Saturday Caturday

Chingu in the sun.

"not as inevitable as we think it is"

"This is Minimalism's most powerful and frightening insight. It has nothing to do with the aesthetic cues associated with lowercase-m minimalism, the consumer products, interior decoration, the curated items of clothing. Minimalism doesn't need to look good. It tries to make us understand that the sense of artistic beauty humanity has built up over millennia -- the varieties of colors, stories recounted, and bodies represented -- is also an artificial creation, not as inevitable as we think it is.

Minimalism requires a new definition of beauty, one that centers on the fundamental miracle of our moment-to-moment encounter with reality, our sense of being itself. Any attempt at elegance is extraneous. [Donald] Judd left another note in his diary that winter: 'A definition of art finally occurred to me. Art is everything at once.'"

-- Kyle Chayka, The Longing for Less -- Living with Minimalism

Happy Confederate Surrender Day!

 

I'm a day late to Confederate Surrender Day, but really I just wanted an excuse to post this image.

And speaking of college sports, am I wrong to think the last few NCAA basketball tournaments have been criminally bereft of upsets?  I mean, I guess the seeders are getting better at their jobs.  That's a shame.

Skully

Frederick, Maryland.

Maryland Diners: Kountry Kitchen, Thurmont Maryland

So, I'm noticing a few things as I continue to review Maryland Diners.  (As a reminder, I once reviewed every diner in Whatcom County, Washington.)  Eggs Benedict, my go-to choice for seeing if a kitchen can handle simple but significant orders, are not nearly as popular here in Maryland as they were back in Bellingham.  So my second go-to, the club sandwich (the exhibitionist of sandwiches) has often become my choice since I moved back east a few years ago.  Second, Maryland diners don't play music.  Or at least the ones I've visited don't.  Seems a shame, really.  Anyhow, let's see how things went at the Kountry Kitchen!

Antietam Battlefield

Some pictures from a recent trip to Antietam Battlefield about 20 minutes west of Frederick.  At top is the infamous Cornfield, where the day's fighting started for the most part.  Next is a monument dedicated to Clara Barton who worked to help the wounded and dying throughout the day (and later to found the Red Cross).

Project Hail Mary: Wut I Thunk

The Martian Part II this is not.  Yes, the hero is a snarky nerd guy who has to science the fuck out of various math, velocity, and (here) chemistry issues to save the Earth.  But (mild spoiler, but if you've seen the trailer you already know) now he has an alien companion.  Basically, it's a buddy movie in space.  And it works very well, maybe better than it should.  A younger me would probably complain about how cheesy bits of it are.  Older me was quite satisfied to sit back and enjoy the ride.  It's 2026.  I can't blame anybody for wanting a little more grace (ahem), a little more teamwork in this life.  It mostly nails the landing too, but there's one small change from the novel that I think hurts the overall product maybe just a bit.  Still though, if you don't leave this one smiling (maybe cheering a little inside?) your heart is a lump of inert metal.  It's science.

Five bump-fists out of five!

Something New

I'm starting a new job this Wednesday.  It's been nice to have a little time off, and a relief to have gotten out of a very toxic previous work situation.  It's going to be tough, but I'm excited to be doing something new.  It's -- education adjacent, I guess you could say.  It also pays well and offers full benefits.

We'll see how it goes!

Reluctant Spring

The first blossoms are out, but It's supposed to be 40 degrees tomorrow.

Guess we need to take what we can get.  The birds are out too though.

"a Big Mac in a cornfield in Kansas"

"Back in the plane, alone with Quintana, I took one of the hamburgers the teenagers had brought and tore it into pieces so that she and I could share. After a few bites she shook her head. She had been allowed solid food for only a week or so and could not eat more. There was still a feeding tube in place in case she could not eat at all.

'Am I going to make it,' she asked then.

I chose to believe that she was asking if she would make it to New York.

'Definitely,' I told her.

I'm here. You're safe.

Definitely she would be okay in California, I remembered telling her five weeks before.

That night when we arrived at the Rusk Institute Gerry and Tony were waiting outside to meet the ambulance. Gerry asked how the flight had been. I said that we had shared a Big Mac in a cornfield in Kansas. 'It wasn't a Big Mac,' Quintana said. 'It was a Quarter Pounder.'"

-- Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

RIP Len Deighton

Len Deighton, master spy novelist, visual artist. World War II vet, published cookbook author, and the first to use a computer to publish a novel, has left us at 97.

He was one of my Dad's favorite writers.  During his last few years as we lived together, I read the Game, Set, Match trilogy, among others, and got to share my interest in these books with him.  Dad wasn't capable of reading full-blown novels any more, but he definitely remembered the characters and their triumphs and shortcomings.  Our best moments together came, as always, through conversations about life or, in a pinch, about art.