Maybe these will become index pages on their own? For now, a list of lists...
Books, Recipes, Fitness, Gardening, Gratitude, Truly Misc, Music, Nature, Teaching, Time/Calendars, Writing, Quotations
Book Notes, Plays, Movies, Reviews
"Accepting Those Invitations You Can" (November 17, 2021) is a kind of summary of Emerson's biography by Robert Richardson. It's 10 things that core ideas.
"Emerson and Whitman" (November 15, 2021) is about the famou interaction between these two early American writers - and what's beyond the normal story.
"He Slowed Down for the Most Mundane Things" (November 11, 2021) feels like a thesis statement of Bewilderment by Richard Powers. It's about being open to the ecstasy and beauty of the world.
"Beethoven: A life in 9 pieces by Laura Turnbridge" (June 17, 2021). Short biography of LvB. Notes are on many examples of how one work was re-purposed for another. Also, I have a couple examples (one transcribed and one in a photo) of some really nice writing about a classical music piece -- how it works.
"Another World Running Parallel to My Own" (June 12, 2021) is an appreciation of the last few paragraphs of David George Haskins' A Forest Unseen. I point out three things I like about it: some rhetorical choices, a great idea, and some deep wisdom.
"The Consequences of Our Desires" (June 9, 2021) Is an appreciation of The Forest Unseen by David George Haskell. It examines 3 passages in a bit of detail about one common theme in the book: the inter-relatedness of things. The title of the blog post is how our desires (for birds in the back yard in one instance) send ripples of consequences around the world.
"The Silence by Don Delillo" (January 18, 2021) is just a very short selection from the text that I enjoyed from a book that felt more like a short story. Here's the key phrase: "His responses were quick, his voice suggesting the eagerness of someone who has retained what truly matters."
"Best Books Read in 2020" (January 14, 2021) is a list of 10+ books that made my year in 2020.
"Three TILF from Orfeo" (January 13, 2021) is a list of things that I took special notice of in Richard Powers' book.
Recipes
"Go to Guacamole" (July 10, 2021)
"Go to Hummus" (July 10, 2021)
"Quick Pickled Cucumbers and Red Onions" (June 1, 2021)
"King Arthur Blog and 11 Bread Recipes" (January 22, 2021) is a hyper-linked list to 11 bread recipes I want to try.
On Fitness
"Iron Strength Workout" (July 5, 2021) is Jordan Metzle's body-weight strength and cardio workout. Burpees, planks, Russian solider walk, etc.
"9 Body Weight Exercises" (January 9, 2021) is an image (and link?) depicting the NYT body weight exercises.
"Four Seconds of Exercise" (January 5, 2021) is excerpt from NYT about HIIT training and how little the dosage might be according to research.
On Gardening
"Anti-Paean to Gardening" (October 21, 2021) is a quote from Richardson's Emerson bio about how Emerson bought a bigger piece of land so that he could garden on it, but then felt imprisoned by the work.
"Pruning Tomatoes" (July 10, 2021) My tomato plant was taking over the garden. I read this to see if and how I should prune them. (You should!)
"Gardening 10x10" (May 4, 2021) is the very beginning of a 10x10 gardening project where I research things related to gardening and store them in one place. I have a couple videos here, but not much.
On Gratitude
"A Hot Day's Treasure" (July 21, 2021) is the haiku that starts with that line by Issa Kobayashi.
"The Way a Cloud Fills With Rain" (July 9, 2021) is about a section of Billy Collins' poem "Istambul" that describes taking pleasure in a simple act and how gratefulness fills you up.
Truly Miscellaneous
"Learning by Doing" (October 23, 2021) is a quote by Adam Grant about lowering your standards to make progress and a partial quote by Kleon about learning more from learning a song than reading about it.
"7 Kinds of Wisdom" (October 14, 2021) is from Emerson biography. Some Eastern philosophy book that Emerson read has a list of 7 different ways of being smart.
"Discrimination without Prejudice" (September 22, 2021) is a long quotation from Mindfulness by Ellen Langer about how experiments that demonstrated that kids could be discriminating about handicapped people, but not prejudiced. It's an interesting concept!
"Emanations" (September 9, 2021) is Emerson's Platonic (?) Plotonian (?) idea that everything is in motion, everything "emanates" -- rivers flow, plants emanates smell. I include a self-portrait of Van Gogh! (who seems to me paints this emanation) and I link it to Thoreau's idea of the moving, responsive, frozen pond.
"Daily Dozen" (August 28, 2021) is "How Not to Die" (Michael Greger) list of the 12 things you should eat every day.
"Tableaux Vivants" (June 16, 2021) is a description of these things where people at a party would dress up to look like a scene in a painting and about how Beethoven's audiences loved to do this and how he incorporated it into Fidelio.
"Great Lake Jumper" (June 14, 2021) is a link to two newspaper stories (and video) of this suburban Chicago guy who jumps in the lake every day during the pandemic.
"A Solitude of Unshared Energies" (June 2, 2021) is a quotation from Emerson: a Life of the Mind that relates the part of Emerson's young adulthood where he had no close people to interact with intellectually.
"Could You Become the Person Whose Name You See There?" (May 25, 2021) is about "the unsettling pleasure" of seeing your name in someone else's hand on a letter addressed to you. Also, an appreciation of PJ Harvey's song, The Letter.
"Jim Collins and the 20 Mile March" (May 13, 2021) This is a bit of an interview between Jim Collins and Tim Ferris. The concept is doing 1000 hours of "creative work" in every 365 day cycle.
"Chain of Inspiration" (May 8, 2021) is about this little cause-effect relationship about Maria Schneider, who wrote a musical piece for Dawn Upshaw to sing based on Ted Kooser's book winter morning walks. Dawn had gotten a grant and was inspired by Dawn. Dawn in turn was inspired by Ted.
"PRE code for formatting poetry" (May 5, 2021) is the poem "November 15" from Ted Kooser ("my wife and I walk the cold road/in silence, asking for thirty more years." and also the HTML formatting to make poetry look like poetry.
"Olmsted and the Birth of Parks" (March 27, 2021) What it sounds like!
"Site Specific Sound Walk" (March 24, 2021) Meander is a site-specific sound walk created for Brooklyn Botanic Garden that guides listeners on a meditative stroll into the natural landscape.
"Temperature Scarf" (February 16, 2021) is about the process of knitting a scarf with "information" in it... think Madame Defarge!... in this instance, it's using a different color yarn to record the daily temperature.
"Abatis" (January 28, 2021) I came across this term while reading Vicksburg. It's a defensive structure made of trees.
"You're in the Right Place" (January 24, 2021) is a photo (of a library?) where a big yellow wall is painted with that phrase.
"100 Consecutive Blog Posts" (December 30, 2021) is a reflection on my first 100 blog postings. (While I'm indexing, I'm at 364.). 25% were about meditation. 22 about noticing and middle seasons. 19 about poetry and art.
"Herringbone Tile Project Complete" (December 12, 2021) Dad and I finished retiling the front entry way. I included a couple photos of finished project.
"Newtonian Physics in a Crowded Bar" (November 29, 2021) is from the Art of Noticing. It's a quote from Dan Ariely in his book about irrational behavior. It posits questions about why people do certain things - like a first date in a crowded bar... what "causes" this behavior?
"Brief Summary of 2020" (November 24, 2020) is a paragraph per month. It's a nice way to quickly see a year.
"On 'a bellyful of words'" (October 29, 2020) is a response to the COVID crisis in education and a peak towards an alternative. The title is from Emerson's critique of regular book learning (teach nothing that can't be learned standing...) which I heard about from Walls' Thoreau biography that I'm listening to. It shares a couple quotes from various nature-based educational settings - day care, school in Wisconsin, university.
On Music
"First Draft" (August 14, 2021) is about Jeff Tweedy's newsletter and how he's published a couple songs (that will will soon be behind a paywall). I say "it seems like Tweedy's job is to make songs and put them in the world. Period." I say that this is an example of Kleon's Show Your Work and Tweedy's own advice in his own "Write One Song"
"Too Much Beethoven" (July 12, 2021) Is about the role of Beethoven in "A Room with a View." Lucy's love of playing Beethoven indicates to others that she needs a partner who, like her, is full of passion.
"Stretching the Octaves" (June 18, 2021) is a passage from Laura Turnbridge's biography of Beethoven about how Beethoven "pushed the limits" of the each newly-invented piano (evolved?) each with a wider keyboard with more keys. Neat little diagram of how it grew.
"Beethoven: A life in 9 pieces by Laura Turnbridge" (June 17, 2021). Short biography of LvB. Notes are on many examples of how one work was re-purposed for another. Also, I have a couple examples (one transcribed and one in a photo) of some really nice writing about a classical music piece -- how it works.
On Nature
"A Day Later Each Decade" (October 16, 2021) is about how climate change has made peak leaf time a day later on average each decade.
"The Quiet Places" (October 6, 2021) is about Gordon Hemton's project to discover and name 250 exceptionally quiet places on earth, similar to the project of finding the dark sky places.
"Moon Cycle Pics" (October 2, 2021) is a collage of 4 moon photos I took in the last month showing a variety of cycles plus a graphic showing all of the moon cycle phases day by day.
"Exhilaration in Nature" (September 1, 2021) contains two quotations from Emerson about how he is enlivened, exhilarated in nature, brought more to life. Image is a great forest stream and hiker wood block print by Kawase.
"Phenology Wheel" (July 29, 2021) is the round diagram that shows the yearly cycle of a chosen natural thing... wildflowers in a forest, lifecycle of a species of bug, etc. It is halfway art, halfway observation, halfway natural history.
"Phenology" (July 28, 2021) is a definition of this term, which means the study of the cycles of nature of a place.
"Natural Selection after the End of Nature" (July 8, 2021) is a copied out section from Elizabeth Kolbert's "Under a White Sky." It's really just a list of the myriad ways that humans have "caused evolution"... it's a sobering list of the anthropocene.
"Another World Running Parallel to My Own" (June 12, 2021) is an appreciation of the last few paragraphs of David George Haskell's A Forest Unseen. I point out three things I like about it: some rhetorical choices, a great idea, and some deep wisdom.
"A Repeated Act of Will" (June 11, 2021) is a reflection on one section of A Forest Unseen by David George Haskell. It's about the network of alarm calls in the forest and how we are almost always unable to perceive them because, like hawks and other dangerous things, the alarm network has sounded and done its work before we arrive on the scene. There's a mindfulness key idea about how we are always riding the waves of the past or future in our heads and it takes "a repeated act of will" to get to the present.
"The Consequences of Our Desires" (June 9, 2021) Is an appreciation of The Forest Unseen by David George Haskell. It examines 3 passages in a bit of detail about one common theme in the book: the inter-relatedness of things. The title of the blog post is how our desires (for birds in the back yard in one instance) send ripples of consequences around the world.
"Brood X is Coming" (May 11, 2021) is a link to an article, and a graphic, about the 2021 Brood X cicadas.
"Frenzied Flower-filia" (February 22, 2021) is an appreciation of Mokoto Rich's enthusiastic NYT piece about her new-found love of flowers in Tokyo. It's especially focused on the specific writing choices she makes.
"As Surely as Buds in the Spring" (February 12, 2021) is a response to the quotation by HDT in "Spring" of Walden where he describes the frozen pond to be like mercury in a thermometer -- and constantly responding to the sun.
"Season of Icicles" (February 8, 2021) is a couple images from Andy Goldsworthy about his icicle sculpture and my reflection on the polar vortex and seeing beautiful ice formations everywhere.
"Middle Seasons of the Past" (January 11, 2021) has me recording some of the "normal gardening/nature things" that happened in previous year that I extracted from old journals. Now I know that this is "Phenology".
"Average Daily Temperatures for the Middle Seasons" (December 6, 2020) contains a link to a spreadsheet I made with the average daily temps in each of the middle seasons! Also provides a sense for the rate of change for each 'middle season.'
"On Aphids and Ants" (November 22, 2020) is the complex, interconnected story of aphids, plants, shepherding ants, and ladybugs.
"On Moon Cycles" (November 16, 2020) I have a photo of the scimitar-like moon on the 15th day of the moon cycle. I reflect on it a bit. I include Austin Kleon's sketch of the cycles.
On Teaching
"On Defending the Status Quo" (September 26, 2021) has a thought experiment by Seth Godin about the complexity of arguing against or for the status quo. It has a nice section on imagining the opposite of the status quo to argue for it. (Would we choose "cow's milk" if all the other milks were the norm?)
"Kids as Half-Formed People" (August 13, 2021) is about Jason Reynolds and his interview with Krista Tippett of On Being. He talks about not talking down to kids as though they're half-formed people, about the complexity and the sophistication and the beauty of childhood and about the alchemy of language.
"Adolescence is a foreign land" (April 23, 2021) is about Zapruder (the daughter of the famous film) who has a project asking adolescents to reflect (in words, painting, etc.) on the pandemic. There's a great line at the end that talks about the importance of adolescents AS adolescents. "It goes so fast and once it's over, it's lost forever, we cannot recapture that point of view as anybody who knows anybody who lives with a teenager knows how foreign in a way that perspective can be,"
"Lego Microtonal Guitar" (April 22, 2021) references a NYT story about a guy who collaboarated with his son on build a Lego guitar that also plays in microtones and teaches music theory. I'm reflective about how different this picture of learning is from the normal learning that happens in school.
"Hey, Look" (February 17, 2021) references Kleon, Burkeman, Kornfeld. It's about the proper, curious, interested stance towards seeing the world (and writing about the world): 'hey, did you see?' and describing it.
"What Narrative Will Win Out?" (January 17, 2021) is about news coverage from the January 6 storming of the capitol. Howard University professor talks about how the choice of narrative is important -- distracting from the essential racism that underlies the attacks - rather than 'the bad apple theory' or 'unprepared police' theory. This is a big meaty blog post.
"Five Writing Exercises from Jeff Tweedy's Write One Song" (January 3, 2021) is a listing of 5 of his tips to get writing, like the two-column method to create new, surprising images.
"What are the preconditions of a public image?" (December 3, 2020) is a Art of Noticing prompt that asks students to think about what had to take place to get the world to a place where the stuff in the image (Times Square in this instance) could exist.
"A Collection of Writing Prompts from Kleon and Walker" (November 27, 2020) is just as it sounds.... things I can use in the writing classroom later. I didn't collect the Walker ones, yet, though!
On Time and Calendars
"Greenwich Mean Time" (October 19, 2021) is from Emerson biography. It's about the time in 1855 when England began GMT, and moved from local solar figurings of time.
"Vacation Time" (July 2, 2021) reflects on how "vacation time" is different than "ordinary time" -- it becomes touchstones of memory. Also talks about "anniversaries" and making 365 personal anniversaries each year.
"Your Future Lurks Within You" (May 28, 2021) is about Rilke's strange conception of fate and character. It references his famous poem "Archaic Torso of Apollo." There's a connection to getting letters and seeing yourself as an idealized self that others see you as.
"Kyoto Cherry Blossoms sets 1200 year record" (April 6, 2021) is about climate change and the cascading effects... and how they've been keeping records in Japan for 1200 years about this!
"Real Time and Ordinary Time" (February 19, 2021) is some words from poet's Marie Howe's interview on the "On Being" podcast where she explores the idea -- in the Catholic church and otherwise -- of 'ordinary time."
"International Fixed Calendar" (February 5, 2021) is about a calendar created by businessmen, including Eastman, in the 1920s that has 13 28-day months.
"On 10-day Weeks and the poet of the Season" (October 11, 2020) Post comes from "Waiting for the Weekend." Long quotes about the 10-day weeks in several civilizations and details about the French Revolution's new calendar.
"On Being Largely Undisturbed by the Time of Year and Vivaldi's 4 Seasons" (October 8, 2020) is from Waiting for the Weekend. The quote is about how in the 18th century, your lifestyle changed with the seasons far more than now. Also this is about Vivaldi's 4 Seasons and the sonnets that he wrote to go along with the programmatic music. Not sure why the two things are together!
On Writing and Reading
"Write a Book in December" (November 28, 2021) is about a variety of ways you could do a year in review and make something of all the writing in journals and your growth.
"Sunday Routines" (October 12, 2021) is an appreciation of one type of profile writing in the NYT and this series in general. There are headlines, unstaged photos, and short texts.
"A Year of Horrible Reading" (October 9, 2021) is Ted Gioia's list of 52 scary books that he read one year, along with the reviews of them. It's about book lists.
"The Incompetence Dodge" (August 25, 2021) is a writer's move (the dodge) or politician's move in which you attack the incompetence of the withdrawal from Afghanistan to absolve yourself of the the horrible idea of the war itself. It references Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias.
"Books by the Dead for the Dead" (August 22, 2021) is a quotation from Emerson from Richardson biography about how Emerson devoured lots of books, but was mainly interested in firsthand accounts of things - memoirs, travel writing, statements of discovery, poetry: things the author knew.
"Fleeting and Evanescent Flowers of the Mind" (August 19, 2021) involves Emerson's journal writing -- his indexing system and his focus on waiting for the smallest inclinations -- following the mind's briefest flowers.
"Active Filtration and Constant Attention" (August 17, 2021) is about Emerson's reading habits -- always filtering and confirming what he thought. Anyone can amass an impressive amount of reading. But the active filtration and the tight focus of constant intention which convert that reading into real life experience and then into adequate expression, these are the exclusive properties of the great writer.
"Uplifting the Common Moments" (August 16, 2021) is a Richardson quote about Emerson's belief that the poet had the ability to have a direct relationship to the world and his own ability to uplift the common moments of life into almost mystical experiences.... an ability he never lost.
"Elizabeth Kolbert's Under a White Sky" (July 7, 2021) is a quick summary of the book and a longer passage about how human's tampering with the environment is reflected in a whole range of words that describe the variety of ways that humans and animals interact/ descriptions of relationships. It's an appreciation of the passage of writing.
"Pearls and Seaweed" (July 6, 2021) is a quote by Henry David Thoreau, comparing journal writing, daily writing, to the dirt and stuff deposited along a bank by a stream.
"Another World Running Parallel to My Own" (June 12, 2021) is an appreciation of the last few paragraphs of David George Haskins' A Forest Unseen. I point out three things I like about it: some rhetorical choices, a great idea, and some deep wisdom.
"Emersons's Active Seedtime" (May 23, 2021) is a long quotation from Emerson: Mind on Fire by Richardson. The subject is how Emerson grew into an intellectual by vast amounts of notebook writing (230 volumes?!) and huge amounts of reading. The prose of these paragraphs is an excellent model of clear and detailed exposition.
"Four Kinds of Readers" (May 22, 2021) is a quotation from Robert Richardson's Emerson: Mind on Fire which references Coleridge's idea that there are four kinds of readers, marking Emerson as a "Golconda," a minder, working his way swiftly through vast amounts of material and keeping the diamonds.
"100 5-page Chapters" (May 14, 2021) is about Robert Richardson's advice to writers (of biographies?) which Kleon encapsulates: "Write 100 pieces of one to two thousand words on the parts of the life you care about the most, and don’t worry about what order they’re in until you have the pieces."
"What you don't want to find out" (April 8, 2021) are quotes from Saunders and Baldwin about how writing makes you aware of things that... you don't necessarily want to know.
"Frenzied Flower-filia" (February 22, 2021) is an appreciation of Mokoto Rich's enthusiastic NYT piece about her new-found love of flowers in Tokyo. It's especially focused on the specific writing choices she makes.
"Hey, Look" (February 17, 2021) references Kleon, Burkeman, Kornfeld. It's about the proper, curious, interested stance towards seeing the world (and writing about the world): 'hey, did you see?' and describing it.
"Books You Should Write" (December 27, 2020) is the Paris review article that lists “One should compose (1) a book about oneself, (2) a book about others, (3) an anthology of favorites, (4) a book about words, and now I’m adding (5) a book of lists.” But then I add another -- Tal Ben Sharar's 100-chapter book ("Choose the Life You Want: the Mindful Way to Happiness"), each one with an idea from one book. I could now add to this a book like "The Mind on Fire" by Robert Richardson, which is 100-5 page chapters. I wrote about that later.
"Books I Read in 2020" (December 1, 2020) is a list of books!
"On the Most Poetic Parts of Memory" (October 9, 2020) contains two selections from Thoreau's journals about how he records stuff in his journal today, then adds stuff tomorrow to it, because he only later figures out the the most poetic parts of the day.
"Soundtrack to your crappy life" (September 30, 2020) is an appreciation for a NYT piece about a NIN song that, oddly, helped her get through a tough time. It's a nice piece of writing! And a template that could be used for teaching.
"What the author gets right" (September 29, 2020) is an appreciation of I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. It lists five things that the author captures well about adolescence.
Quotations
"Reflecting the Candle" (September 13, 2021) is Edith Wharton's quote: There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
"Virtue is the True Nobility" (September 11, 2021) is that quote from Cervantes and my note that a writing assignment or thought experiment could be "blank" is the true nobility.
"Synonym for God" (May 12, 2021) is John Muir's quote that "No synonym for God is as perfect as beauty." It does bring up the idea that there could me multiple synonyms!
"Real Estate" (May 9, 2021) is Henry David Thoreau's quote that says that real "real estate" is thinking through things, not possessions and property. This too makes me think that there are can be a variety of ideas about what we really possess... including an early blog posting I have about a dog who "owns with his heart".... Terry Tempest Williams?
"Like a Flower of Sound" (May 3, 2021) is HDT's description of the sound sensation after a bell rings.
"The Remedy to Love" (February 14, 2021) is HDT's great line: "There is no remedy to love but to love more."
"Your Moment is Shared by Every Person" (December 2, 2020) is this Corita Kent quote and an image of a 3D "map" from the Pinkham Notch Visitor's Center in the White Mountains. I note that it's "exciting and morally instructive."
"The Birds of Sadness," (December 1, 2020) is a Chinese Proverb: You cannot prevent the birds of sadness flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building their nest in your hair. It includes an image of a notecard that Corita Kent wrote this quote on.
"Quotations on..." (December 1, 2020) is the beginning of a list of quotations by subject.
"Quotations from the Kleon Archive" (November 16, 2020) While I was assembling the Kleon archive, I found a number of usable quotes. For some reason there are no line breaks on this posting....
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