Wandering

I’ve been taking walks at different times of the day, including a few at night. They were mostly out of necessity, having reached the end of the day without having ticked off my walking habit. But night time walks have a different feel - more reflective, calmer even. Except for one occasion when the sky was being lit by intermittent lightning and the noises of the night were disturbed by bursts of thunder and increasingly restive leaves on the trees. That wasn’t as calm. 

I’ve also been trying to pay more attention to the wildlife, especially the birds we have close to us. And I’ve been taken with the movement of flocks of birds in the sky in a way I never have before. I feel like they’re acting out a kind of natural poetry. A conversation on the wind. 

There’s also been some more work in the long-running garden makeover, with lots of new plants going in. Not quite as exciting as the boardwalk, I know. Don’t worry, there are some more paths to come.

All of which is to say that I’ve done little to tick off some of my grander #52in52 items this week. 

I am though completely back on track with my habits. French, piano, Diderot etc all done. I’ve also just about finished another interesting book on social media - Filterworld, by Kyle Chayka. The last few chapters in particular were very good - especially on the subject of curation. He makes the comparison of algorithmic recommendations to DJs: “DJs work to highlight the unfamiliar and unusual. There’s no guarantee you’ll like what they play, but the hope is that you’ll at least be interested in it.” In essence, some of the things we come to love we may not have liked to begin with, and that sometimes we need to be challenged. Skipping through tracks on Spotify or scrolling through Instagram doesn’t give us that opportunity. 

Speaking of curation, here are a few things that I came across over the last week or so that I thought were interesting:

• This is a site you're only supposed to visit once:
  https://onlyvisitonce.com/
• This is the problem with cars:
  https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/cars-have-fucked-up-this-country
• This is a very unusual approach to computing that somehow manages to feel futuristic and old-fashioned at the same time:
  https://dynamicland.org/2024/Intro/

Finally, the artwork here probably appeals because I miss the sea.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/09/david-cass-light-on-water/

Also speaking of curation, I've just downloaded Kanopy to our Apple TV. It's an alternative to all of those streaming apps that you have to pay for. It includes a set of TV series and movies which are available for free via your library (well, here in Canada anyway). I've had a quick look through and there's a lot of interesting content that I haven't seen much elsewhere, including the BBC TV series The Prisoner and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Excellent.

Libraries are cool.