Category Archives: Uncategorized
A powerful stranger
I learned of a poem called Lost, by David Wagoner, on an episode of the podcast On Being. I don’t remember which but the idea of approaching place as a powerful stranger stuck with me as a useful metaphor for how I would like to relate to place and landscape in my own life (even…
Genius loci
There are places that matter, sites of consecration and meaning, both natural and human, that possess, through the alchemy of time and memory, a holiness: very old churches, ancient baseball stadiums, certain groves of trees on certain campuses, The Romans called it genius loci, the spirit that inhabits the earth and and air of a…
Atlascope
Here are a few mapping resources that I’ve come across lately, thought were interesting, and would like to hold onto: Atlascope – The fine people at the Leventhal Map Center in the Boston Public Library digitized old maps of the Boston area and overlaid them on modern digital maps. Its a fascinating way to learn…
Time
I generally stay away from self-help books these days, but I recently read Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. It has come up in enough dispirate contexts I thought it was worth a shot, and it certainly was. The book is generally an argument against the modern busyness epidemic, that feeling that we always need…
Shop class
One of the biggest mistakes I made in my educational career is not taking shop class in high school. I was fortunate in that my school had well outfitted metal and wood shops, yet I never set foot in them. Honestly, I think I was even a bit afraid. The kids taking shop classes weren’t…
Network
When I take public transit to work I typically pass through South Station and exit up the stairwell just east of Summer and Atlantic street. On the wall is a gorgeous tiled mural showing the region overlaid with waterways, railways, roadways, and the deep blue ocean stretching out to sea. The only splash of color…
Black vessel for a saint
I recently wrote about a pedestrian bridge at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden that caught my attention. Another installation in the park that has stuck with me is Black Vessel for a Saint by Theaster Gates. The piece consists of a statue of St. Anthony, the patron saint of libraries, inside of a black brick cylindrical…
To Hell with Hitler
I work regularly out of an old warehouse building in the Seaport district of Boston. My company is storing some hardware in an adjacent building and I got into an interesting conversation with the longshoreman who was helping us out. It turns out he was very proud of the building and, of course, new of…
A memory-shaping, time shifting medium
I’ve been hesitant to re-read The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman for years. It was the first Gaiman book I’d ever read and it led to me to become a big fan of the author. My fear was that it would never live up to that initial reading, but I’m…
Natural Stupidity
A number of years ago I came across the phrase, “I’m much more worried about natural stupidity than about artificial intelligence.” At the time I thought it rang true, and I still do today even after the entry of ChatGPT into the world. ChatGPT is a powerful, transformational technology and someday may rival the smart…