I need glasses to find my glasses
On most days my desk looks like a bowl of cable spaghetti. The cables are all black. USB this, lightning bolt that. My reading glasses are black. Black chameleons. I set them down and they become one with the cables. Shopping list - white or Ferrari red glasses.
I'm taking a short break from Camus' The Rebel, an Essay on Man in Revolt. When I read a section that I think I understand it's like winning the lottery. Is it worth it to continue? Maybe. I nearly gave up, but I loved the introduction to Rimbaud. It's moved into the surrealists and the Marxists now, and I'm hopelessly lost.
I think (that think is the maybe think vs. the assertive think) Camus simultaneously respects and disdains Rimbaud. Respects him for his early work but disappointed that he gave up writing for a businessman's life. But what a life it was. Yemen, Ethiopia, Java (Indonesia), and Cyprus. Shop owner, coffee trader, and gun runner. It starts to sound a little Heart of Darkness. I hope his journeys didn't rest on exploiting the locals, but that underlying formula doesn't bode well.
The sky is orange again on this last day of September 2020. Makes for some dramatic lighting in my apartment, but it's nothing to celebrate.
Speaking of orange, how many of you watched the debate last night? I'm betting that most of us feel disappointed and embarrassed. If these are the best leaders we can find, we're in trouble.
I made myself watch most of it on CSPAN. I may have dozed off once or twice. It all seemed pointless, petty, and childish. I am convinced that the internet is making us stupid, with Twitter and Facebook being two of the biggest culprits. We seem increasingly incapable of nuanced, complex thoughts. I know I haven't avoided it. I'm gratefully free of social media, but I'm still on the 21st century's idiot box too long every day.
On that note I'm going to wrap this up and go do something else. Adding a few articles below that I thought were interesting.
- New York Times article about the role of open borders and tourism in the early days of the pandemic. That's a bad description of it. The article explores international policy set against a backdrop of the resort town of Ischgl, Austria. Some great photos, too, from Andrea Montavani.
- Seattle Met article/interview with journalist Omari Salisbury, whose work helped document the 2020 protests in Seattle. He doesn't show any signs of slowing down.
- Lena Friedman's article in the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog about the impending closure of Take 2 on 15th. Sad to hear about the closing, but I'm glad it was covered. Another example of the importance of local journalism. The article discusses other closings and some at risk ventures, such as Canon. That reminded me of an interesting article in The New York Times about dusty hunters, people who scour liquor stores for decades-old forgotten bottles of booze. Canon gets a mention in that article.