Author: smartpeopleiknow

It’s summer! Time to eat your veggies! (or, food links for food lovers, July 2023)

It’s summer! And summer is the time you want to take all the great produce available from the markets and turn it into something. Let me help you with some great recipes.

Tians: One way to use fresh veg is to lean into tian recipes. For example this one, provencal vegetable tian (shown above), or this one, which I made recently, summer vegetable tian. A tian is not all that different than ratatouille, but as Martha show in this piece, what is a tian, you can make one out of so many different vegetables. Need still more tians? Food and Wine has you covered with this Root Vegetable Tian.

Fresh veg: I love corn and broccoli, so I like this recipe for sauteed broccoli and corn salad. Corn salads look as great as they taste. Got green beans? Make Alison Roman’s blanched green beans with scallion and soy. Got some fresh kale or chard? Then make her lemony white beans with anchovy and parmesan. Packs a punch.

Do you have a bunch of asparagus? Sure you can steam it. But you can also bake it. Or to get a bit fancier, you can make this creamy Asparagus & Leek Crespelle (i.e. Italian crepe) (See below)

(If you lack leeks, this can help: leek substitutes.)

Crepes sound good, but so do galettes. If you agree, try this: This Cheesy Tomato Galette Needs Only 3 Ingredients. Use up those fresh tomatoes! If you need to use up some zucchini, try making this:  Crispy Baked Zucchini Fries.

Root veg: while all this fresh vegetable on hand is irresistable, I would be remiss if I did not include some root veggie recipes, since I love a good carrot or potato dish.

These Garlic and Herb Mashed Potatoes are a perfect side dish, as are these Basic Roasted Carrots from Hugh Acheson, whose recipes I always recommend. Parsnips are another great root veg, and I support this: In Praise of Parsnips, the Humble Heroes of the Vegetable Drawer.

Speaking of great sides, here’s Nigella’s salt and vinegar potatoes that make me think of Britain. (Here’s another version from the New York Times: salt and vinegar roasted potatoes. Relatedly, salt and vinegar spanish tortilla recipe from Serious Eats.) For a Greek side, these greek lemon potatoes go great with anything but especially lamb and chicken or really anything Mediterranean. (Again, here’s the New York Times and their version of greek lemon potatoes).

I love a good potato gratin, which is why I am giving you four versions of that dish: here, here, here, and  here.

To close out this section, consider making potato and cheese tacos. Or any of these beet recipes or cabbage recipes.

Misc.: none of these fit into a category other than delicious veggie recipes. Here’s 1 from Saveur: Asian Greens with Garlic Sauce (Choy Sum) and here’s 40 Ways You’ll Love Using Bitter Greens, also from Saveur.

This sounds great:  Tabbouleh with Marinated Artichokes and Baby Spinach. Do you have lots of peppers? Make peperonata.

You want this: a good guide on how to roast any veg. Here’s a fine way to use up your herbs: green goddess dip.  This is a good weeknight meal: one pot veggie rice bowl. Finally these are good for anyone on a budget: the BBC’s budget vegetarian family meal plan for four.

How to get started reading a particular author? The Guardian has a solution

If you want to get started reading a particular author but you don’t know where to start, head over to the Books section of The Guardian and read: Where to start with. They introduce you to a range of authors from Agatha Christie to Zadie Smith. Highly recommended.

Will there be Doom? (What I find interesting in hardware/software in tech Jul 2023)

While my last few posts on IT have been work related, most of these are on hardware and software and tend to be more hobby and fun related.

Hardware links:

Software links:

Hope something there was useful! As always, thanks for reading!

P.S. Before I forget… here’s a piece on how a hacker brought Doom to a payment terminal. Love it!

 

On restaurants in 2023, post-pandemic and in general

For much of this decade restaurants have suffered for many reasons, the pandemic being the main one. I am actually surprised how many made it through those years of illness and closures. But make it through they did, mostly.

Mostly, but not all. Some big name places like Noma closed, but that was for several reasons. Some tried something radical, only for it to come out all wrong. See: What Went Wrong With Eleven Madison Park’s Vegan Menu (still got 3 Stars!). Others stuck to what was tried and true and came out the other side intact (albeit with higher prices): Le Bernardin Holds On to Its Four Stars.

Speaking of higher prices, read:  Why *are* Restaurants Are Charging $12 for Fancy Butter, and find out. Don’t fret, however, for not everyone is changing more. Some have a problem with that: Tacos Should Cost More Here’s Why.

Here’s some other reads regarding restaurants post-pandemic that I thought were worthwhile:

Beautiful brutalism at home in Rome

 

 

For some, the word “brutalism” does not go with the words “beautiful” or “home”. For those, i recommend the page to visit is this: Raw and Refined: Inside a Renovated Brutalist Apartment in Rome. It’s full of photos (like the one above) showing just how brutalism can be home-y and beautiful. I think this sums it up:

Paired with the original Brutalist details are a variety of tones, textures, and materials that add up to a visually enticing space. The roughness of the terracotta tiles on the oval island and concrete pillars are juxtaposed with the smooth Patagonia marble countertops that connect the two.

For me brutalism is at its best when it pairs up with other design elements. Brutalism left to its concrete self is unappealing to me. But put it together with nature or marble or fabric or something other than itself and I think it really shines. It certainly does in that Roman apartment.

Reliability is a key quality in a better life. You need more of it.


Last week I had a really good work day and when it was done, I was satisfied and happy with how it went. The key to everything going well that day hinged on one thing: reliability. During that day:

  • I could rely on myself to get the work done because I had done it before and knew what it took to do it in terms of time and other resources
  • The resources I needed to work with were also reliable: nothing was breaking down or old or flaky. I had time. I could focus on the task at hand.
  • I could also focus because my work environment was also reliable. I had no interruptions. I had no need to make changes to my work area or the area around me. I had the supplies and access I needed.
  • Additionally the people I was working with were reliable. If I needed anything, I could ask them for help and they would provide it.

If you are struggling to have productive days like that, ask yourself: is a lack of reliability contributing to the problem? If so, make it part of your solution to increase the thing you lack ASAP. And it’s not just a matter of being productive: being able to rely on the people and things and events in your life leads to be a better life generally. So dump those people you can’t depend upon. Trash those broken down tools you use. Find a better environment you can be certain of. Reliability and quality go hand and hand. Get more of both in your life. You’ll end up being more reliable for others as a result. The benefits ripple outwards.

Is this the start of the decline of opera in New York?

I have always been envious of New Yorkers and their Metropolitan Opera House. Toronto’s Canadian Opera Company is planning to perform 7 operas next season (and that’s good). Meanwhile the Met in 2022-23 performed 22. With that many performances going throughout the year you could sometimes feast on four different operas in a weekend! And it’s not just quantity: the greatest performers in the world are appearing in those shows. I cannot be alone in my envy and admiration of it all and imagining it to be never ending era.

So I was somewhat shocked to read that we may be at the end of that era, according to this piece in The New York Times:

Ticket sales have been robust for some new productions, even of contemporary works. But revivals, less obviously newsworthy and less widely promoted, are no longer sure things — especially slightly off-the-beaten-path stuff like Mozart’s “Idomeneo” or Verdi’s “Don Carlo.”

And I was disturbed to read this:

In an attempt to make ends meet, the Met has raided its endowment and plans to put on 10 percent fewer performances next season, which will feature just 18 staged operas (six of them written in the past 30 years). The days of being America’s grand repertory company, of 20-plus titles a year, could be slowly entering the rearview mirror.

Besides less new stuff, it sounds like some of the old stuff is being put out to pasture:

So it was fitting that, last month, the Met said farewell to one of the shows that typified the era that’s ending: its “Aida” from the 1980s. The production was typical Met: hardly cheap but sturdy and flexible, into which you could toss singers with relatively little rehearsal. The company’s model has depended on a core of stagings of the standards like this — ones which could be mounted, and sell well, year after year. If there’s less of a year-after-year opera audience, though, the only solution may be to do less.

All signs point to the beginning of a decline of opera at the Met. Now perhaps this is a just a temporary decline brought on by the pandemic and our change of behaviors. But I fear it is not.

If you are in New York (or anywhere), make plans to go to an opera. Even if you know nothing about it, an evening at the Met is always magical.

(Photo Credit: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera)

The 70s, now romanticized, were a time of excess in culture


Every so often I see people like Martin Scorsese and others talk nostalgically of filmmaking in the 70s. They talk about the freedom they had to make the films they wanted to make, and how filmmaking went downhill after that. It is true, there were many great films made in the 70s, and many filmmakers like Scorsese and Coppola and DePalma and others who made them.

Whenever I start to think nostalgically of all that, I remember Michael Cimino and the disaster that was Heaven’s Gate. Everything that was wrong about that freedom and that auteur style of filmmaking reached its nadir in Cimino’s film. Indeed,  “the film’s financial failure resulted in the demise of director-driven film production in the American film industry, steering back toward greater studio control of films”.

Excess wasn’t limited to film. If you listened to music of any sort, you likely heard Carole King. If you flipped open a magazine, you saw an ad for a record club (“get 10 albums for a penny!”) and you saw a picture of a barefoot King on her Tapestry album, which was everywhere all the time. There was just so much of her. I would not be surprised if people dreamed of that photo at night.

That was the 70s. If an inch was good, then a mile was better. It was the time of baby boomers in their 20s with their sixties hangover trying to be as hedonistic as possible before they settled into their jobs and houses and families. It all had to end. I’m glad it did.

P.S. For more on Carole King — who I liked, in proportion 🙂 — see this: how Carole King revolutionized 70s music.

The brilliant apparel of the Bitter Southerner General Store

While the Bitter Southerner General Store has lots of great stuff on it, I especially loved the Apparel section. I mean, how can you not love a T shirt that says “make more biscuits”? That right there is as much a commandment and a way of better living than anything I know.

On the more serious side, there is this great message:

Powerful and wise.

Finally, I think this is simple and beautiful:

Can’t you just taste that sandwich? Love it.

Cleaning is a form of care, both for other things and for you

There are many ways to think of cleaning. You can think of it as a chore, a burden, or a responsibility. Most of the ways I think about cleaning are negative.

So I was happy to read and reread this: Cleaning as Self-Care from the site zen habits. It focus on how cleaning can be a form of self-care. By “cleaning, organizing, declutttering” what is around you, you are taking care of your life. Of yourself. The act of cleaning is the act of caring.

The act of caring does not stop with you. What you clean shows what you care for. By washing your favorite clothes, by decluttering your closets, or by organizing your desk, you are showing that you care about those things. Likewise for things you do not clean.

The next time you are cleaning, notice how you feel while cleaning something you love and then notice how you feel when you have to clean something you are indifferent too or dislike. Considering getting rid of the things you have negative feelings towards cleaning. And if you can’t get rid of them, perhaps you can work on changing something so you do care for them and you do have positive feelings about cleaning them.

Cleaning requires effort, and effort can lead to you feeling badly. Changing your perspective on it can result in you feel positive and caring. Give it a try.

A cool site for people who write books (like Stewart Brand) and people who read them


books.worksinprogress.co is a cool site for people who write books and people who read them. As they explain:

Books in Progress is what we call a “public drafting tool”: Drafts will be made available for comment from the public, allowing for direct collaboration between author and reader.

As a reader, you can comment on a passage from the text, or respond to another comment. The author will accept or dismiss these comments. Once the author implements comments, a new draft will be created and the current one archived. Helpful commenters will be thanked in print at the author’s discretion.

Books in Progress was developed by Works in Progress in partnership with Stewart Brand and Stripe Press.

For authors with great readers, I could see this being an invaluable tool. Drop on by the site and see for yourself.

The 100 best restaurants in NYC in 2023 (plus the best places to eat and drink outside)


Yesterday I wrote about restaurants in Paris, today I want to point out the list of the 100 Best Restaurants in NYC, according to The New York Times food critic, Pete Wells

It’s a great list. There are restaurants for all the different boroughs and at all different price points. There are fancy French restaurants and there are casual night markets and more. You can find old school places like Barney Greengrass and Le Bernardin. You can find hot new places like Atomix and King. Whatever you need, the list can help you with.

If you live in NYC or plan to visit, you owe it to yourself to check out the list and start making reservations. Or just drop by.

P.S. If you are going to be in New York in the warmer parts of the year, you also owe it to yourself to check out the Vogue editors guide to outdoor dining in NYC. Some days you just want to get a cocktail and sit outside and enjoy all the city has to offer. The folks from Vogue can help.

(Photo is from the website for King.)

 

Paris bistros are resurging, and that’s great to see

I love Paris and I really love bistros and those two things go well together. But while Paris seems eternal, there was often reason to fear their bistros would die off. Well, according to this, I think I can allay my fears for now: 6 Paris Bistros to Try Now in The New York Times.  According to the Times:

Paris has recovered its scents, and the city is suddenly ravenous. The whiffs of shallots sautéing in butter, bread baking, meat roasting and bouillon simmering that invisibly punctuate any stroll in this food-loving city are back. In fact, the French capital is in the midst of a restaurant boom.

“I think it’s a carpe diem thing,” said Ezéchiel Zérah, the Paris-based editor of two popular French food publications. “After Covid, everyone has a keen appetite and wants a good time.”

Encouraged by pent-up local demand and a dramatic revival of the city’s tourist trade, young chefs and restaurateurs are hanging out their first shingles in Paris, and the most popular idiom is the beloved Parisian bistro. Some of them are pointedly traditional — the delightful Bistrot des Tournelles in the Marais, for example — while others offer a refined contemporary take on bistro cooking, notably the just opened Géosmine in the 11th Arrondissement.

Sounds superb! Also

What all of them have in common is chefs with a refreshingly simple culinary style. “No wants tweezer cooking anymore,” said Thibault Sizun, the owner of Janine, an excellent new modern bistro in Les Batignolles, a neighborhood in the 17th Arrondissement.

I have to say, the dish below looks pretty tweezerish to me, but I quibble.

All the places look fine, and the food looks fantastic. It makes me happy to hear that bistros are doing well. To see for yourself, check out the article.

(The above photos are from Joann Pai for The New York Times, who took some other great photos in the article too.)

Work outside kinda! The desk/office leaves the building


I love a good place to work. While for many those are found within the home or in an office space, there are some found in neither.

Case in point is this very cool portable affordable micro office that can be placed in your backyard or out in public (above). It can go inside, but it works great in a backyard or an office patio.

Now if you want to get out of the house because it is making you claustrophobic, you can work outside all year long with this unit (below).

It looks like a shed in that photo, but if you click through, you can see just how attractive and unshed like it is.

Finally, if you yearn for something really deluxe, then  these 3d printed pods that are sustainable personal offices that you can subscribe to just like netflix might be just the thing you need (below).

All three links have plenty of additional detail on these great person workspaces. Check em out.

Porsche 911: or what I would buy if I won the lottery

People often seem flummoxed when they win the lottery. They wanted to win, and now that they have, they don’t know what to do with their winnings. I get it. I’ll confess that I’ve thought about it before and I was flummoxed too.

Well that was then. Now I know the first major thing I would buy. It would be this baby: the 1989 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet (shown above).

I remember coveting that car when I was younger. And for under $200k, it’s a deal. 🙂

Any day you buy a lottery ticket is a day you could walk away rich. Be prepared!

 

 

Some thoughts on being sufficient

It’s an easy thing to make yourself feel insufficient: simply pick a task that is beyond your reach. It can be a nearly impossible physical task, like running a long distance. Or a mental task, like memorizing a long work of fiction. Or it can be a social task, like having plenty of fans and friends. Regardless, it can be something you can be guaranteed to fall short of achieving in the attempt.

(You might exclaim: who’d do something like that to themselves? But people do something similar to that all the time.)

The hard thing is to make yourself feel sufficient. To look past your failings and limits and judge yourself worthy. It requires knowing yourself. Knowing what is required of you. Knowing that even if you can’t do everything or even many things, you still can do some things, and that those things are enough. Those things are sufficient. Just like you are sufficient.

Let us go to Enceladus! (What I find interesting in math and science, July 2023)


As always, there’s lots of exciting science things happening! The big news recently was the announcement by a group of science organizations, NANOGrav, about the existence of gravitational waves splashing, so to speak, all across the universe. You can read more about it, here. It’s a big friggin’ deal.

Space: Space exploration in general remains exciting overall. Part of that has to do with the incredible amount of missions on the go! China is a nation in a hurry when it comes to space exploration. Out on Mars, the rover they sent there has found signs of recent water in sand dunes. Closer to home, they’re doing lunar research with the Chang’e project. On top of that, they’ve successfully launched their latest mission to the Tiangong space station on Tuesday. Incredible. And good to see.

Not all space news is good. A private Japanese moon lander went into free-fall while trying to land on the lunar surface recently due to a software issue and a last-minute switch in the touchdown location.  More on that, here. I have no doubt we will see successful Japanese missions soon and on the regular.

In other news, the UAE is sending a mission to explore the debris field between Mars and Jupiter. More on that, here.

Of course American space work is ongoing. The  James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spotted a towering plume of water vapor more than 6,000 miles long—roughly the distance from the U.S. to Japan—spewing from the surface of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus.  More on that, here.

Seeing all this space exploration, it may be time to make these  NASA visions of the future posters for real. (An example is the one for Enceladus, above.)

The billionaires are back at it too. Jeff Bezos’ rocket company is taking astronauts to the moon in 2029. Don’t screw it up, Jeff. More here. Not to be left out, Branson’s Virgin Galactic is going back to space after a 2 year hiatus, says this.

If you are feeling left out, know that you can get in on the action,  thanks to a new program launched by astronomers at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. You can help science by reading this and getting involved. 

Don’t hesitate. After all,we are all one GRB from being fried out of existence. In fact it almost happened.

Physics:  It was fun coming across the classic E & M text by Purcell and Morin. A great text book I had in university. For quantum fans, this is a good piece on how Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox scales up.

Wanting to do your own physics experiment? Here’s how to demo special relativity for a $100 or less. Really! More on the science behind it, here and here. Muons are cool and you can be too if you do that.

Miscellany: I thought this on lagrangian mechanics for beginners was good. Relatedly, here’s something on Euler Lagrange.

Think you can’t do math? Read this: are all brains good at math?

This is some weird science: when flies see the corpses of other flies, they get depressed and die soon. Really!

This was a good piece on cancer and the nervous system. I liked how you can make better decisions by using science.

Also cool: what plants are saying about us.

(Shown above, the  NASA artemis III spacesuit. More on it, here)

Blackberry Pi, or what you get when you pair a blackberry and a Raspberry Pi

What do you get when you pair a Blackberry-like device with a Raspberry Pi?? You get the Beepberry Pocket Computer!

I mean I just love the thing! Do I know anything practical I can do with it? No. Does that mean I shouldn’t lust after it? Also no. 🙂

The brains behind it is the same as that behind the Pebble watch, which was a great device IMHO. I suspect this is as well.

 

Norbert Hoeller, a smart person I know, is blogging. You should read what he has to say.

I’ve often encouraged smart people I know to blog about what they know. Often they tell me stuff and I think: everyone should have the privilege I have to hear this.

So I was delighted that my dear old friend and former colleague at IBM, Norbert Hoeller, is now doing just that! For example, if you heard about how the province of Ontario will give you cash for the privilege of turning down your AC, then you owe it to yourself to read Norbert’s experience with that. His post has that clear explanation and attention to detail I come to expect from him. Like me, you’ll be wiser and better off after reading what he has to say.

Already he’s touching on different topics, like how to keep your Ikea products looking good. I hope he keeps it up. Meanwhile, add his blog to the things smart people I know (i.e., you) read.

Thinking about the SCOTUS and America on July 4th, 2023

Canadians can fool themselves into thinking they understand America and Americans. I certainly can. But America is different and there are many things I don’t really understand, try as I might.

The Supreme Court, SCOTUS, is one of those things. In Canada, the Supreme Court acts like a supreme court should, I believe. It barely gets any notice in Canada, and when it does, it’s usually for a very good reason. No one thinks of it in a politicized way.

That’s very different than SCOTUS, it seems to me. That court comes across as highly political. Which is why people talk all the time about their political leanings. Which is also why I find this feature in the New York Times so fascinating: major supreme court cases for 2023.  For certain cases, the court lines up the way you’d expect. But for a majority of the cases, that isn’t true. Take a look: you’ll see the court is more complex than you think.

That said, SCOTUS has many problems. The corruption of Alito and Thomas, for one. This fact that many of decisions are based on errors which are not hard to find, is another.

Finally, I don’t agree with everything in this, but I think that what Josh Barro wrote on the recent supreme court moves worthwhile. Likewise these pieces by Jamelle Bouie, and Steve Vladeck and Adam Liptak.

 

New old news from the Big Smoke/Hogtown/Toronto (July 2023 edition)

Well, it’s been a journey here in Toronto. Back in February I wrote about the mayor having to step down due to a scandal. Come May I added how the race was turning into a marathon like event with over a 100 candidates running. Now it’s July and we have a new mayor: Olivia Chow. In the end it was a nail biter of an election. With Chow’s leading in the polls for most of the race, many assumed she would easily win. But at the last minute, the old mayor (who said he wouldn’t interfere in the election) threw his support behind Ana Bailao. The result was much closer than many — certainly me — thought it would be.

Last Monday many of us in Toronto were continually refreshing the  Toronto Star’s election live updates or turning to excellent sources like the local to see what would happen. Dramatically Chow, who had been trailing Bailao in the early election results, eventually surpassed her in the end for the victory.

As for the other 90+ also rans,  no one was even close. Most of Toronto’s progressive voters went to Chow, while those who opposed her went to Bailao. Other prominent candidates like Matlow and Bradford barely registered, votewise.

What happens next? Well, Chow said she would not the strong mayor powers that the Ford government granted to Tory. Perhaps she will be successful without them. We shall see.

In the meantime, if you want to read more on the election, Blogto had a good summary. But check out the Star and the local, too.

Maybe one thing she can fix is the CafeTO program. It was a godsend during the pandemic. Now it seems like the city bureaucrats are strangling it to death. Here’s one of my favorite journalists, Ed Keenan, with some insight into that, here.

I doubt she can do much about the disaster that is the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line: it’s too far gone. At least she can keep a fire under them to delay no more.

It certainly will be a great looking transit line, based on this  private look inside the LRT. Maybe by 2030 we’ll all get to go on it. 🙂 Snark aside, I have seen they have updated the tiles in the Eglinton subway and they seem to be keeping it close to the original. That’s good, because as you can see from this piece on the original TTC subway tiles, much of that tile is gone. Many of the stations that had those classic Vitroline tiles, like Museum (below) and Rosedale, are now very different. Glad to see Eglinton will stick with the classic.

As for the TTC, it’s actually getting safer following the horrifying crime streak that occured recently. Good.

What’s getting less safe in Toronto is something you might not been aware of: backyard poultry. Yep, there is an UrbanHens project here in Toronto, or at least there was, until an outbreak of H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI or “bird flu”) occurred. Who knows how long it will last now. Also why people are keeping hens in this city I dunno but you learn something new everyday. (In other Toronto biological news, here is a good guide to trees and shrubs in Toronto. More on that, here.)

Food wise, Summerlicious 2023 is underway in July….a good chance to go and try out restaurants you’ve always wanted to visit. I recommend you check it out.

As for me, one place I need to check out this month is Country Style in the Annex. As BlogTO explains, after 60 years the owners have decided to hang up their aprons and stop slinging schnitzel. Understandable, but sad.

The Annex used to be a mainstay of Hungarian food places like Country Style in the 80s. Here’s a good piece on that. Relatedly, here’s a good piece on the lost restaurants of Toronto…I had eaten at many of them.

Speaking of lost Toronto, here’s a great article on the history of Now magazine. Highly recommended. I also recommend this piece on the famous team of Yabu Pushelberg. In the 80s and 90s they seem to be everywhere and designing everything noteworthy in Toronto.

My final recommendation is this piece on the challenges downtown Toronto businesses are dealing with as hybrid work which show no signs of stopping.

Get out and enjoy all Toronto has to offer this summer, be it schnitzel or Summerlicious. Hit the patios. Or maybe take some beer and a blanket and go drink and relax in one of Toronto’s newly sanctioned drinking parks.

Are all self help books the same?

I am a fan of self help books. I’ve even written a defense of them. So I was interested to read this, which says that every self-help book ever comes down to these rules:

1. Take one small step.
2. Change your mental maps.
3. Struggle is good. Scary is good.
4. Instant judgment is bad.
5. Remember the end of your life.
6. Be playful.
7. Be useful to others.
8. Perfectionism = procrastination
9. Sleep, exercise, eat, chill out. Repeat.
10. Write it all down.
11. You can’t get it all from reading.

I don’t agree. It’s true, you will find many of these rules in popular self-help books. But the best self-help books give you insights and ideas you won’t find elsewhere.

So yeah, if you pick up the latest self help book, some form of those 11 rules may be all that you get. But take some time and do some research and you’ll find some guides that can really help you with whatever you are dealing with.

Don’t give up. Get the help you need. Even if its self help.

Happy Canada Day! Celebrate by eating in one of the “Best Places to Eat in Canada”

It’s Canada Day! So what better way to celebrate than dining at one of “The Best Places to Eat in Canada”. That’s according to Chris Nuttall-Smith, writing in that quintessentially Canadian magazine, Macleans.

It’s true: those are great places to eat. You’d be lucky to be able to dine in the highly expensive but amazing Prime Seafood Palace (shown above)). Can you get a table at places like Edulis? Good question! I sure can’t! 🙂 But if you can, I am sure it will be good.

So Canada, if you are looking for a good place to go, you can’t go wrong with any of the ones listed. Regardless of where you dine this evening, have a happy Canada Day!

Summertime! And the living is easy? (some thoughts and ramblings for the June 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Summertime! We’ve moved on from late spring into the beginning of the summer season. For some folks, it’s the best of seasons. For me, not so much. But hey, there’s lots to love at least about this month. There’s nice weather (at least in June) and plenty of sunshine and flowers everywhere. I’ve been enjoying it myself so far.

I’m enjoying making this newsletter lately as well, though last June I wrote about giving it up. I’ve had a change of heart obviously. Some of that change had to do with positive feedback I’ve received. Plus I do enjoy going back and reading these newsletters. So you can expect more. Now let me see what was hot and what was not.

What’s was hot: well the forest fires raging out of control in parts of Canada were certainly hot. Though they burned in Alberta and Quebec and Nova Scotia, they impacted everyone, including yours truly. We had some bad days of smoky air, although nothing like what they had in New York. To see the extent of it, I recommend this photo essay in the Verge on how NYC was affected by the wildfire smoke pollution.

In Nova Scotia, they had more than smoke to deal with. People like my sister and her son were forced to mandatory evacuate their homes due to the fires. The fires were spread throughout Nova Scotia, and there was terrible stories of destruction here and here and here and here. It was bad.

The war in Ukraine is definitely hot. Ukrainians are going on the offensive and a quasi civil war erupted within Russia. There’s almost too many links to put here regarding that. I tend to keep abreast by going over the section the Times keeps on the Russia-Ukraine war.

The debt ceiling crisis in the US was also a hot topic for June. There was alot of ink spilled on who gave up more in the debt ceiling negotiations: Biden or the republicans. My take was Biden did well, but the whole thing should never have had to happen in the first place. For more on it, here’s a piece from the Times. More here and here. The Washington Post weighs in here.

Also hot in an almost radioactive way is Donald Trump. To keep up with all the indictments coming out against him I’ve signed up to indictment.fyi by Dan Sinker. You should too.

Would it be terrible if Trump became the next President of the US? Other than for him, yes. He needs to be president again to stay out of jail and to get richer. To see more about the latter, I recommend this: Trump’s real estate deal with Oman. Just off the charts levels of corruption.

Speaking of corrupt, it is interesting to follow the friendships of Supreme Court justices Alito and Thomas. That the two worst members of the Court are also seemingly in the pocket of billionaires is sadly not surprising.

Most of social media is not hot, with the exception being TikTok. And not in a good way.  So you have “titanic tiktok truthers“. You have influencers doing stupid things like promoting products like biore on the back of school shootings. In fact the whole thing about becoming a  tiktok influencer seems out of control. Perhaps they are looking at people like Mr Beast on YouTube and wishing that much influence and wealth. I dunno.

Due to the changes this year, I think baseball is hot again. This piece from the Upshot is worth checking out if you are interested on how the game is changing.

What’s was not: Well, the pandemic is no longer hot. In fact I’d say it’s dormant, if not dead. I’m still tracking COVID. So is the New York Times. As is Ontario Public Health. But otherwise, not so much.

In fact I’d give the Times lots of credit. They are still covering it, and still doing good pieces like this, on covid and lung damage. They also did this piece on what defined the pandemic that I thought was really good. Not so good was this piece on pandemic fraud waste (not the Times).

I used to associate these newsletters with the pandemic. Heck, it was born in the pandemic. Going forward, I am going to drop that association. I’ll still mention anything noteworthy on Covid though.

Inflation is also cooling, it seems. Good. On that topic, I thought these pieces on it were good: what caused the US pandemic era inflation; a comparison of costco vs loblaws food prices; a related piece on inflation, groceries  and Walmart.

Crypto is more ice cold than not hot, especially with the SEC out for one of the last standing exchanges, Binance. You can read about that here and here.

Pixar used to be hot, but not lately. CNN had a meltdown, so kinda hot, but also not.

As for social media, Twitter the company continues to circle the drain as their ad sales plummet. Not to mention them getting hit with a big music industry lawsuit. Fun. Over at that other company, Mark Zuckerberg explains the path forward for meta. Good luck with that, Mark. I mean, who needs the metaverse meet the people still living on second life? A valid question.

Could social media be better? Of course. Anil Dash explains how, here. Also, maybe we should just consider social media alternatives like going outside and touching grass?

In other news: Sports betting  is facing a backlash. Good. The US government continues to  mop up those that contributed to the events of January 6h in the US Capito. Also good.

Cormac McCarthy passed away. This is a fine piece on how unique and now impossible that was. Also this month the five people on the submarine Titan died when that vehicle imploded on the way to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. RIP.

Big companies like Google and Salesforce keep trying to get employees to return to office. On the flip side small tech companies are leveraging this by offering
remote work as a perk to get you to go work with them! Smart move. My expectation is that as leases start running out, remote work will become a hardened norm. Keep an eye out for that.

Enough about work. Summer is a time for relaxing. One way to do that is by reading. If you need something to read this season, the New York Times has your back with many recommendations. For lovers of pure beach reads, check out what indigo.ca has. If nothing else, a book will shade your face from the sun. 🙂

Enjoy the early summer! Thanks for read this too!

Carbs! Pasta and rice and noodles as well (food links for food lovers, June 2023)


I know I know….it’s only recently that I posted about food here: Beef and chicken and pork, too. Or is that two? (Friday food for mid-June, 2023) But I’ve got so many great food links that I wanted to write some more on it. This time I am focusing on carbs!

Noodles: When we talk about noodles, we are really talking about non-pasta noodles, because really spaghetti is as much of a noodle as anything.

So we have this recipe for curry singapore vermicelli noodles that I want to try. Or maybe I will try to make this version of singapore noodles. It’s one of my favorite noodle dishes, but instead of making it, I just keep collecting recipes, like this one from Bon Appetit on how to make Singapore Noodles. I think I need to make making them a goal for 2023!

Another noodle dish I’m afraid of making is dan dan noodles. I have made this:  dan dan celeriac noodles. It’s not authentic, but it’s good. Maybe I should follow this version from Joanne Chang at Food & Wine. Or this version, from Martha.

Meanwhile I have made these peanut noodles with chicken several times and they were easy and delicious. (see above)

Speaking of easy and delicious, this recipe for curry sheet pan noodles could fill the bill. As could these spicy vegetable lo mein noodles. If you are fan of udon noodles, check out Martha’s udon noodles shiitake mushrooms ginger broth . Still wanting noodles? Here’s:  16 Easy Noodle Recipes for a Quick Meal Any Time of Day.

Pasta: like many people, I love pasta. One reason I do is because it is easy. For example, this one pot pasta with ricotta and lemon recipe. Or this one pot macaroni pasta meal. And you can’t beat Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with onion and butter when it comes to easy and delicious. It’s one of my favorites. (More on Marcella Hazan and the 30th anniversary of her masterpiece, “Essentials of iItalian Cooking).

Speaking of Italian classics, here’s: Calabrian Carbonara Recipe from Andrew Carmellini at Food & Wine. More carbonara there.


For fans of  bolognese, we have that from Budget Bytes (shown above) and this: bolognese meat sauce from Food & Wine. It may not be traditional, but this sounds good: Pappardelle with White Bolognese.

More Italian classics: Pasta alla Gricia, and Bucatini all’Amatriciana and Spaghetti Aglio e Olio. And let’s not forget arrabiata! Here’s Ina’s version if you like your pasta hot and spicy. Speaking of hot and spicy, here’s two takes on puttanesca, here and here (which for some reason Nigella calls Slattern’s Spaghetti).

Moving on from Italians, let’s talk about American pasta and people like Alison Roman and her pantry pasta. Or a classic Italian American pasta: Pasta Fazool This is very American: Easy BLT Pasta As are these two from Bon Appetit: How Chris Morocco Makes Pantry Pasta in the Time It Takes the Noodles to Boil and Macaroni and Peas Is the Desperation Meal That Always Satisfies

Pasta and greens go great together. If you agree, check out this garlicky spaghetti with mixed greens. Or pasta with garlicky broccoli rabe from smitten kitchen.  This has greens and beans: creamy chickpea pasta with spinach and rosemary. So does this: linguine with chickpeas broccoli and ricotta. And this chile crisp fettuccine alfredo with spinach sounds different but delicious.

And why not try this cheesy baked pasta? Or use up some sage with: Penne with Asparagus Sage and Peas. In a rush? Make: Fast and Easy Pasta With Blistered Cherry Tomato Sauce or this pasta sausage basil and mustard here 

For gnocchi lovers, turn up the oven for this four cheese gnocchi bake. If you like that, try this: Easy Baked Gnocchi. Or this  sheet pan gnocchi. How about: creamy tuscan sausage gnocchi?

Finally, here’s some advice on how to make polenta. And here’s a list of things to try using that pasta that looks like rice: 15 Favorite Orzo Recipes.

Rice: speaking of that other great carb, let me start with some Italian rice recipes. Like this lemon risotto. Or this Italian Wedding risotto. There’s this  sweet corn risotto too. And after you have risotto, you take your leftovers and go make Michael Symon’s Arancini Recipe perhaps.

Italian rice recipes are great, but so too are these ones from the Americas. For instance, this one pot cuban chicken rice and beans is one of my favorites (seen below). Try making pollo asado with black beans and rice or southwest chicken and rice. You’ll be happy and full in no time!


Happy cooking!

Three cool watches: present, past and future

I’m not a watch guy, but Timex’s Reclaimed Ocean Plastic watch (above) got my attention. According to uncrate.com:

Its lightweight 40 mm case is made from upcycled, ocean-bound plastic collected from the coastlines by fishermen. The waste is then washed, shredded, and shipped to Switzerland on carbon-neutral transportation, where it’s repurposed. The material gives the piece a speckled texture and is complemented by a matte black dial with contrasting white handers and numerals.

Given that “at least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year”, this sounds like a smart use of materials by  Timex.


If you want something more classic, here’s a story on the Hamilton eatch featured in the latest Indiana Jones film. I had one like it: it’s a fine timepiece.

Finally, if you are an Apple Watch owner like myself and want to go with an aeronautic theme, consider the MobyFox NASA Apple watch bands, seen below:

 

Silicon Valley is full of not serious people and it’s time to treat them accordingly

I really like this piece by Dave Karpf on how not enough people are making fun of Balaji Srinivasan right now. While he goes on the skewer Srinivasan for a stupid bet/stunt he did recently, he touches on a broader topic:

2023 is shaping up to be a big year for recognizing that the titans of Silicon Valley actually have very little clue how the financial system works. That’s essentially what capsized Silicon Valley Bank: the venture capitalist crowd was long on self-confidence and short on basic-understanding-of-how-things-work.

At some point with characters like Balaji, you have to ask yourself whether he’s putting on a show or whether he really is a fool. There are a lot of guys at the heights of Silicon Valley who put on a similar performance. (*cough* David Sacks *coughcough* Jason Calcanis.) They have money, and they speak with such confidence. For years, they’ve been taken them seriously. This ought to be the year when that presumption of omnicompetence withers away.

I think that quote  of how 2023 is going to be “a big year for recognizing that the titans of Silicon Valley actually have very little clue how the financial system works” really can apply to anything, not just the financial system. As Karpf notes, all these leaders in Silicon Valley “have money, and they speak with such confidence” and people take them seriously.

So when Marc Andreessen bloviates on how AI will save the world and how it’s the best technology EVAH, no one says he’s full of crap. They don’t look at how he went long on crypto when others were getting out, for example, and say “yeah maybe he’s not the best guy to listen to on this stuff”.

And that’s too bad. I think we should mock these people more often. We should mock the vapidity of Bill Gates’s recent commencement speech. We should cheer when companies like Hindenburg Research go after Jack Dorsey and block for what a crappy company it is. We should recognize how fraudulent people like Tony Hsieh or Elizabeth Holmes are. We should recognize that these people do not deserve our attention. And if they get it, they should be scrutinized and at the very least, mocked. I mean Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are talking about fighting in a cage match.

These are not serious people. We should stop acting like they are.

P.S. The fraudster  Elizabeth Holmes finally went to prison after trying in vain to convince people she should not. Did silicon Valley learn anything from this? Not much, if this story on how recently the company Grail told 400 patients incorrectly that  they may have cancer.

As for Tony Hsieh, you can read here how he used companies like ResultSource to make his book Delivering Happiness into a “best seller” (not to mention giving it away). Just another form of fraud. Here’s a good takedown of Tony Hsieh and the emptiness of the tech mogul.

Finally the New York Times has a rundown of the recent high tech phonies and the trouble they are in.

 

On RFK Jr and the people that are supporting him

RFK Jr is in the news a lot recently. One obvious reason is that he is trying to run for President. The other reason is because some of the worst of people are jumping on his bandwagon and amplifying his campaign.

If you are unsure about him, then I recommend this piece on RFK Jr for several reasons. First, it sums up how I think I now think about RFK Jr:

His noxious views on vaccines, the origin of AIDS, the alleged dangers of wi-fi and other forms of junk science deserve no wide hearing. Polls showing he’s favored by 20 percent of likely Democratic voters over President Biden are almost as laughable as Kennedy’s views. It’s early; he’s got iconic American name recognition; and there’s almost always an appetite, among Democrats anyway, for anybody but the incumbent.

Second, it also has a list of articles at the beginning that debunk RFK Jr’s ridiculous claims. And if that’s not enough, here’s more on RFK Jr from the New York Times and People Magazine.

As for the people jumping on his bandwagon and amplifying him, here’s a break down on the horrible harassment of  Dr Peter Hotez by Joe Rogen, Elon Musk and others. As for why you don’t want to debate science on a podcast, here’s a good piece on what it’s like to go on  Joe Rogan and debate anything 

Here’s hoping RFK Jr and the cranks he attracts fade into the background soon.

Revisiting McCartney after watching Get Back

For a long time I held the common view that there was two Paul McCartneys: the Beatles one and the solo one. This view also states that once he went solo, he went from making great music to making bad music. Sure there were exceptions (Maybe I’m Amazed, Band on the Run), but that was the view.

That view was supported by many people, starting with John Lennon and many of the music press writing in the 70s and 80s. How could it be wrong? Even a fan of Paul like me thought so.

Well it was wrong and I was wrong too. I came to that conclusion after watching Get Back. Watching Get Back, I was struck by the continuum of the Beatles and their music.  In the documentary you hear snippets of songs that wouldn’t come into their own until later albums. You hear them play old songs as they try and finish the new songs. It’s all sonically fluid and connected. Paul’s music –before and after the breakup — is very much of that continuum. There is no switch that suddenly deprives him of his talent. He does lose the feedback and the guidance of the others, especially John’s, and no doubt that hurt him. But his ability to write a song and perform a song remains strong.

I thought of that some more after spending time relistening to songs from McCartney I.  Songs I had dismissed as bad I gave a relisten to. Listened to the music of the guy who performed so well on Get Back, the music of the guy who  went on to record Abbey Road. The talent is strong and steady on those solo records, despite some ups and downs. 

I’ve often contended that if you combined the best of the Beatles solo work from the 70s and just kept the best and put in on 3 or 4 recordings, you would have music as good as anything they made in the 60s. In some cases even better.

The talent was still there.  The music was still good. For all them. Including Paul.

 

 

Art direction! Art inspiration! And other art links

 

Austin Kleon explains how you can find energy in the gap pictured above. I like the idea of using the gap for your benefit.

I’ve been interested in drawing with ink lately, so here’s some good links on how to ink a drawing and how to make pen and ink drawings here. Two good videos on drawing with ink are here:  Draw with ink and Also draw with ink.

This may be  one of the best guides I have ever come across regarding thumbnail sketching from an instructor at RISD.

I’m a big fan of the artist who draws the Metropolitan Diary drawings, so I enjoyed this piece on what the Metropolitan Diary taught its illustrator about New York.

Here’s a clip I saved of  Peter Falk from Wings of Desire when he talks about the and the happiness with the simple things in life, like drawing. Speaking of Falk, here’s a story on his own art work, here.

I’ve always been inspired by Jim Jarmusch’s Collages and wished I did more. So I was happy when I found this piece on collage art ideas. Really good stuff.

I have always found these Scribbled Portraits of Brooding Figures by Adam Riches inspiring. It reminds me of some of the great drawings my brother Ed used to do.

More links: If you want to take up drawing cartoons; if you want to learn how to Draw a Self-Portrait; if you need more advice on how to draw, How to Draw in Six Steps;  here’s a quick beginner’s guide to drawing.

Finally, here’s some good things to consider:

On the Bloor Cinema and the other rep theatres listed in Festival magazine

Some one on Twitter posted some pages from Festival Magazine from the 80s, and looking at them, I was filled with so many memories. Among them I recall how I would go to the nearby Bloor Cinema and grab a copy from the newspaper box. I’d head over to Dooneys or some other coffee shop or maybe just head home to Brunswick Avenue and plan out my movie viewing for the next few weeks.

While I sometimes went to the other rep cinemas like the Revue or the Kingsway, I mainly went to the Bloor. This page below captures what the programming was like for it at the time.

There was often a special festival or a run of films like the new Chinese films shown above. Then there were films that had just finished running through the new theatres like Cineplex’s and were now getting a second chance to be seen. And then there were fan favorites, like Stop Making Sense. (If Stop Making Sense or a Blade Runner was in, I was there.) Most of all what I loved about the Bloor was this eclectic mix of programming.

The Revue’s programming was more straightforward. It pretty much showed films that had just finished their run in main theatres. Did I still like going there? For sure. (Except the time in winter when the theatre was showing a film without any heat!)

I loved looking at those pages. I loved seeing all the great films that came out in the 80s listed again. I really loved seeing the ad for The Other Cafe! (I went there often too.) It’s all so good.

Seeing movies was different back then. You might eventually see them on TV, but if you missed a good film when it was first out, you still had a chance of seeing it in the rep theatres. Not to mention classics and fan favorites. It was a good time at the cinema, for sure.

What are the best potato chips, you ask?

Eric Vellend knows his chips. So if he says these are the best chips:

  • Miss Vickie’s Spicy Dill Pickle
  • Ruffles Lightly Salted
  • Ruffles Double Crunch Jalapeño Cheddar
  • Brets Jura Cheese
  • Lays Magic Masala

I believe him. Take this list with you for your next visit to the grocer. You’ll be glad you did.

Cool and colorful furniture


The colorful can be found here, IKEA Nytillverkad Collection Delves Into the Archives in Colorful Fashion at the site Design Milk, while the cool can be found here: top ten minimal furniture design at Yanko.

If you want to jazz up your place, then that collection from IKEA will do it. On the other hand, if you yearn from simple pieces like this below, then head over to that link on Yanko.

Two very different sets of home furnishings, but both being well done.

On the mega long YouTube phenomena

Would you watch a youtube video that is 24 hours of a blank screen? Can you guess how many do? Would you guess over 40 million people? If that intrigues you, then I recommend you read this. It’s about the makers of extra long YouTube videos and it’s quite good.

3 thoughts:

  1. I’ve watched several of them, including those for fireplaces, beaches, and aquariums. They’re great! I draw the line at blank screens though. 🙂
  2. They reminded me of Andy Warhol’s “Empire” film that was over 8 hours long. You can read about that, here. Once more he was ahead of his time.
  3. It’s easy to take Youtube for granted, but it can be a platform for the creation of media not possible in the 20th century.

Bernie’s Rule of Business Predictions and Time Frames

There are generally four time frames used when business people are making predictions:

  • in a year
  • next 1-2 years
  • next 3-5 years
  • next 5-10 years

If you see a business person making such a prediction, this is what they mean:

  • in a year: the prediction will happen
  • next 1-2 years: the prediction should happen
  • next 3-5 years: the prediction could happen, but not soon
  • next 5-10 years: they have no idea!

For any business prediction, the time frame determines the probability. If they say in a year, they either are doing it themselves or someone they know is. If it is 1-2 years, it won’t happen this year, but someone is working on it. If they say 3-5 years, then it’s likely not in progress, but there is talk of working on it.

The only prediction that is useless is 5-10 years. If someone says 5-10 years, they are saying something like “I don’t want to say it will NEVER happen, but it is not even close to coming to fruition, so I will predict 5-10 because who is even going to come back and ask me about it in a decade from now?” 🙂

Something to bear in mind the next time you hear a business prediction.

85 or so interesting things I wanted to write about and maybe will some day


Many times I find things I would like to write about but never do. I think people should check out these links though. So I am including them all in this Sunday post to read at your leisure.

Start with this one on mapping data visualisations from Victorian London to today. Or this, on the film Unforgiven and the line, “deserves got nothing to do with it”. I am fascinating by ex-Royals haunting Europe, like Ferdinand Habsburg, who occupies his time racecar driving, so I recommend that. I also loved the story of  Jenny Nguyen and the sports bar she opened just for women’s sports, The Sports Bra.

This is good: how to help your kids find happiness.

Are these the best movies ever made? Possibly. Do I know why old man Robert de Niro is having a 7th kid? Nope.

I wanted to say something/something more about  Ted Lasso, The_Blues_Brothers, bad artists, David_Shrigley, or ska, but I could not. I don’t even have anything clever to say about the Wakefield amazonian love god statue, other than you should check it out. (Seen above.)

I recommend you also check out this amazing Maine home, this Manual Coffeemaker (seen below) and this piece on the Amazon Halo Rise. Even this desk lamp, which is the visual motivation youll need to start your day. Or this cool utility shelf , or this Concept TV, or even these linen sheets.

If you need some advice, read about the move out method of organizing or read this for anxiety reduction. I do believe writing make you healthier. This can tell you how to retire when you have basically nothing saved. Consider this more radical and practical than stoicism (shugendo).

When it comes to health and fitness, here’s a good piece on Kipchoge’s boston marathon pace. It’s VERY Fast. This guy is not fast but he is a cheat: Joasia Zakrzewski at the ultramarathon. A different form of cheating:  how one man ate cheat meals which helped him lose weight. I was going to write about the mediterranean diet and Kettlebell exercises and how kettlebell workouts burn 20 calories / minute, but didn’t. I didn’t know what to say about this article that was a grim reflection on a life of drinking. Nor did I know what to write on how depression rates are reaching new highs.

This is an interesting story about Carmelite nuns abandoning their nest in Brooklyn. A good piece on  riding  the New York subway in the 70s. Speaking of the craziness of the 70s, here’s a story on cocaine and cooking at Chez Panisse. All worthy of a post some day.

I once wanted to write about the red shoes of Pope Benedict XVI and their many hidden meanings but I passed. Related in a fashion sense, here’s something on GQ’s outfit of the week. And from a religious POV, I’ve always been fascinated by the story of France’s eminence grise. Not to mention forgotten masses like Childermas!

Here’s some LISS links I never could make anything of: What Makes Fascism Fascist? – by John Ganz, how Nazis are not socialists, and Why Paul Ehrlich got everything wrong. Then this is this piece on who will sell the books. Plus Horizontal History on Wait But Why this? A cautionary tale: The Dangerous Decline of the Historical Profession. Quasi-historical: on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Strangely historical: It’s not a darning tool it’s a very naughty toy – Roman dildo found.

Some clippings from out east where I come from: on the East Coast Kitchen. Here’s 2 things on the international student housing crisis in Cape Breton, including how medical residents moving to cape breton are struggling to find housing. The famous nscad university is moving to the Halifax seaport. Also worthy of fame, Kate Beaton’s affecting ducks dives into the lonely life of labour in Alberta’s oil sands. Lastly, Food truck diner experience helped relaunch Zellers brand.

I didn’t know what to do about  Linda McCartney’s photos, or why art installations make people angry, or this piece on Vermont and the law and art and slavery, but they are all interesting. Go check them out.

For some time I was going to write a defence on consultants after reading this and this and this and this and this. Even this and this. Most of them insinuating that consultants are all powerful and manipulative and evil, like this: Opinion: The Trudeau government seems awfully cozy with McKinsey. In the end I didn’t have the energy or the interest.

I thought this piece, you can’t say that in the 1930s which relates to this, Agatha Christie novels reworked to remove potentially offensive language was worthwhile. Likewise, this, on Black Panther 2’s Namor casting and how it opens up a Latino colorism debate.

I found these social media leaks disturbing and a caution as to what to share and not share: alcohol counseling patient data leak and discord document leak tiktok.

Here’s two things on Samuel Alito, whom I find especially terrible: here and here. Also terrible, those doing child labor lobbying in the USA.

Last, I was going to write something on the bystander effect, on some blogging myths, on happy warriors, on Maiden Lane Transactions, on the CBC Massey lectures archives, on driving a Lyft, and on college and students and success. Someday, perhaps.


As always, thanks for reading this blog. I deeply appreciate it. I hope you found a link or two above worthwhile.

 

On Sylvia Plath and other fine visual artists

I knew, of course, that Sylvia Plath was a great writer. But she is also a strong visual artist. This substack post delves into her talent in that regard. (That’s her work, above.)

Not an artist, but their enemy: here’s the obit for the Gray Ghost, famous for painting over graffiti in New Orleans, including Banksy! A fascinating man. Also fascinating is museum met guard Greg Kwiatek and how working there for 25 years helped him make his own art. A third person who is fascinating is  architect Yasmeen Lari.


Check out these Qualeasha Wood tapestries (above) at that link. They are amazing. I didn’t know of her work, but I am impressed.

Of course I know of the work of these two, David Hockney and Anselm Kiefer, both of whom have new work out.

Reading as a defence against those that would ban and burn books

I’ve been thinking a lot about libraries recently. This started when I read about The Empty Library, shown above. As Wikipedia explains:

The Empty Library (1995), also known as Bibliothek or simply Library, is a public memorial by Israeli sculptor Micha Ullman dedicated to the remembrance of the Nazi book burnings that took place in the Bebelplatz in Berlin, Germany on May 10, 1933. The memorial is set into the cobblestones of the plaza and contains a collection of empty subterranean bookcases.

Just one of the many evil acts by the Nazis repudiated by others.

One way to defeat those who would commit such evil acts is to read more. One way to read more is by doing what Austin Kleon is pushing us to do here and take on a summer reading assignment. Do what he says: go to the library, get a card, check out some books. Read anything and everything the library can provide. Read recklessly. Read at whim. Read however you prefer. Read for pleasure. Read knowing that you stand against those who would prevent it if they could.

Book banning is not just something that happened in the past in Germany. It’s happening now in America and elsewhere. Push back when and where you can. One book at the time.

P.S. The story of the artwork, The Empty Library, is fascinating. I highly recommend it.