On set this past weekend with an architect making one-armed tools in his wood shop. Film premieres in May at the Design Museum Zurich! And hoping to find an online distributor after.
Rewatched The Crash Reel for my class on disability. It’s really, really well done — no simple answers, and an incredibly beautiful look at the family unit as a strong organism. Recommended.
My architecture master’s students are even more astute and curious than I hoped. Now accepting recs for poetry and songs about the built environment — the weirder, the better!
Today’s runner’s high courtesy of frigid weekday temps and a mid-morning outing, making it possible to sing a joyous and warbling version of Making Plans for Nigel, unobserved and unheard
My heart! One of my architecture grads in the writing class asked me to help him launch a blog as he finishes up grad school.
Also sorry to be a heretic, but Dune is…badly written? 13 year old son and I are 70 pages in and I just don’t care about these overwrought storylines.
Oof, got conned last night at a gas station in the most cynical way. I’ve lived in cities long enough that I should’ve trusted my spidey sense that something was off, but this guy saw a mom with two kids in tow, knew I’d have animal-mama flight mode overruling my cognition.
Attention folks who work with exceptionally curious undergrads: two-week workshop with Becca Rothfeld and Jon Baskin at UChicago! Sure to be great. www.publicthinking.thepointmag.com/workshop
Today in optimism: these many efforts supported by the Consistent Life Ethic Action Fund. www.consistentlifenetwork.org/action-fo…
And speaking of my kids in high school, I am truly less certain than ever what to even wish for, college-wise, for my two neurotypical youngers. Some days I think: Great Books or nothing; other days I think it doesn’t really matter at all. La la laaa….
Trying to decide if it’s worth it to go to bat for more paper-based work in my kids’ public high school. Every last thing is on screens. And the “saving trees” rationale is ludicrous compared to meat-heavy cafeteria lunches. ??
Topics schedule, formal and social, for Writing About The Built World. Seven grad students and me. So excited.
Spent this last evening of the year with my littlest nieces and nephew — chocolate fountain, dance party with strobe effect bulbs in the suburban living room can lights — and with my niece & her husband, expecting my first great niece or nephew in June. In snowy Indiana. A beautiful close.
“My mind is still open to revision, thank God.” — Francis Spufford, naming that truly rare virtue, alongside many other jewels from his singular imagination: amp.theguardian.com/books/202…
“But if democratizing politics would go some way toward improving culture, the reverse does not hold: democratizing culture has gone no way toward improving politics… sarahendren.com/2023/12/2…
Advance copy of Becca Rothfeld’s forthcoming essays ❤️❤️
Soon I will tell you all the back story for the Stolen Bonsais. Tragic. But here is our older son’s suggested attempt to get them back.
Finally got around to seeing The Sound of Metal. Highly, highly recommended.
Buying my tree-loving husband a membership and subscription to the Arnold Arboretum’s magazine based on this beautiful essay from editor @mbattles. The doctor’s office, Gaza, nursing our wounds and the living flora all around us: matthewbattles.substack.com/p/balm-fo…