Consciousness

So I’ve had this half-goal for several years to be more conscious in general — of my actions, of my decisions, of my thought processes.  That includes my spending, which, even when I’ve kept track of it in the past, has not really been as “conscious” as it’s been in the last month.  I’ve assumed [...]

Maira Kalman Illustrates the Inauguration

I really love Maira Kalman.  Her pride in our country abounds these days, with her latest work for the New York Times:

Do These Things Happen to Other People?

So I’m reading this book, The Loser, by Thomas Bernhard.  It’s about potential and not living up to it.  It is one paragraph long.  The paragraph lasts 170 pages.  I’m enjoying it.  I’m reading the book because Cary Tennis advised someone else to read it in one of his advice columns, and I like to [...]

10,000 Pages

That’s 1% of one million, by the way.
My 10,000th page was read today, in one of the best books I’ve read so far this year, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me by Javier Marías.  Experimental but not distractingly so, suspenseful but sophisticated.  It’s a meditation on death and life, but “life” in this sort [...]

England!

So…  tickets to London are really cheap through British Airways right now, and I totally bought one!! I’m heading out for a long weekend (Thursday – Tuesday) at the end of February, beginning of March.  AND, included in my $550 RT fare is one free night of accommodation in London.  They advertise two free nights, [...]

A Very Long Post about Books

I’m reading a lot these days (9,747 pages since July 1!).  I thought it would get in the way of living just a little bit, but it really hasn’t.  I’m at least as social as I was before.  I’m actually really overwhelmed by how much I’m not reading.  It’s kind of like a “the-more-you-know-the-more-you-realize-you-don’t-know” sort [...]

Exponential

The world is getting so exhaustingly cool.  Wow.
Check this out:

(and don’t just see it on YouTube — view it on Google Earth if you can, or at the very least here)
I’m just finishing Brian Eno’s A Year with Swollen Appendices, which is his diary from 1995.  He talks about things like [...]

Decade

So the ten-year anniversary of my high school graduation will be this summer.  I would say, “My ten-year reunion is this summer,” but as of yet there seem to be no plans.  I don’t want to plan it.  My friends who might are having babies (congratulations, one and all!).  It is also possible that I [...]

Rebuses

I cataloged three images of works that involved rebuses today.  From different centuries and for different requestors.  First, a nice Currier and Ives lithograph, The Art of Making Money Plenty:

Then, just a few hours later, some Richard Milette works:

I feel like I should mention that rebuses and I go a long way back.  Pretty much [...]

150 Project, Week 1

I got a new computer for Christmas.  It is gorgeous.  I’m blogging from my bed.
Anyway…
The first full week of the 150 Project ended at midnight.  It is really hard to spend only $150 in a week!  I was helped out by starting the week with some food in the fridge and freezer (because [...]