Good morning. Hello. How are you? #714
Gardening, fairy campgrounds, Bill Nye, Jimmy Carter, that old workhorse Peter Hook, Do you want some love?
Good morning. Hello from space station Chatham. How’s tricks? All well? I hope so. Emma is going away on Thursday till next Tuesday, so I get Jane to myself for five nights, except it’s probably four, because Janet will take her for one of them hopefully. I am looking forward to it. A long labor day holiday with my daughter. Bonding. Character building. I am trying to think of activities, but of course it’s the holiday weekend so lots of activities will be… too active. We had a lovely evening last night playing LEGO and she is now finally into Horsey, where she rides me around like a horse and I neigh and sing the William Tell Overture. I have been waiting for this moment for four years, so that is exciting. Two more months until her fifth birthday. I wrote her birthday letter this weekend — I’ve been writing her a letter every month on her birthday since she was born, for a book that will be a gift at some point when she’s an adult. Hopefully I do not die before then.
This weekend Jane learned about: sympathy, pratfalls, accent tables, and interviews. Jane and I sat at one end of the table and folded our hands and Emma sat on the other side and we asked her questions. That was fun. The other evening she built a small table on her LEGO platform and I explained about accent tables. We do pratfalls before bed every night and it was time she learned the term. Look it is not a methodical education she’s getting, but it’s wide ranging.
But the cutest thing is now we hand each other love or attention. We close our hand and hand it to the other one and say “do you want some love?” And they hold out their hand and say “oh thank you” and you pour the love from your hand to theirs. It also works with attention, sympathy, comfort. Oh yeah, we learned “comfort” this weekend too, when she burned her mouth and I gave her some comfort. It’s a nice little mental trick, especially when she’s crying because it’s been hard to get her to accept love or comfort when she’s hurt or upset, but she’ll take it if you hold out your hand and say “do you want some love?” And my god, it’s adorable.
We went to the neighbors’ pool again this weekend and man, she sure loves our neighbor Selin. Just thinks she’s the best. She still won’t let go of mama or her floaty, even if Emma says she’ll catch her, but she’s learning. She knows to kick to move around.
Emma built a whole “Fairy Campground” for the dollys and on Friday evening, all the dollys packed up from their dollhouse and trekked out into the woods for a fairy camping party and man it looked so fun I want to go on a fairy camping party in the woods with my friends. God help me I think I might actually miss camping. Gulp.
Gardening was lovely thanks for asking. I am planting some experimental fall potatoes — two in grow bags, one in-ground. I desperately hope the grow bags are more successful because I hate hate hate digging potatoes out of the ground. I have too many childhood memories of this task. Though, I must admit, most of them are fond memories. But that’s back when my bones were made out of jelly and my muscles were made out of seratonin or something. Now they are concrete and glass and the thought of spending that much time on my knees gives me headaches and agita. Jane and I also planted snow peas, I planted a couple experimental cucumber seeds to see if I could get away with succession planting into late August next year. And I found the baby bok choy seeds so I planted some of that for Janet. The butterly bed is coming along well, no flowers yet but all the seeds have germinated. What did not germinate, though, were my cucumber and broccoli seeds, which I left outdoors under a dome and I think they got too hot and baked, so I re-seeded them for a second attempt. Same soil, though, so if it’s the soil’s fault, round two isn’t gonna work either, which is gonna suck because I really want some fall broccoli and would hate to have to go buy some plants from the store like some sort of schmoo.
We’ve been watching the new series by Bill Nye, The End is Nye which is a super cheery thing about all the ways we might face an apocalypse any day now. Then it ends with a completely delusional optimistic bit at the end about how we could avoid, or at least mitigate, the impending apocalypse if we got our politicians to act. I deepluy, profoundly admire Bill Nye’s ability to film those segments with a straight face. I mean, he doesn’t 100% succeed, he occasionally makes a (humorous) snide comment here or there, but mostly he manages. What’s interesting, though, is it’s billed as a “science” show, and it is, but it’s also an institutionalist show. Like I’m sitting here watching about Mass Coronal Ejections and how a giant solar flare is going to plunge the world into darkness and then when he gets to the recommendations he talks about governments mandating smart grids and grid hardening, and I’m like “lol, nope, tell me what I can do, using science. Like if I have a giant master shutoff switch between my house and the grid, and I flip it before the MCE hits, will that protect the wiring in my house?” Still science, but a prepper application as opposed to an institutionalist one. Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer the instutitionalist one, but in the absense of that… prepper science is a shitty second, but still an option.
Also I love the episode about all of Yellowstone being a giant volcano that will eventually kill us all because not enough people know about that.
Also every episode has a Seth Meyers cameo which is kinda funny.
Also I love that Seth Meyers basically just took the old Star Trek (as opposed to Nu Trek) producers and has been using them on Cosmos, The Orville, and The end is Nye. Nice to see Brannon Braga gainfully employed.
Was hoping to go to New York this week, to see a friend from the west coast that I haven’t seen since before the pandemic and I miss them so much, and I have some businessy stuff I need to attend to, but it is not gonna work, alas. Mainly because of Emma’s impending trip and trying to maintain some semblance of quarantining, but also because of some other stuff that I can’t get out of this week. So now I’m back to thinking about combining New York and Boston into one long road trip in about two weeks. I will miss the west coast friend, which sucks, but I’ll get the work thing done, maybe see some other people in New York, and get to the Bauhaus show. Fingers crossed.
I got a new eye prescription this weekend. This is my third current prescription. I have my main glasses prescription, a reading prescription, set to eighteen inches, and a computer prescription now, set to 24 inches. Previously, my reading and computer prescription were the same, but things have apparently degraded some more. My reading and computer prescription — prescriptions for a mere six inches of distance different — are a full diopter apart. Insanity.
Finally got to Jimmy Carter in my history of conservatism books. What a crazy man. Definitely had a bit of an ego on him — knew he wanted to be president since he was a kid. But mostly as saintlike as the myths say. Seems like the whole thing was a real Obama or Bernie situation. There were approximately twenty people running for the Democratic nomination in 1976 but Carter’s southern charm, outsider status as a non-DC politician, and his politics of love won people’s hearts. Also his relentless, early ground game in Iowa, turning the Jackson-Jefferson dinner straw poll into a supposed early indicator of sentiment, then winning it, and garnering a ton of attention, when many candidates hadn’t even started campaigning yet. Frank Church was still busy running the Church Committee — the committee looking into abuses at the CIA — so he got a late start. No one else was really going yet. But the gambit worked, and now the Iowa Straw Poll is “a thing,” for better or worse. Pretty insanely brilliant man, Jimmy Carter. But he was a conservative Democrat, he’d never pas muster these days. Pro choice but only barely, blathering on about states rights and some restrictions being okay, etc. etc. His welfare proposals were very technocratic and mostly fair but he definitely copped to the Republicans and had work requirements and, even as he stuck up for welfare recipients and said “most” wanted to work, still gave into their BS arguments about welfare queens n shit. Not perfect. But still. Quite the man.
There were eighty-nine terrorist bombings in the US in 1975. Eighty-nine. That is.. nuts. I don’t quite know what to do with that bit of information yet.
Peter Hook of New Order played Terminal 5 in New York this week. It really is amazing, New Order is getting bigger, I think, as the years go by. These New Order shows this summer are at much bigger venues than the last few New Order tours. And Peter, just out there putting on amazing shows, touring relentlessly. It is good to see him playing bigger and bigger venues. Terminal 5 is like 4x as big as the venue in NYC he played his first solo show. I’m glad. He really does crush it.
Moody and Quiet playlist for you this Monday. Mostly new stuff, three oldies that I heard this weekend that’ve been rattling round my head. Pitchfork gave Royksopp shit for their new album being too derivative, even though the band said they were gonna make a super derivative album paying hommage to some of their idols. Pitchfork is wrong, the album is great and a good time. I kind of love it when established bands make albums in blatant hommage to their idols. This Matthew Connor gentleman is a Bostonian of some skill I used to be friends with back in the day and I like his new song very, very much. It’s great. And I’m glad Skullcrusher is back, they do the mellow thing very, very well.
All right let’s face this week, shall we? What fun. Who doesn’t love a Monday. Chat soon.