Oops!... I Did It* Again * - Sent a newsletter late
Twenty-three years ago last month, I started trading Grateful Dead concert tapes on USENET's rec.music.gdead. What seemed like it might be a weeklong amusement of sending blank Maxell XL-II 90s away to strangers changed everything about my relationships with music, technology, and communities. I can trace this hobby's influence to my academic career. I can also explain, if you care, the chain of events that led from all that to friends of mine meeting and now having two kids and a literal picket fence. Discovering music before broadband was magical, and this tape obsession was mere months before CD burners went mainstream and cable modems popped up. I still have a number of my tapes -- the collection grew from a bit of Dead and some Phish to a wide array. (By many standards, I never even got THAT into the Dead... that's not that many shows to have a collection of.) I knew when I acquired them that by now, most are probably close to unplayable. Will I ever get rid of the tapes? I don't know. Probably. I have a hard time finding anything else in my life that influenced so much of what I knew after, including some of the work I do today. Weird, huh?
Reading
I finished Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent! And the Risk! Since then, I've restarted Priya Parker's The Art of Gathering and started Robin Dreeke's Code of Trust. Reading that Bryson gave me a LOT of thoughts and feelings. I have a complicated relationship with his work, and that's not something I say lightly. I loved I'm A Stranger Here Myself and A Walk In The Woods when I read them right after college. But A Short History of Nearly Everything had put me to sleep and The Mother Tongue had infuriated me just a few months prior to
that... And as I went to write this section, my Goodreads account informed me that I loved Neither Here Nor There more recently than all of those. I have no recollection of reading that book. But, NHTH aside, I've ignored Bryson for about 15 years. The Lost Continent made me mad. It made me laugh. It made me want to write. It made me want to get out and see America NOW. And it made me want to throttle Bill Bryson for being pompous and privileged, unaware of his context. It's an amazing road trip book. The problem is, particularly in 2019, he comes off as smugly biased against anybody who's not just like him. Was this part of his "charm" that gained him popularity?
Eating
I cut back on the cheese plates this month. And I have two recipes and one photo for you. If you're feeling some kind of pasta way, get yourself some bucatini and zucchini and make this pasta with zucchini, feta, and fried lemon. (Permalink for those who can't access the Times recipe over on my Dropbox.) Then after a few days of that, fire up your taste buds with the best eggplant I've ever made: Smitten Kitchen's black pepper tofu and eggplant. Serve it with a heap of chili crisp. And if you're in Philadelphia, get a weekday lunch some time at The Dinner House. You'll want these pierogi.
Meeting
September's bonkers for me, in every way. The agenda items listed here betray the crammed feeling of my calendar. On September 6, 13, and 14, I'm performing with The N Crowd in Philly's Fringe Festival. We're performing some of our normal improv games, and some new ones, with film noir elements mixed in. It's fun! And on September 12, I debut as Senior Correspondent for Lecture Hall, a new show that's informative AND funny. Lecture Hall also features comedian Chip Chantry as host! The following weekend takes me out to scenic Utah for the first time to speak about post-academic careers, science storytelling, and networking. Ask me for more details on that! (Also, tell me your SLC tips.) I think on the 27th, I'm watching film clips and having adult conversations in Porn Stash at The Raven Lounge in Philadelphia.
Beating
Last week I streamed new Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, David Wax Museum, and Jesca Hoop. Oh? You don't recognize the latter two? Go check them out. And, yes, I've also been listening to Lizzo.
Deleting
I'm working my way again through old travel photos and have some new methods I'm playing with. My latest arrangement may now be hanging in a friend's home! I've also been tossing old spice rack items. That stuff goes stale, y'all.
Retreating
August included two day trips to the shore and some life-affirming comedy shows. It's also given me the opportunity to do some review of my projects at First Person Arts and set some work goals for the coming months. I'm looking forward to some down time at the end of September and some deep reflection, too. Got any tools you're using these days?
If you read this far, I'm happy to tell you I observed Labor Day with three separate servings of different frozen desserts in the course of six hours.
Drop me a note some time,
Neil