a journal of thought, art, and the interesting.
This is exactly the internet that I love. Kleroteria is a lottery email listserv. The way it works is that once in a while, a subscriber is sent a email and has the option to write a message to the whole listserv. This ends up being a random assortment of content as one can imagine but it's generally lovely to read. I haven't got the chance to write a post yet but it's generally sort of fun to wonder about what I would write as well.
Once again, it's hard to get a sense of scale of the world unless you get a photo or video of just how large it truely is. This video has a number of shots that will make you dizzy. Excellent work again by Bruce Wayne. He also has some excellent infrared photography in his gallery that is well working checking out.
I'm going to do something slightly new. I recently read two books by the author Ben Westhoff and I'm going to review both of them at once.
This was the first book I read by Ben Westhoff and it's very well written. It focuses mostly on LA/South California rap although it discusses other regions when necessary. I think it does really well in giving a high level account of the history of the rap scene there. It's also notable fair and balanced in my opinion with regards to controversial subjects such as unsolved murders. One of the things that I appreciated about it is how much context it lends to that era of rap. I spent several days afterwards just listening to old albums and getting new meanings out of the lyrics. This is well worth a pickup and read though.
After finishing Original Gangstas, I had high hopes for this book but found it wanting. I think it's very well done and covers essential rap history but it feels incomplete. I don't really think this is the fault of the author, but more so when the book is written. It was written in 2010 and rap seems to have continued growing in those regions after that point in my perspective. In some sense, it felt like it stopped in the middle of a story. Unclear how much of this is due to when it was written and how much is due to not having a compelling narrative flow like Original Gangstas. Overall I think it's still worth a read, due to it's good information about older southern rap.
Still getting back on track but here are some interesting links that I've seen. Some of these are a bit dated because they were before the break.
Let There Be Light - What happens when you become a psychiatrist for the Hasidic community?
Less Parking, More City - We are killing the mandatory limits around cars slowly. As we move to the age of increasing urbanization, this will have to happen more and more.
Why Do Chinese People Like Their Government? - True lasting change will only happen with understanding. I think that the view that all governments trend towards individual freedom is on shaky ground. It will be increasingly important to understand why people choose authoritarian regimes and what they get out of it.
Colorado Tried a New Way to Vote: Make People Pay—Quadratically
- New and better voting is possible & the states once again prove to be wonderful labs for democratic experiments.
I been traveling so haven't been watching or playing as much media as before so this section is light. Also I finally got a Switch, which is a lovely device.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - This is a wonderful game but the weapon breakage system is absolutely infuriating. I spend more time changing weapons in a fight then actually fighting.
Dicey Dungeons - Another wonderful game from Terry Cavanagh. It's claimed to be a roguelike but doesn't really appear to be one. Most of the replay seems to come in the episodic challenge content. I'm not sure how replayable it will be once all of those are finished.
Sadly this performance is already finished because I would have loved to see it. This looks like it truly pushed the edge of large scale installations. I also like the approach of going for calmer lighting at points. Hopefully this gets presented again.