Fair Day in Plaguesburg

'Tis "Fair Day" in the county, all schools off for the day so as to attend the maskless, throng-ridden multi-day superspreader event of goats and pigs and the “raising one of Ohio's largest flags," and "a ton of things on display like art and produce" (these being excerpts from the local paper – a paper where my father used to be the photographer and where my love of the smell of a darkroom and typewriters was inculcated –  which has, in recent years, become a metastasized cancer of poor editing, conservative ideology, and nostalgic, red-hat resentment for a time that existed only in the shitty local art on display in tourist trap hellholes).

Another favorite story, from last week: while I can't recall the headline, it was a lament over the lack of people willing to volunteer to man entrances and booths at the fair, told in that same "dignity of work" bollox-style of faux-outraged tone-deafness with which they bemoan the lack of people willing to work at area restaurants for shit wages and shittier benefits.

Thought it might be fun to include the COVID numbers reported for the area – and my wife's school building – every so often.

  • From the county's health department, from 29aug-04 sep: 469 new cases, up from 346 the week before and the seventh week in a row of an upwards trend, with a total to date of 10,659 in a county whose population is, as of 2019, 115,070 and where less than 50% of the residents eligible for vaccination are jabbed. There have been 500 hospitalizations and 230 deaths since the pandemic began; four hospitalizations (down from six) in the latest report, and zero deaths, (down from two). Test positivity rate is 13.23%, up from 12.64% the previous week.

  • For my wife's (mask-mandated) school: last updated 02sep (in spite of saying they will update the graphic weekly): 12 active cases, with one staff member and eleven students (lunchtime fun-fection) in various states of infection.

Reports over the next few weeks should be fun. The day awaits. `

System(s) Updates

Still working out the workflows for The Main Thing in Obsidian, trouble being that I've still not adjusted to working in the chaos of the knowledgebase / Zettlekasten method – this in spite of, a.) knowing that the chaos is far more representative of how the actual process works than the more linear approach I had taken previously and, b.) loving it. Other Things are working great in this method – need to apply that to the larger form (though, clearly, I'm committing my cardinal sin of putting form before story; must readjust workflows to absolve self of said sin).

Import of the weekly project folder review (that I've let slip for a month) more evident with each passing procrastination. As with writing workflows in the wake of the iPad-infused digital switch for legibility and reduced creative friction, I have to learn to incorporate those digital brain-folders - Obsidian, Trello – into the physical folder review. Must get that done today. Open loops and all that.

TSR status: TSR0007, feat. Fran Dominguez, AKA Forest Robots is live... TSR0008, featuring Steve Niles, is assembled and on track for release this week. Probably Wednesday, as per normal. Macro+ goes out to NL subs on Friday.

Wrapped up: PICARD (beautiful ending, though it took too long to get there; a bit frontloaded)... YAKUZA KIWAMI 2 (my favorite game series continues to be my favorite, yakuza-soapopera/beatemup game series)... and Megan Abbott's latest, THE TURNOUT (a powerful look at the delicacy of balance and the lengths we go to keep it, the ballet of life, told in Abbott's inimitable voice and rhythm). 

Current reading/watching: started Stefan Zweig's biography of Montaigne and I'm halfway through Eggers's THE LIGHTHOUSE, a film with which I'm already in all sorts of love. 

Self-sustenance / diabetically-mandated breakfast, dogchild sustenance, back to work.

Stefan Zweig, MONTAIGNE

Quoted:

  • "Only he whose soul is in turmoil, forced to live in an epoch where war, violence, and ideological tyranny threaten the life of every individual, and the most precious substance in that life, the freedom of the soul, can know how much courage, sincerity, and resolve are required to remain faithful to his inner self in these times of the herd's rampancy." - p.37

  • "He knew only too well the colossal task represented by this simple idea: to safeguard one's independence at the core of oneself." - p. 50

  • "Despite all his sagacity, Montaigne suffered something of an unsavoury infatuation with the nobility..." - p.62

  • "'What use is it to have a bellyfull of meat, if one cannot digest it, if it cannot transform us, if it cannot improve us and fortify us?'" - p. 72

  • “The great lesson Montaigne receives from books is that reading, in its rich diversity, sharpens his faculty of judgement. It impels him to respond, to lend his own counsel.” - p.95

  • “He must be forever searching. Thus is born a multitude of contradictions. Now he appears an Epicurean, now a Stoic, now a sceptic. He is at one and the same time all and nothing, always different and yet ever the same...” - p. 101

  • “The true essence of freedom is that it can never restrict the freedom of another.” - p. 109

  • ”It is sheer falsehood and criminality to want to enclose the diversity of the world in doctrines and systems, falsehood to turn men away from their own unfettered judgement, from their own will, and to impose on them something which lies outside them.” - p. 114