In this 99percentinvisible episode, a group of geologists, linguists, astrophysicists, architects, artists, and writers are brought to the New Mexico desert in 1990. They are given an assignment. They have to come up with a way to communicate that this area is a nuclear zone. The catch, the meaning should survive 10000 years.

I found this a interesting look at a vast array of ideas — words, stories, cartoons. But, I think I agree with what might be the most radical solution presented. The only thing durable across 10K years is Culture. Proposed by two philosophers, Françoise Bastide and Paolo Fabbri.

Bastide and Fabbri came to the conclusion that the most durable thing that humanity has ever made is culture: religion, folklore, belief systems. They may morph over time, but an essential message can get pulled through over millennia.  They proposed that we genetically engineer a species of cat that changes color in the presence of radiation, which would be released into the wild to serve as living Geiger counters. Then, we would create folklore and write songs and tell stories about these “ray cats,” the moral being that when you see these cats change colors, run far, far away.

We went to the aquarium to celebrate 🐣K first birthday. He fell asleep when we were 5 minutes away from the place. Woke up right in the middle of the conveyer belt ride, with a shark swimming above our head. We thought he would freak out, but he was really excited to see so many colors.

The jellyfish and rainbow fishes were his favourite ones.

Back to drawing after a few months. Felt good getting that pencil on paper.

I read Craig Thompson's Blankets somewhere around May 2021 and felt compelled to make these set of cartoons. One amongst the many that didn't even make it to this stage.

I stumbled up on these today and am glad these exist.

A few weeks before the pandemic, I was out on a cold Toronto February walking around the city. I had been watching a lot of Mekas's work, particularly As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty. ^[1]

Two and half years later, with 🐣K. first birthday coming up, I am glad I made this tiny video that day.

There's a legend about a Chinese painter who was asked by the emperor to paint a landscape so pristine that the emperor can enter it. He didn't do a good job, so the emperor was preparing to assassinate him. But because it was his painting, legend goes, he stepped inside and vanished, saving himself. I always loved that little allegory as an artist. Even when it is not enough for others, if it is enough for you, you can live inside it.

ocean vuong

Someday I would love to get my garden close to this. A beautiful space to stay and explore.

https://barnsworthburning.net/

poem by mary oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Logged into my lastfm after ages, Riz Ahmed (introduced to me from the excellent ms marvel ost) has taken up most of my listening time. It's the one artist that K. jumps up and danced to irrespective of the mood he is in.

I couldn't have said it better:

There are no rules to blogging except this one: always self-host your website because your URL, your own private domain, is the most valuable thing you can own. Your career will thank you for it later and no-one can take it away.

This overlaps with a lot of what I aim towards. This one thing would stop us from performing for others and allow us the space to indulge in whatever fascinates us.

And, what fascinates us makes us who we are.

(source: Take Care of Your Blog)

Virgina Woolf paints a strong image of why cities are wonderful places to be.

I always felt this when I was in NYC. Where I could find myself when walking right in the middle of the manic, swirling madness of people.

Woolf relished the creative energy of London’s streets, describing it in her diary as “being on the highest crest of the biggest wave, right in the centre & swim of things.”

As Mrs. Dalloway walks, she does not merely perceive the city around her. Rather, she dips in and out of her past, remolding London into a highly textured mental landscape, “making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh.

I enjoyed Thoreau's essay on walking, where he asks us to walk like a camel, for "it is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking."

Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow. - Henry David Thoreau

“Walking organizes the world around us; writing organizes our thoughts. Ultimately, maps like the one that Nabokov drew are recursive: they are maps of maps.”

Vladimir Nabokov offered some advice for teaching James Joyce’s “Ulysses”: “Instead of perpetuating the pretentious nonsense of Homeric, chromatic, and visceral chapter headings, instructors should prepare maps of Dublin with Bloom’s and Stephen’s intertwining itineraries clearly traced.”

source

A few years back, I came across Walid Raad's website, The Atlas Project. A look at the contemporary history of Lebanon, where Raad put together an archive which plays with the thin line between fiction and non-fiction. I was introduced to a genre of photography, speculative documentary, that has since become an integral part of my own practice.

Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers and Tides is apparently a dreaded watch in Art schools. The YouTube comments for these videos were filled with kids complaining they had to watch this.

I, for one, loved his complete surrender to nature. His approach to making art, which recognizes the entropy^[1] in play for everything we create. ^[2]

At the genesis of my site is this article/how-to guide by Darius Kazemi, How to run a small social network site for your friends

It has also set in motion this thought in my head that has been brewing the last two years to build an alternative, small, community driven, federated and image centric social network of my own.

a small social network site doesn't need a huge complex network of computers. One computer can be enough. Often it's the kind of thing you can rent for $10 a month, or even run at home on an old computer you have lying around if you want.

(for the administrator) remember that your job is social first and technical second

If I make software that makes the lives of 50 people much nicer, and it makes 0 people more miserable, then on the balance I think I'm doing better than a lot of programmers in the world.

I searched and searched for this video of Alison Bechdel. She talks about how she has to photograph herself to draw her cartoons.

I can relate to her.

i found this in the deep crevices of my notes from 2021. it was right under my nose all along