january 2024: the movie primer and pretty rocks in utah
happy belated new year -
this year, i’m participating in a modified 52-weeks-of baking challenge. in the original event, one bakes a different item based on a theme each week.
i think that every week sounds like an overwhelming task, so some friends and i have opted to pick a monthly challenge from the themes of that month. this month, helen and i made a pumpkin quick bread with ground black sesame! let me know if you’d like to be added to the group chat, as a participant or observer.
movie: primer
if you know me, you know that i barely watch any movies. I generally find the combination of video and audio to be a sensory disaster. however, a couple of weeks ago, matisse and i made a plan to watch Primer, an internally-consistent, notably confusing, time travel movie made with the extremely low budget of 7000 dollars and no special effects. we in fact watched the movie once, then spent 2+ hours poring over this extremely detailed diagram explaining the plot (with a timeline labelled timeline 11+ no less) with other friends who had watched the movie multiple times, and then watched the movie again.
i would highly recommend this way of consuming this piece of content, and welcome any fan theories/explanations that you have for the events that unfold.
books:
palo altoby malcolm harris is a 700+ page sprawling leftist history of palo alto and how it shaped ‘california, capitalism, and the world’. The book was a great mix of informative and entertaining, and i left with a newly renewed dislike of herbert hoover.her body and other parties(short stories) by carmen maria machado. this author… really likes writing uncomfortable stories about women, their bodies, and violence, in an ethereal way that leaves you unsettled. highly recommend.horrostörby grady hendrix: light, horror comedy novel about a haunted ikea furniture store.
links:
the ‘global consciousness project` is "is a parapsychology experiment begun in 1998 as an attempt to detect possible interactions of "global consciousness" with physical systems. The project monitors a geographically distributed network of hardware random number generators in a bid to identify anomalous outputs that correlate with widespread emotional responses to sets of world events, or periods of focused attention by large numbers of people."
race report from a marathon organized by the scientist crew at admunsen-scott south pole station in antarctica.
sim city and elections - “in 1990 the providence journal invited five candidates for mayor of providence, rhode island to manage a simcity town resembling the city. victoria lederberg blamed her close loss in the democratic primary on the newspaper's description of her poor performance in the game; former mayor buddy cianci, the most successful player, won the election that year.”
~~~~ photos (https://photos.app.goo.gl/7pqVHReLFrxK9rPv5) ~~~~
of pretty rocks in utah (photos with me in them were taken by helen)
-avital
ps: i'll be in new york city the last weekend of february; let me know if you want to go on a long walk :)