the foghorn // stone pillow
Velvia is simply unmatched.
Murakami has a way of illuminating the mundane. I think that's why I enjoy his writing. For the most part there's no grand story or underlying points that I'm missing. Both him and I are trying to figure out what exactly is on the page, all the same. The way moments are captured, the way of observing reality from afar, recognizing the absurd, and not really being sure but knowing there's something to it is Lao-Tze-esque. Reverence for, and contentment with, the Now. Someone on goodreads describes Murakami’s protagonists as having a “refined aloofness” and I think that’s more or less how I want to live my life. A wonderful example of selection bias, I find this sentiment in much of the reading I do:
All it really is, though, is being Sensitive to Circumstances. That’s just natural. It’s only strange when you don’t listen. - Benjamin Hoff
And this reviving Herb whose tender Green Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean— Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen! XXI. Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears: To-morrow—Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years. - The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
I had originally written a bunch of doom and gloom tech pessimism here but I decided thematically negative blabbering was hardly what anyone wanted nor needed to hear. I finished reading First Person Singular this past week, so we get Joey's Haruki Murakami Book Club instead. Here's a couple quotes from the book:
I thought I had a pretty good grasp of how happiness and sadness worked. What I couldn’t yet grasp were all the myriad phenomenon that lay in the space between happiness and sadness, how they related to each other. As a result, I often felt anxious and helpless.
Of course, winning is much better than losing. No argument there. But winning or losing doesn’t affect the weight and value of the time. It’s the same time, either way. A minute is a minute, an hour is an hour. We need to cherish it. We need to deftly reconcile ourselves with time, and leave behind as many precious memories as we can—that’s what’s the most valuable.
ongoing:
At this point I know many of you must be invested in my teacup. I learned two things in regards to modern Kintsugi: 1) When the epoxy instructions state precision requirements for mixing the two parts, that's for a reason, and 2) ultra-fine metal powder is delicate. Who knew. When attempting to burnish the gold after the cure-time had passed, some portions of the gold joints became damaged, so now I must do some touch up work. Spending a month fixing a teacup does seem very me.
odds and ends:
These are great links. Please, click.
-
MÄnuka design information · Klim Type Foundry
MÄnuka is new growth from old wood. With deviant details pilfered from Teutonic timber type, MÄnuka grafts a contemporary antipodean aesthetic onto 19th century German root-stock.
- https://saml98.github.io/jekyll/update/2021/06/13/flies.html
- https://when-then-zen.christine.website/intro
-
The Public Domain Review – Online journal dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available on the web
Online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.
-
Recompose | Human Composting | Full-Service Funeral Home
Recompose is a green funeral home specializing in human composting. Learn more about our services and custom ceremony offerings.
I stumbled upon someone who made some field recordings in the water near the Flood Control Outlet of the San Antonio river. Here is their post and notes:
A clip from a recording made yesterday as the heat index hit 105—hottest I’ve been in a minute. I threw my hydrophones in the water as a young man was tossing his fishing net nearby. He was catching mostly tilapia, which were also swimming around the mics. The sounds you hear are a combination of the fish swimming around and bumping the mics, water swirling and knocking the mics into the wall, and the fisherman throwing his net into the water and then pulling it out and the weights knocking against the concrete ledge.
To add to the conversation earlier about EQ, RX, etc., this recording has gone through some creative use of Spectral De-noise in RX 8, mostly to get rid of the low-end rumble of vehicles on the nearby road, from an idling train on a nearby train bridge and from the light yet still noisy water overflow. The idea was to isolate the activity closest to the mics as much as I could. - Travis P Hill
until next time