When the days are getting shorter. Good news is I get eleven minutes more daylight up north. These cirrus fibratus clouds extend their dark gray parallel lines from the horizon of dark green pines, mixed with hints of orange and yellow to the west. Gentle waves of the lake parallel the clouds, which frankly makes me a little dizzy if I look too long.
( image within )
Back from another week up north. This time I could swim, and oh it was wonderful.
This pic captures the almost-infinite subtle grays and greens, near 7am on a mid-August morning. Air temp is 60°F/16°C, while water temp is 70°F/21°C and therefore just lovely for a swim. When we swim in the afternoon, the sun creates a warm zone in the top four inches.
Lake shoreline mirrors dark green conifers in the foggy horizon. Above the fog a blue sky glows out from the pink dawn haze, while the lake extends its glassy surface into a dark green shade near shore. Turned sideways, the trees and their reflection look like a Rorschach inkblot.
Spent a lovely long weekend in Up North in Rhinelander. Tragically, the air quality was unhealthy for sensitive groups so I couldn't swim. I hate this timeline.
We cooked up a storm, including a strawberry crumble to die for, based on Nigella Lawson's recipe made GF on the fly.
I spent most of my time chatting with great friends and admiring beautiful clouds. So lovely I didn't take any pictures!
I'm giving myself comment amnesty, so feel free to drop pointers to your DW in the comments.
This isn’t the first time I’ve squeed about Dessa Wander, a rapper, musician, poet, and writer from the Twin Cities, Minnesota. I was introduced to her music thanks to fanvids. She’s multimodal!
Her most recent record was released twice: once as rap/pop CHIME and once backed by the Minnesota Orchestra as SOUND THE BELLS.
I’ve listened to both at least 50 times. It’s hard to choose a favorite track, but today it’s Five Out of Six.
( Rap & Orchestral Versions Within )
Since she’s toured the world on her own and with the Doomtree Collective, Dessa turns out to be a great travel writer. Check out this London adventure with LJ Rich, who’s a synesthete
( 130 word taste )
Dessa is not only great at song lyrics — she’s swell at prose, including technical writing.
This is her 2019 memoir as an essay collection. I deeply enjoyed listening to her narrate the audio version in her deep and melodic voice. She’s the child of committed environmental hippies, so I learned about growing up on the land in Minnesota. She spent 10 years in love with that one guy who really was bad for her.
print at libraries - audio - ebook - bookshare
She knew it wasn’t the best use of her time, and she managed to get her lovesickness imaged via a functional fMRI. This served as a great news hook — the search engines have pages on this story. Second best to reading the book, here’s her TED talk. (Meta aside: she learned about fMRI imaging of love by watching an earlier TED talk by Nancy Kanwisher.)
( TED talk embed with pro captions )
Given I love Dessa, who else should I be listening to?
Back from a deliciously lazy time Up North. I swam when the air was cooler than the water. We ate a bunch. I loved Gretchen McCulloch’s BECAUSE INTERNET—full review to come. We watched Deidre and Laney Rob a Train, a caper comedy with serious underpinnings: the eldest daughter -- ready-to-escape small-town Idaho -- has to keep the household together while her mother’s in jail.
Pix cause it happened!
( features memorable signage )
( tangibly layered )
Pam Wye's Graphic memoir "Water I've Loved" is serialized In Mutha Magazine. Very detailed drawings explore daughter- and motherhood in pools and the ocean near Boston. Author's mom has mental illness. Wye captured aquatic joys I'd never had words for.
Typing emoji on a Mac is a lot easier now that I know control-command-spacebar brings up an emoji browser with a search field.
Copyediting FAQ from the great Robert Benjamin Dreyer
( Read more... )
Bella continues to be the best dog
Just back from five days up north. The weather only permitted one day swimming in Flannery Lake. The rest of the time we happily read, cooked, ate, watched, and ate some more.
The "garden center" continues to delight with surrealistic plastic statuary.
( picture within )
A resin yard ornament of a seated brown pony-sized horse with white blaze. A loveseat-sized depression in its body permits me to lounge. I'm a rosy riot of coral tee, pink striped button down, and orange & yellow flowered hat.
The artist has repurposed a lovely oak card catalog as a Wisconsin-themed cabinet of curiosities. It’s furnished with ridiculously slant facts and amusing artefacts.
Open library catalog card drawer reveals a rectangular model with a laminated card in front. A dairy barn is evoked by erector-set girders covered in clear plastic. Inside are six plastic cows feeding at a hay trough. A single chocolate chip appears behind cows 1, 2, 4, and 6.
the card reads
Artifact: Ouisconsin farmers pioneered many animal husbandry techniques, such as computing dairy waste output by means of barnary notation. For example, value displayed (110101) equals 53 in base 10. Either way, it's a mucking large number.
Phillip Heckman’s project site
Sadly, he states he won’t be making this wonder available through the web. I would be happy to offer tea and GF cookies to you if you’d like to see it in person at my local branch library before 31 July 2019.
Another sample drawer appears in the the local free weekly article on the exhibit
My last conference event was a free lunch, with fond farewells to new friends.
MyGuy & Bella pick me up at 115. We’re returning on the hypotenuse from the journey down on I90 to I60 to i70, traveling state and US highways. Sometimes known as blue roads because that’s how they’re shown on paper maps.
Up at 5, do our am stuff — lightbox, stretches. La Quinta’s provided breakfast included hard boiled eggs, safe enough for me. They forgot the vinegar, though, so it took 10 minutes to dig the shell off.
Of course we fly via preparations airways, so I had an apple, turkey jerky, and a choc chip hobnob. MyGuy went for gas and trapped a container of wild Chobani for me as well. While he packed the motel’s luggage cart full, Bella and I were delighted to some sidewalk to run back and forth on. Thank heaven for corporate policies that result in a Lowe’s building supply store having sidewalk on the street facing a residential block. May it be the seed of further sidewalk to come.
On the road at 915a.
Almost miss Avery Corporation HQ, funny it didn’t stick out.
( “babble” )
...and I finally attend the first SDS function, which is an informal chat with bonus clementines. I meet several fascinating women who share their research ideas and experience. More anon!
I slowly packed all day Thursday with intermittent, frequent breaks on Twitter & DW.
Woke up, did my morning health work, then take Bella for a walk while MyGuy gasses car.
We’re out the driveway 943a on Friday
( “mundanity” )
Onward to Columbus tomorrow, where I get to meet ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forests_of_fire in person!
sarahLet me show you
( Me again swimming backstroke in Velvet Lake, looking as athletic as I felt )
branchandroot