Hope you’ve been well, whoever and wherever you are.

An article I wrote for the most recent print issue of Ginkgo’s Grow magazine is now available to read freely online. It’s about the weird way that scientists discuss xenotransplantation, a mixed discourse about our ancient past and science fictional future. I technically started writing this back in 2009, and it took a delightfully roundabout path to your screens. (The art by Mark Pernice is fantastic, and makes up for a few edits I didn’t love in the final version.)

A friend recently fell down a Portuguese music rabbit hole and got me obsessed with this song by Jorge Ben Jor:

I recommend the “Tropicália Ou Panis Et Circensis” album to those who are curious about more. Shifting back toward the present, I’ve also become fond of this Melbourne-based jazz-funk group Surprise Chef:

This will be my last year in Chicago as I’m starting a new position in September at the Institute for Advanced Study. Below you’ll see Einstein standing where Laszlo will be taking his walks.

Before that, I’ll be spending part of the summer in Cincinnati at the Lloyd Library and Museum. If anyone will be in the area or knows anything about Cincinnati, please reach out. The last and only time I went was for a difficult-to-explain college trip to the International Žižek Studies Conference.

For movies: I recently saw Adam Driver in the less-than-creatively titled 65.

Alongside The Last of Us, it marks an interesting entry into the “grizzled father who has lost his daughter but must save someone else’s” genre, one of our era’s more intriguing cultural offerings. 65, to be clear, is not especially good, and falls particularly short in its dinosaur selection and its playful tarrying with Ancient Aliens themes. It does, however, make relatively effective use of Chekhov’s T-Rex and the geyser-as-weapon.

Until later, and hopefully sooner.