parking lot kindle

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Spent a bit of time waiting in a parking lot (grocery store: my wife got solo grocery shopping down to a science during the pandemic so we’ve decided not to fuck with perfection) this morning and took the opportunity to use it as a case study in my effort to use my Kindle Paperwhite with greater frequency: Economist and NYRB subscriptions show up there now; HOW TO TAKE SMART NOTES in there, too - a book I don't necessarily want to read in my daily reading blocks but do want to peruse in times outside (such as titular parking lot). While the PW's shit for reading comics, it's great for reading manga - ASTRO BOY, LONE WOLF AND CUB, and the third volume of BLACK JACK dwell there as well. That it still had 76% battery life after being buried under piles of books and Bergman / Varda Blu-Ray doorstop sets for three months is an added bonus… she’s seriously got it down to a science: I was in that parking lot for all of 20 minutes, maybe. Respect.

( ) – Sigur Rós

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Album cover for Sigur Ros's ( )

While I try to highlight mostly lesser-known artists with my EarBlissery, I’ve had the 20th anniversary edition of ( ) on a loop the past week and I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t include it. Still holds the same raw power as the first time I heard it, all those years ago. One of the best.

coda/20230128

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Slowly, slowly getting this space to what I want it to be: a tweak here, a tweak there. I want to write here with more frequency - scratch that: I want to think here with greater frequency. The whole timetable thing is in the process of unfolding, seeking a balance between discipline and freedom or, rather, trying to find the sweet spot where discipline IS freedom – and a time where I'm not using these as an excuse to not do the deep work required for the Main Projects. More GOLDENEYE awaits; newsletter Sunday tomorrow feat. Informalities debut. ‘Night.

antique mall saturday

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Perused a new antique mall (that used to be an old motel) with good friends and found these treasures:

Clockwise, from top: a bedraggled Charlie Weaver Bartender toy (I’m fond of his dystopian look, skeletal frame revealed in torn clothes); vinyls of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” (by the Cincinnati Symphony) and first pressings of Dylan’s HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED and Lennon’s PLASTIC ONO BAND (one of my favorite albums); and TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED No. 41, September 1959.

Very pleasant Saturday.

PARASITE (Bong, 2019)

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(Directed by Bong Joon Ho from a screenplay by Bong and Han Jin-wan; starring Song Kant-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-sik, Park So-dam, Lee Jeong-sun, and Jang Hye-jin. Released 21 May 2019; watched fri/20230123 via Hulu)

a still from Bong Joon Ho's PARASITE: assembling pizza boxes

Has the distinction of being the only film I purchased on Blu midway through watching it: a tour-de-force that demolishes expectations of genre and character from one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. Hilarious, terrifying, poignant, brutal, suspenseful, gut-wrenching – all within a single scene. Everything I want in a film and then some: the finest con/fallout pitch-black comedy since FARGO. Never have peaches been so terrifying.

stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck

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OK that didn't last long: now it's irritating. But now I know I can, if necessary, move over to something else for a couple of days or a week. Not sure it will help, though – this thing's been like this for awhile now. Last time I let this happen, it took me seven years to realize it wasn't a novella but a paragraph. Won't let it subsume me that much again.

(Unlike then, not afraid of running out of ideas if I give up on one: those things are a dime a dozen. What takes doing is finding the rhythm that both satisfies the present moment (got that part) and provides a means of continuance to the next (that's the tricky part).)

At the point of using Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies (which are very cool and helpful in getting me to think outside my normal thought patterns)

Might be doing two daily text things here (depending on the number of workblocks in the day), just to give me something to jump to if I get stuck like I am now. PARASITE post-script in afternoon, probably. Already on my favorite films list. So good.

Also: POKER FACE is brilliant.