Holes, Content, and Aesthetics

October 2023

In My Dream We Were All There Together, Momo Gordon

Intro

Hey everyone! Had (and will continue to have) an incredibly busy October. Frankly, this month has been and continues to be really difficult for me. Some of these finds brought me solace or nice distractions this month. I felt the need to collect and tie down some of the loose threads in my mind, which you will find below! First, some general updates:

• The biggest pot in my mind, constantly simmering, this month has been the task of writing my Rationale. To graduate, I need to submit a ‘List of Works’ and write a ‘Rationale’ essay encapsulating my concentration. These two artifacts will lead my ‘Colloquium’ early next year, which is where I will essentially defend my concentration title! I have put a lot of pressure on myself trying to synthesize everything I wanted to include!

• Also signed an offer for full-time employment, but felt (expectedly) very ambivalent about it. This is completely internal but something I honestly cannot shake.

  • I did learn about Microsoft TEALS, though, and I kinda wanna do it?!

  • Am generally not a fan of extra vague and generic statements, but this tweet and a quote have been on my mind this month:

    The older I get the more I realize the happiest people are literally just the people that do small things with great love.

    Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals. If you aren't grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more." - Roy T. Bennett
    (with my own interpretation of what ‘more’ means)

• I binged Pantheon (the show on, unfortunately, AMC+), which is based on Ken Liu shorts. I thought it was good and recommend it! I also binged The Bear and liked it a lot as well.

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Architecture

• How Chicago is Being Unbuilt: Back to Nature

• A pedestrian-forward re-imagining of Meatpacking in NYC

• The Urban Imagination Barrier — kind of a disappointing and cheap and easy to point out, but true.

• Williamsburg: A Charming Mall

• Thought this cafe had some localized twists on a very globalized aesthetic, am a fan. Tweet below, more photos here.

  Linear Magazine @linear_magazine

  An old townhome turned coffee shop in the heart of Kyoto, Japan

  

  

  

  

  • Watching *The Bear* has made me really just want to run a semi chaotic restaurant 🥹.

• Also think this house (from these four images, at least) summarizes where I’ve settled in aesthetics right now:

  Linear Magazine @linear_magazine

  A sunny afternoon at Casa NYO

  

  

  

  

It is difficult for anyone born and raised in human infrastructure to truly internalize the fact that your view of the world is backward. Even if you fully know that you live in a natural world that existed before you and will continue long after, even if you know that the wilderness is the default state of things, and that nature is not something that only happens in carefully curated enclaves between towns, something that pops up in empty spaces if you ignore them for a while, even if you spend your whole life believing yourself to be deeply in touch with the ebb and flow, the cycle, the ecosystem as it actually is, you will still have trouble picturing an untouched world. You will still struggle to understand that human constructs are carved out and overlaid, that these are the places that are the in-between, not the other way around.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Sustainability

• Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans, directed by Jeff Gibbs

  • Watched this a few weeks ago and it hasn’t left my mind. It honestly really upset me.

  • Related: Can’t get you out of my head, Ep. 1

• Equator Regenerative Organic Certified Coffee

  • I remember learning about how all of these certifications cost a lot of money and oftentimes are easy to work around (arbitrary measurement standards) -- in essence they aren't completely worth it. Saw this and got me thinking about that. Regenerative organic! A step in the right direction or just another label slapped onto these validations?

• By the Skin of Your Teeth

  • Fictional story collection by Grist. I thought the global representation in the narratives was really cool.

• We Need A Library Economy

  • The little skits, especially the last one, were funny.

  • Related: library music

• Toby’s excellent recent piece Life After Lifestyle. It’s long, but I thought it synthesized my thoughts on branding and how that relates to VC well.

• Sustainability issues with new metals that are fundamental in ~sustainable tech~ like EVs and PVs.

MISC.

• MIT Regressions - Reboot excellence!

• Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales soundtrack a portrait of one of England’s grandest country houses - Nowness

• Another Nowness skit… set in a photo booth. I couldn’t stop watching this one!

• Thought it was interesting that the entire Tao Te Ching is annotated on Genius. I remember getting into web annotation extensions and how there was a small movement around that.

• I like this ‘Recently’ format

• Making a Poetic Web(site)

• I found this Reddit thread on ADHD, dopamine, and depression really interesting.

• Everything is Everything - I really liked this collection!

  aredotna

  

  A post shared by Are.na (@aredotna)

• On fandom:

  acquired waste 🇺🇦 @camelcrushed

  the fact that roger ebert wrote this is 2009, way before fandom and reference culture was anywhere near as ubiquitous as it is now...

  

• On fear and children:

  Naomi Fisher @naomicfisher

  The use of fear to control children is so ubiquitous that most adults don’t even realise they are doing it. They’d never describe what they are doing that way. But in so many different ways, the children feel it. Here’s what it looks like. 1/

• .

selah in the wilderless @the_wilderless

Everybody wants to live in a laid back Mediterranean culture, nobody wants their repairman to show up 3 days late without any tools, look at the problem, say it’s not a problem, and leave

That’s all for October! Glad to feel one step closer to graduating; I’m excited for the next 12 months. Make sure to earnestly take care of yourselves and appreciate those that you hold close. I’ll leave you with another collage of the last month 😊.