Kottke featured this earlier in the week: a Random Koyaanisqaatsi Generator, which is “an internet version [of the film’s trailer] using random Giphy ‘gifs’ which have been tagged as slow motion or time-lapse, playing them along with the Philip Glass soundtrack.”
In other words, hours of dystopian arthouse fun!
Well, maybe not deep, but I had Mark Doty in my head again, right on schedule for fall.
Like trying to familiarize yourself,
exactly, with the side of a mountain:
this birch, this rock-pool, this square mosaic
yard of tesselated leaves, autumnal,
a jeweled reliquary.
I’m not Wiccan but I find it endlessly fascinating to learn about the old, old traditions, how the early Christian church adapted/co-opted them, and how they’ve evolved into what we have today. (See also: Saturnalia, Eostre, etc.)
For Halloween, we can thank the Celtic pagans for the idea of spirits being close, the focus on death and blood and bones, and even trick-or-treating–and you can learn all about it in the Wikipedia article.
Turns out the originators of the holiday had some of the OG creepy costume ideas, too. I present the Láir Bhán (similar to the Mari Lywd, for any readers of The Dark is Rising series):
In parts of southern Ireland during the 19th century, the guisers included a hobby horse known as the Láir Bhán (white mare). A man covered in a white sheet and carrying a decorated horse skull (representing the Láir Bhán) would lead a group of youths, blowing on cow horns, from farm to farm. At each they recited verses, some of which “savoured strongly of paganism”, and the farmer was expected to donate food. If the farmer donated food he could expect good fortune from the ‘Muck Olla’; not doing so would bring misfortune.
(Image from here)
I am out of the dating scene and not in my twenties, but I enjoyed this essay nonetheless: Against Chill. As the subhead explains it, “In recent years, ‘chill’ has become one of the most desirable qualities in a romantic prospect. But it is a garbage virtue that will destroy the species.”
My mom took us all out to California and the Channel Islands before she starts a little more chemo, and it was a wonderful trip. I kept thinking of M.F.K. Fisher:
There we were, solidly one for these moments at least…not laughing perhaps as the families do in the pictures and the stories, but with our eyes loving and deep, one to another. It was good, worth the planning. It made the other…more endurable, more a part of being that undeniable rock, the Family.
I realize Instagram is still Facebook (and probably about to get a lot more like Facebook) but it’s my preferred way of getting sewing inspiration, or regular inspiration, or serendipitously learning about art movements like the Transcendental Painting Group.
Which is a long lead in to say I just found Carissa Potter Carlson’s account and if you, too, are feeling discouraged or overwhelmed (MY GOD THE NEWS I can’t talk about it or I’ll want to start fires) this is a good account to look at:
Via Kottke, here is a charming and amazing short story by Robin Sloan, set as a book proposal for a book that will make Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson president. Wait, what? You just have to read it. The meditations on The Rock, and America, and the description of the book that will do this–I think Robin Sloan needs to work on actually making this happen, because it is compelling. Worth a read.
Proposal for a book to be adapted into a movie starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson
Here is the meager gift tucked into the disaster that is Donald Trump: now, anyone can be elected president, so anyone will be elected president. We might never have another lawyer in that office again. Donald Trump broke the seal, but Dwayne Johnson will fulfill the prophecy.
Sometime in June, I wanted to re-read all the books I’d get again and again from the library as a teen. And I wanted my own copies of them, finally. So I put in a few orders at Thrift Books and spent the summer reading stories about girls with magic in space, girls with magic in the desert, girls who make friends with horses, girls who make friends with unicorns with magic, girls who go to college, girls who paint watercolors, and a couple new ones (The Summer Book, the Dodie Smith one that I’m saving for when there’s a nip in the air).
Honestly it was one of the best $20 I’d spent in a long time, just to have those old beat up covers that I remember and to be able to take my time with all of them again. I hadn’t read any fiction for a while and I’d forgotten how nice it is to get out of your own head and into the head of a girl having adventures. With magic.
I came across this writeup of Ranchlands, a Colorado land-preservation institute and model working ranch, last week. They offer working vacations and let me just say, going away for a week to ride a horse through the interior West and only worry about what’s in front of me sounds really great. (Yes, I follow them on Instagram now.)
The author of the profile (a Utah native) did a good job with it, too. I especially liked this cowboy philosophy:
Back at camp, I inarticulately tried to explain it to Bonney and Cam, but could only come up with this: As an adult, it’s easy to forget you’re capable of doing shit beyond banging on a keyboard until you do said shit and are jolted back into remembering we are meant to do more than stare at tiny screens all day. Bonney, in her button-down western shirt, brown Stetson, and faded blue Wranglers—a uniform I can only pray she wears to class—attempted to make a little more sense of what I was trying to get at. “Wallace Stegner said an American is—I’m going to get this wrong—” she pauses but then motors on. “An American is a civilized man who has renewed himself in the wild. I mean, the story of American wilderness has been, you know, that’s what we got. We ain’t got no kings, and we ain’t got no dukes. And we don’t have the castles with moats, but we got beautiful, beautiful wilderness. And so that’s, you know, much of our national story, and our notion of a national character is built out of that renewal that comes when you experience a place like this. The West is part of our origin story.”
Some final long(er) reads with which to end your week: