Good morning. Hello. How are you? #378
Good morning. Hello. How are you? #378
Weekends and the dream of doing nothing, gardening, the possibility of a movie theater, Biosphere 2 as a YouTuber house, future road trips, Jane's burgeoning noise musician career
Good morning! Hello! How are you? Looking forward to the weekend on this bright and early Saturday? Actually it’s not especially bright here, it’s looking rather grey and chilly. Over 40, though, so at least my plants mostly made it through the two-day cold snap. I think I lost one cucumber, one baby bok choi, and a bed of holy basil I stupidly forgot to bring in. Not too bad. I can get those swapped out with some healthy seedlings today. Also need to plant my potatoes today, which is exciting. I know right where they’re gonna go. And I gotta assembly my two new potting benches. Other than that… not too too much gardening to do this weekend? If I am feeling ambitious I should do the tomato trellis or the irrigation, but I need to paint the trellis components first, and before that I need to consult Emma on their color. And I don’t think it’s time yet to do the irrigation because I don’t know exactly where everything is going to permanently go. But I guess you don’t need to know exactly where everything is going to go. The system is (more or less) extensible, and there’s a lot I can do now. Maybe, maybe. But I am feeling tired today, I gotta tell ya. I mean, it’s only 7:30 so maybe I’ll snap out of it, but at the moment I can’t say I am dying to dive into a day of intense physical exhaustion.
What sounds really pleasant right now is to spend a day on the couch doing absolutely nothing. I can have the TV on, but I would only be allowed to watch YouTube videos or things I have already seen. No using the time to be productive and watch that great movie everyone’s been talking about. Who am I kidding I barely watch movies anymore. Huh actually I’m vaccinated, I suppose I could actually start going to the movies again. Oh right there are no new movies in theaters and no theaters. That is really sad.
These local neighbors here bought the local neighborhood movie theater and saved it from bankruptcy – three months before the pandemic. I feel really bad for them. They have really made a go of it, though. It’s still standing. It hasn’t closed. And hrm actually Mortal Kombat is playing. That is exactly the kind of movie I used to go see on a Saturday or Sunday morning at around 10 AM. Emma would do me a favor and start her morning shift a little early, and I’d go watch a movie, alone, at the Lumina or Silverspot, and usually make it home by lunch or not long after. Many times, I was the only person in the theater even pre-covid. It was great. Yeah, I could do that again. I’ll give it another couple weeks for the vaccine to get fully kicked-in, but yeah. I’m gonna go see a movie in May. That’s a thing I am going to do. Holy shit, I am giddy with anticipation already.
I had a very long dream last night combining elements of Taylor Lorenz’s new exposé about YouTuber Jake Paul, this amazing segment on the Chris Hayes show about Los Angeles’ efforts to turn its greywater and brownwater back into potable water, and Biodome. It was fantastic and, actually, is probably a genuinely good idea. They took Biosphere 2 and turned it into a YouTube creator house for scientists, engineers and a few artists — the artists were, like, you know, covering their tracks in case they got into a “no words they should have sent a poet” scenario or something. No, I don’t know why the artists were there, but they were a key part. Anyway if you know much about Biosphere 2 you know that it failed in its original effort to remain a closed-off separate biosphere. But if you know more about Biosphere 2 you know that actually the thing has been hella useful and they have learned a lot of science from the thing. Biosphere 2 is awesome. It gets a bad rap. Maybe because of Bio-Dome. But also the press at the time, and these days because of the recent (very good) documentary and the Steve Bannon connection.
But in my dream, Biosphere 2 as a YouTuber house was awesome. It was a multi-channel, mult-hosted, multi-part documentary on home renovation, DIY, and restoration. It touched all of the popular YouTube bases (well, except for extremism). This one woman was an engineer constantly working on getting the air scrubbers to work perfectly so that they could re-seal the thing up. This old guy spent hours each day trying to get their sewage recycling system perfect. Shelby Church was there doing cool documentaries about the money they were making off of various entrepreneurial endeavors. There was a gardener who was a little crazy, mostly modeled off of this fun, eccentric English YouTube gardener I enjoy. An artist had turned an old storage area into a bohemian cafe, and they had redone the airlocks so that the cafe kind of was the airlock — it was where the Biospherians (such a great word) could mingle with people from real life. It had a real Rick’s in Casablanca kind of air. Bob Dylan was playing there on the night the dream took place. He had brought Tom Waits along, but Tom was just sitting at the bar.
I’m telling you the place was fantastic. I am just learning now that Biosphere 2 does have a YouTube page, and I just subscribed, but. I’m sure it can’t be as exciting as the ones in my dreams.
Man. I really do think I’ve been obsessed with Biosphere 2 nearly my whole life.
I keep a long list of places I want to take Jane when we go on our epic roadtrip, probably sometime around 12 years old, maybe a little younger. Old enough to appreciate everything, not too old to be annoyed with spending so much time with dad. Biosphere 2 is definitely on it. The Southwest part of the trip is gonna be great: all the national parks, Biosphere 2, Marfa, Arcosanti, Meow Wolf (if they’re still standing), Earth Ships, Taleisin West. I’m excited to drive across the country again. Used to do it all the time, but it’s been yonks.
Oh I did a podcast about Apple’s ATT, if you’re into that sort of thing. It was with a guy at AdExchanger, which is one of the big adTech publications. Here it is:
Jane made her first White Noise song yesterday. I am sad I wasn’t quick enough to record it. We got downstairs after breakfast and usually she wants to go straight onto Jane’s Phone. But instead she kept saying “play? play?” and I wasn’t too busy, so, sure, I’ll play with you. But no she did not want to play with me. I suggested various things to play with and she rejected them all, but then when I suggested she play the Rhodes, she was into it. Oh, I realized. That kind of play. Great! So I set her down and let her start playing and I immediately get lost in trying to track down a hum in the signal flow like you do, but she just kept playing and having a grand old time. Eventually, though, she noticed the blinky light below it and climbed down from the stool and started tinkering with the Sonic Boom Acid Fuzz, but then got bored, I guess, and moved over to the Deluxe Memory Man, turned the feedback past 100%, climbed back onto the stool, and started playing the Rhodes again until it was just a glorious sheet of white noise and man, it was beautiful. It was beautiful the way Tom Cruise said “it’s beautiful, maaan,” in TAPS. Without all the death.
Oddly prescient film, TAPS. I wonder if it’s worth a re-watch. Ugh. I bet I couldn’t handle that.
Okay I gotta get going cuz I gotta do the grocery delivery order to reserve my slot on Tuesday. I may stop doing this soon. It really is a crapshoot, which is more annoying: actually going to Harris Teeter or getting delivery from them, with the commensurate 1,000 plastic bags. But, you know. No major changes here for two weeks at least, so we’ll keep doing it. One thing that is weird about delivery is that the deli people have radically varying ideas about how thick to cut your turkey if you don’t give them any direction. For weeks it was pretty thick, thick enough to pull a slice off of the pile easily. The last two weeks it’s been super thin, the kind you pretty much have to pull up by clumps. There’s a form there to, like, specify thickness, but that seems extreme (I realize this is not extreme, it’s just my neurosis talking. I say please and thank you in every single special instructions comment I don’t like putting these people out). I have spent an extraordinary amount of energy the last two weeks thinking about this.
Anyway, talk to you guys Monday. My secret plan is to rally today and try and get everything I’m “supposed” to get done today, since today’s my night with Jane anyway so it can never be a day of nothing, and then tomorrow do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. That sounds so amazing. I can’t even tell you.
Today’s mix is a shoegaze mix. I’m sorry I keep forgetting the links. I will add it now to be sure you have it. There. Good mix, mostly on the obscure ish side? Well, except for Swervedriver, Ride and Mogwai, I guess. May I love Breathless. I’m listening to Behind the Light right now. Every Breathless album is a masterpiece. Radically under-appreciated, under-recognized band. They are getting a series of vinyl reissues of late, though, which I am mostly buying even though I already had most of the Breathless albums on Vinyl. A lot of these bands on here I don’t actually know much about — no idea about Double Happiness, Lanterna, Blush Response, Postijonen, even DIIV really I have never looked into, don’t know where they’re from, etc. Adventure!
Hope your Saturday is lovely. Hope you don’t have to assemble any furniture today. Maybe you can watch a movie. Don’t watch TAPS. Well, if you really want to, you can watch it and tell me if it’s worth re-watching.