I’m already connected to many friends, colleagues, and, on occasion, even actual authors on Goodreads - it is one of the few social networks that I still participate in that actually kind-of works without distracting me too much from my original purpose. My original purpose when I’m on Goodreads is to explore what books these people I know are reading, or share my own reading with them, or find new books to read myself or purchase/share in my school library world. It’s not like twitter, where I log in at work to do a specific social media task and end up doomscrolling and angry about a bunch of different things that really have nothing to do with me. And in my experience there is not a lot of toxicity on Goodreads, at least compared to many other networks. (It does have its moments, though.)

There’s mainly just the philosophical problem that it is kind of a silo, and it is tied in with Amazon (though not as much or as well as it could be, to be honest). The fact that design-wise it is stuck in 2007 is maybe actually an asset these days?

At any rate, I’ve discovered nothing in the IndieWeb or decentralized offerings shared that I could ever hope to convince all or even a few of my contacts on Goodreads to adopt as an alternative to Goodreads. Even if there was something completely awesome I don’t know if I could do that; No one likes me that much to follow me to a whole new platform - it would have to sell itself.

So I’m going to post reading updates on my website so that I have them for myself, but I’m also going to continue to use Goodreads. I think I’m also going to continue to use Letterboxd for movies, and for now I’m continuing to scrobble all my listens to Last.fm. I can’t be a pure evangelist for the indieweb. For my website updates I may eventually figure out JSON or something to make them fancy or standardized, but for now I will just be typing things into markdown and html. That’s the origin and mode for a lot of what I do with this site, anyway.

Standalone post link: On Reading Updates

1. Tried Taqueria Los Lee for lunch today. +

   I’ve procrastinated actually trying this place for a year or two, so I’m lucky it still is open - the good, easy fast food taco place by my work closed down a couple of weeks ago, so I was finally driven to find a new option. I had gorditas with rice and beans and it was all very solid. I’ll be back for a burrito or tacos or something.

   I like their happy little website, too:

2. This interview with Alok Vaid-Menon was by far the best thing I’ve read/listened to/otherwise taken in this week. +

   Listened casually while eating my lunch - I’m going to need to listen again more carefully and unpack this, and then explore their work.

3. I came back to the office and climbed the stairs without limping or even using the handrails! +
   I was carrying an iced coffee. There was no pain, just a little stiffness and awkwardness - my knee is actually getting better, finally.

(This was a major lunch excursion - I’ve taken to eating boring cafeteria food or microwaved things at my desk most days.)

Standalone post link: Lunch Today

A man’s life should be constantly as fresh as this river. It should be the same channel, but a new water every instant…Most men have no inclination, no rapids, no cascades, but marshes, and alligators, and miasma instead.

– Henry David Thoreau, from “Monday,” A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (location 283-284 of 882)

Longer, with more context:

Undoubtedly, countless reforms are called for, because society is not animated, or instinct enough with life… All men are partially buried in the grave of custom, and of some we see only the crown of the head above ground. Better are the physically dead, for they more lively rot. Even virtue is no longer such if it be stagnant. A man’s life should be constantly as fresh as this river. It should be the same channel, but a new water every instant…Most men have no inclination, no rapids, no cascades, but marshes, and alligators, and miasma instead.

– Henry David Thoreau, from “Monday,” A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (location 283-284 of 882)

Standalone post link: Life as fresh as this river

Herein is the tragedy: that men doing outrage to their proper natures, even those called wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office of inferior and brutal ones. Hence come war and slavery in; and what else may not come in by this opening? But certainly there are modes by which a man may put bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion and neighbor.

– Henry David Thoreau, from “Monday,” A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (location 283 of 882)

Longer, with more context:

If, for instance, a man asserts the value of individual liberty over the merely political commonweal, his neighbor still tolerates him, that he who is living near him, sometimes even sustains him, but never the State. Its officer, as a living man, may have human virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a jailer or constable it may be, he is not a whit superior to his prison key or his staff. Herein is the tragedy: that men doing outrage to their proper natures, even those called wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office of inferior and brutal ones. Hence come war and slavery in; and what else may not come in by this opening? But certainly there are modes by which a man may put bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion and neighbor.

– Henry David Thoreau, from “Monday,” A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (location 283 of 882)

Standalone post link: Men do outrage to their proper natures as the tool of an institution

“I love man-kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead un-kind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their executors.”"

– Henry David Thoreau, from “Monday,” A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (location 282 of 882)

Longer, with more context"

Thus it has happened, that not the Arch Fiend himself has been in my way, but these toils which tradition says were originally spun to obstruct him. They are cobwebs and trifling obstacles in an earnest man’s path, it is true, and at length one even becomes attached to his unswept and undusted garret. I love man—kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead un-kind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their executors. Such foundation too have our lectures and our sermons, commonly.

– Henry David Thoreau, from “Monday,” A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (location 282 of 882)

Standalone post link: Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead...

Standalone post link: morning backyard through bedroom window

Evening sun breaking through the clouds to some of the upper bows of the Siberian Elms after the rainstorm.

Standalone post link: sun in the elms after the rainstorm

Here are some of the things I’m working on and thinking about now…

• Prepping the soil and planting seeds for a ‘digital garden’ on this website. +

  Also actively updating form, function, and “content” on the website in several other areas.

• Learning to love my backyard. +

  Last month I mulched a big section of it that had gone to dirt/weeds/mounds from our dog digging everywhere. Didn’t get it mulched in time to start a physical garden this season, but I hope to plant some fruit trees and other things in the fall and/or next spring. Also bought a fun little table for writing/reading/interneting that can be moved around to wherever it is shady at the moment, so I am out in my backyard a lot more - for example, right now.

• Entering full summer project mode at work. +

  I’ve finished out the 2022 Sora collection development budget. Next up I need to: revamp forms and web pages, draft a bunch of tutorials and documentation, push out a bunch of patron rights management updates, and catch up on some standardization in the library catalog and in the technology resource database. Maybe make some curations and graphics for next year?And write all the book reviews I’ve put off. And take some vacation time.

• Healing up my knee after a strangely catastrophic fall over my daughter’s bike in the garage last week. +

  As I am laid up, this digital home and garden has begun to flourish, all to the detriment of my physical home and garden.

• Still playing Pokémon Legends: Arceus now and again - I’m more balanced about it now, though. +

  It’s not the best game but I’m still obsessed with finishing the Pokédex and the true final mission. I’m an intermittent gamer but it’s clear now I have a thing about only playing one game at a time until I have thoroughly exhausted it.

• I’ve been listening to a lot of Joy Division and New Order - thinking about doing a deep dive into a whole bunch of other Manchester bands. +

  One of my favorite bands from Manchester is/are Doves, and I’m inordinately grumpy that they aren’t on this random diagram. (Resources and notes associated with these listening excursions would be good things to track in my digital garden, but they’re not there yet.)

• I’ve fully indulged my rwtfiw¹ tendency lately. +

  For me, that means reading Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and a bunch of newsletters/magazines/blogs, when I could/should be reading more kidlit and YA books for work. I’m thinking my ‘ought tos’ are more like most other people’s ‘guilty pleasures’ and vice versa…

This page was last updated on June 23, 2022. See my prior ‘now’ updates here.

Credit for the ‘now’ page concept goes to Derek Sivers. +

Standalone post link: Now (June 23, 2022)