📜 New in the Commonplace Communiqué → 00038 ¶ from The Shadow of the Wind ¶ Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Count me in with the group that thinks the series finale of The Curse was amazing. It works in so many opposing ways. I loved it so much I’m tempted to write an essay but I just don’t have the energy. 📺
📜 New in the Commonplace Communiqué → 00037 ¶ from Moby Dick; or, The Whale ¶ Herman Melville
Daily(ish) poem → 00278 ◊ Funeral Blues ◊ W. H. Auden
📜 New in the Commonplace Communiqué → 00036 ¶ from The Joke ¶ Milan Kundera
Apparently my cruciverablist magical powers, granted to me only once per month or so, is coming up with themes that have been done before. And I usually discover the duplication serendipitously within a few days of thinking it up.
📖 Daily(ish) poem → 00277 ◊ Ancient Poet in a Print ◊ Charles Black
Interviewer: But back to the Norah Jones incident. What happened to you?
Ted: I got off easy that time. I told my supervisor I had confiscated the Norah Jones album from a family member, and just hadn’t got around to burning it yet. So it didn’t even get written up on my permanent record. But I should have learned my lesson.
And I did, for a while. But a few years later, I made a bigger mistake…
—How I Got Fired from the Jazz Police - by Ted Gioia🎵 [archive]
The “Knight Dance” draw is only “hilarious” if you are a five-year-old and only a “statement” if you have the philosophical acumen of a frosh in their first philosophy class.
Word Nerd Day 2023
Apparently, today is Word Nerd Day. If I knew before now that there was such a day, I’d forgotten. So, in lieu of any attempt at deep thoughts, here are some of my favorite word nerds to read or listen to. In no particular order.
Podcasts
- Because Language (and its Discord community)
- Something Rhymes With Purple
- Lingthusiasm
- Bunny Trails: A Word History Podcast
- A Way with Words
- Lexitecture
Blogs, Newsletters, etc.
Pumpkin Bread🍞, topped with oats instead of pepitas. Moist, not overly dense, flavorful. Oh so good!
Troubleshooting a Sandwich Bread Recipe
Two problems with my first sandwich bread🍞 I could use help with:
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The top is separating from the rest of the loaf. I believe this is from over-proofing?
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The loaf is shaped from a rectangle rolled into a log. As you can see in the picture, there is evident separation of the layers from the shaping. If I try to tear a slice of the bread, it separates along those circular lines, which doesn’t seem right. Is this also from over-proofing?
And could this be from over-rising the first rise? Because that one I find hard to judge (doubling), but the second is measured by how the loaf rises above the rim of the pan, which I am much more sure of.
🔗 All The Jimmy Carr Standup Specials | MetaFilter
I’m so-so on Carr as a standup comic, but there is some great conversation—and links—in the comments!
Made the IDEAS IN FOOD: Olive Bread recipe yesterday. Flavor was in point, even using inexpensive jarred Kalamata olives, but I shorted the rising time and it shows. It’s being devoured nonetheless!
Copyright protection should be of much shorter duration and focus on action, not the technology. The triggering of copyright maximalism by AI in otherwise reasonable folks is disappointing.
Finished reading: A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot Book 1) by Becky Chambers 📚
ChatGPTedious
The Brain Worms of Needing to Be the Best
There are lots of reasons to continue or start a hobby even if you cannot become good enough to make it your full-time job. But even as I write that, I don’t really believe it deep down. I believe it for you. I think it’s a great idea for everyone else to do things that bring them joy and have no other benefits. But not for me.
I have always struggled to do activities for fun. Maybe it’s capitalism, a personality default, being a Virgo, or maybe it’s just who I am at my deep sticky core. But even as a child, I struggled to see the importance of anything that could not further my goals. Why take dance lessons if I wasn’t as good as my sister? I’d never be a professional ballerina. Why go to an art college if I knew by then that I had neither the family money nor the natural talent to ascend to the heights of the Zwirner galleries? Why continue to play softball if I was only good enough for a second-tier D-I college? Throughout my childhood, I quit all of these things, plus dozens of others I cannot remember, in pursuit of some fated hobby or career that I would naturally be the best at.
All of these decisions, I recognize as an adult, are evidence of brain worms. They’re the same brain worms that made me quit piano lessons in the first place. And even though I am 20 years older now, I realized when Dayna asked that question that I hadn’t bothered to treat the worms at all. The worms made me successful and productive. Those things, we are taught to believe, are more important than feeling happy, fulfilled, or interested in your own life.
—Learning To Play Piano When There Is No Recital [archive]
This is so me that it hurts. But how to really come to—and believe—the realization the author does in the second section of the piece?