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Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and founder of City Lights, dead at 101 ➜
Of the Beats, Ferlinghetti is more or less the only one whose work I keep returning to; Kerouac offers diminishing returns as I grow older, Burroughs makes my head hurt, and frankly, I’m too prudish for most of Ginsberg. When I was traveling around the US before moving home, I stopped at City Lights on my last day in San Francisco; as I was rummaging around on the second floor, the door to the office opened and there he was. He smiled at me and nodded before closing the door. As a farewell to the Bay, it was almost too on-the-nose.
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Crowded House has been one of my favorite bands ever since I first heard Weather With You back at the start of the 90s. They just released a new single, To the Island, to promote therir upcoming album. Neil Finn has always been a restless guy who has avoided taking the easy path. The later, intermittent Crowded House albums reflect that fact, though if you follow all of Finn’s projects, the overall line in his work becomes quite clear. Anyway, this is good stuff, and I hope to see the House back in Oslo one day.
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The Five Deadly Sins of the Left ➜
So long as the Left appears more interested in finding new enemies than in seeking new friends, it will fail to advance its many important priorities.
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Choosing Charlatans ➜
John Stuart Mill thought that “wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument.” Experiments, however, confirm our real world experience that in fact the opposite can happen. And this isn’t simply because of our biased and dysfunctional media.
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I’ve been “at work” for a week now, but because of COVID-19, I can’t physically go to the office, hence the quotation marks. I’ve had a few video meetings with my new colleagues, but never having met them in person, it almost feels as if I’m playing a game. Sim Office, or something like that. While having this technology is both amazing and futuristic, it does make it clear how much value there is in a social setting. It’s harder to ask for help, because you feel more like you’re butting in when you start that call instead of just popping into the next cubicle and asking. That said, I’m really happy to be a working stiff again.