Ain't Got Time for the Small Stuff
I started this newsletter on Mailchimp before moving to Buttondown – and if you ever start a newsletter of your own I would strongly discourage you from using Mailchimp and strongly encourage you to use Buttondown – and this is my 200th edition. Goodness! And thanks to you all for coming along for the ride.
Johan Hybschmann, Book of Space (2009)
Henri Cartier Bresson’s first Leica. Cartier-Bresson was rarely photographed, but somebody got him here:
I’ve been listening often to the Emerson Quartet’s performance of Bach’s Art of Fugue. I think the string quartet version of this piece – which Bach wrote without giving any indication of what instruments were to be used to play it – may be the best one. Also, Apple’s Spatial Audio is not always what it’s advertised to be, but it makes this performance sound amazing – I highly recommend using it if you’re able to.
There aren’t a great many posts with the AI (Artificial Intelligence) tag on my blog, but I think there are some good ones.
Martha Nussbaum commends Cicero’s thoughts on aging:
Cato says that aging is in many ways superior to what precedes it because of the quality of the talk it contains. But he doesn’t make good on that promise; Cicero’s letters do. Aging is bound to contain tragedy. It is not, however, bound to contain comedy, or understanding, or love. What supplies all of these is friendship.
Wendy Kiyomi, in a powerful essay:
I talked to my friend Lucy, who had just said goodbye to her two-year-old foster son — a child who had been with her all through his infancy and toddlerhood, and who had thrived under her sweet care. She was grieving that he had been moved to live with a grandmother out of state, but I couldn’t help being glad that she had given him so much of what my own son now suffered the lack of. “We’re not getting anywhere,” I said. “Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.”
“Do it,” she said. “God needs to provide somehow. Just do Powerball. We ain’t got time for the small stuff.”
