Earthset from an iphone:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DXVMcEqDnYS/

Makes Artemis II seem so much more 'real', and seeing this still fills me with a sense of joy and wonder.

Emerged from the jetlag after arriving back from my first trip out of northern California in six years. Had a great time in England and visited new places—Manchester (❤️🐝), Shrewsbury, Oxford, East Grinstead, Hampton Court. Deeply great to travel solo and not be lonely; self-security is such an incredible change in my life and I appreciate it so much. Lots more ability to be in the moment and thus lots more happiness!

So now I'm home and enjoying the chance to pull back and think about who I am now, what I want to increase in my life (time with friends, non-computer projects, reading, outdoor activity), and what I want to move out of my life (so much discardia of stuff, both my own and family "history" that I do not need to be the keeper of). Feels like an inflection point of paying attention to the present and not accumulating for potential futures. Living lighter and stronger is more useful than stuff now.

Just finished the college admission process for my twins! (Jason, one of them is ending up in rural Maine, so maybe you have some tips for a New Yorker moving way north....)

It's that weird toss and turn of cold, rain, and sunshine here in SF. Trying to get some renovations done in the house so we can have a bit of calm. Started up a new business a couple weeks ago, and am on deadline for my first book. Oh, also, trying to integrate some big metaphysical thoughts when I close my eyes. So, a lot. I love this little corner of the web, Jason. Thanks for keeping it going.

I'd just like to point at this website https://pointerpointer.com/

Hey thanks for the heads up on enclose.horse. It's a daily ritual (I've played the entire archive!) https://enclose.horse

Well now I'm intrigued about your upcoming autumnal changes.

I started beekeeping during the pandemic (a better mid-life crisis for me than rebuilding a Corvette, or whatever). I did my first "split" this week. Basically expanding the current hive into two self-contained hives. Bees are amazing and I'm constantly learning (and failing), so I'm loving it.

Beats the crap out of busting knuckles on an old car! And no offense intended to those who do ... turns out it's just not for me!

Recently completed another gardening experiment, redoing a part of our front yard where past experiments have failed. New retaining walls and landscaping, hopefully suitable/durable plants, new large natural slate pavers...fingers crossed that this installment in my Adventures of a Black Thumb Gardener has a better outcome. Primary goals are to have a more serene front yard, attract and support local pollinators, and make it easier to control invasive blackberries. I welcome good vibes from all you green thumbs out there!

I have a vision that generations from today public libraries will be thriving, essential community hubs that share and celebrate information, entertainment, and culture freely to their community.

This is “National Library Week”. Yesterday was “Take Action for Libraries Day”.

To celebrate our public libraries and take action to achieve my vision this week here are some things I have done, and things that you can do too:
📖 Inform myself about the state of libraries.
📖 Share what I learn.
📖 Encourage others to learn about, value, share, and take action for libraries.
📖 Visit a local public library.
📖 Read a frequently challenged book.
📖 Thank library workers for their service.
📖 Contact my mayor and city commissioners, and candidates for those offices in the upcoming June 9th election, telling them how I specifically use and love my public library and asking them to support it, and to oppose budget cuts and interference with the professional curation of the collections.
📖 Contact my state legislators, and candidates for the upcoming November 3rd election, with a similar message as delivered to my local officials was well as a call to respect library workers and not criminalize the service they perform for our community.
📖 Contact my congressional delegation and candidates and additionally ask them to oppose the federal book ban being considered — HR7661 — and support funding for grants through the Institute for Museum and Library Services and its
Library Services & Technology Act and Innovative Approaches to Literacy program.
📖 Serve on my local public library’s Board of Directors and support its Friends of the Library fundraising and advocacy organization.

Please don’t take our public libraries for granted. And please work with me to ensure they remain a vital asset for everyone in our great city for many, many years to come.

Link to further ideas to take action will be posted as comments.

I'm also preparing for big autumnal changes (solidarity!) as I've decided to finally leave America and go back to Europe where I'm from. So as part of my leaving, I'm driving from California next week to spend the summer in either Quebec or the Portland, Maine area. I've never been to Maine but I've heard so many great things and feel like it'd be a great place to land and explore for a few months.

On my way I'm spending a week in Steamboat Springs, CO (which I love!) and a week in either Upstate NY or Vermont (which I don't know), so any tips and recs especially for non-city areas to stay, let me know! It's been really hard finding short term housing (Airbnbs or monthly rentals) for me and my small dog, so part of my trip is dependent on finding places as I go, which is why I'm not 100% sure where I'll end up.

I'm just going to drive east and stop when I hit water. Solid plan, right?

I've been exploring the music (and dancing) of k-pop octet Stray Kids and really enjoying it. It's been a very unexpected experience!

I wrote everyone I wanted to see in May and made lunch dates, evening cocktails, gallery walks and basically filled my spring calendar for a lot of being out and about. NYC has that crisp 60 deg spring feel to it, no clouds, blue sky. Feels like anything is possible!

Our library is hosting a Print and Resist Zine event this weekend. I’m excited to learn more and potentially make some zines myself. Low-tech media are attractive lately since so much of the online atmosphere can feel like a dumpster fire. (But Kottke brings the best of the online world- thank you Jason!)

Desmond Morris died I had the urge to seek out his 1977 book Manwatching which was on our family shelves when I was a kid and which left a lasting impression on me. A beaten up 2nd hand copy just arrived in the post today and I've been surprised at how well it holds up. Obviously dated but the determined desire to represent humanity as one species and not get hung up on race is tangible. Also, loads of lovely Mangum photography. (There's a scan on archive.org and the usual shadow libraries.)

Just got back from a camping trip in Big Bend NP. We went specifically to do astronomy as Big Bend is considered probably the darkest site in the lower 48 and because it is so far south, you can also see some objects in the extreme south not visible the further north you are. We had a great time and saw so many galaxies and clusters and more. BUT the highlight was just watching the Milky Way rise at 2am with our naked eyes. Just beautiful and had so much texture and I saw parts of it that I have never seen before.

Looking forward to the weekend here in NYC, it's going to rain which for me is kind of a good thing because I have a backlog of indoor projects, but the spring weather has been so nice I don't want to stay home, indoors.

I rescued an abandoned ebike from a long defunct bike share company (somehow this bike made it from Washington DC to Brooklyn where I found it dumped front of my building.) Apparently there's a whole subreddit dedicated to unlocking bikes like this one and giving them second lives.

I've also got a new 3D printer that I want to assemble and get up and running. Lots of good in the real world stuff to do, hoping for minimal looking at pixels on a screen time.

decided I wanted to participate in this community more and discovered that my membership was expired -- sorry Jason!

I feel like there was a recent post about rewilding the internet (and using AI coding tools to speed it up), but I'm not finding it. could anyone point in me in the right direction? this idea has stuck with me and I'm hungry for more examples of what that could look like (mostly the rewilding, less the AI)

I've spend almost all of my free time and brainpower on starting up a raffle to benefit my kid's (public) school PTA. It stopped happening in 2019, and they asked me to start it up again this year to see how it works.

It is so. Much. Work. Raffles are gambling, so the state of CA heavily regulates them. One of our prize sponsors pulled out last week, and if you don't have the advertised prize, the whole thing becomes illegal. The prize? An e-bike. Ouch.

I ended up leaning on community, putting out the need. We cycled through manufacturers, shops, and other ideas, and eventually...a friend of mine has a brother who flips e-bikes for fun and profit. He was willing to donate a new Aventon at cost, so I'm going to get it today, after doing some ad-hoc crowdfunding to ease the at-cost burden.

My lesson is from this? Give as much as you can to your community, in time, empathy, labor, favors, and money (if you've got it). Mine rescued me this week.

Sci-fi book rec: Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers has been terrific. An approachable, sincere wide open universe of characters that explores lots of corners with thoughtful psychology, sociology and light technological musings.

I’m in the kitchen again. I lost my father in November and it’s been a rough time for me. One of the first things depression knocks out from under me is appetite — feeding myself becomes difficult, preparing food impossible. The last thing I want to do is take care of myself, which sucks because making things to eat is a deep and enduring source of joy.

A few weeks ago I picked up both volumes of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking at a thrift shop. Besides being beautiful books in their own right, they are written in such a loving, encouraging way that you can’t help but be excited about making something delicious. And it worked. It’s like I have been gently coaxed, with butter and cream, from the hole I’ve been hiding in and slowly back into a bright warm kitchen. Chou farci and pommes Anna are medicine.

After the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tracy Kidder passed away a month ago, I re-read The Soul of a New Machine, which remains one of the most humanistic (and Kottkesque) books about computers. (I wrote about Soul here.) I was then inspired to read Kidder's book House, about the craftsmanship that went into building a house in Amherst, Massachusetts. After finishing that (equally good) book, I Googled the house, and it turns out you can now stay there, and it's still occupied by the homeowners who worked with the architect and carpenters to design and construct it in the mid-1980s. So in a way you can walk right into the book!

Currently practicing guitar for a thing called Pub Choir, which if you're not familiar with, check it out: a music director from Australia spends an evening training an audience to sing multiple parts of an arrangement she's written of a single pop song. It's more fun than it sounds, and I'm continually amazed how it gets bigger every year. I'm playing with her at her NYC date at Webster Hall on May 11th.

Also, shout out to Tom Junod's astonishing new book, "In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man." I just finished it and I can't get over it. Junod wrote the profile of Mister Rogers that eventually begat a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks.

I’m headed to see these newly discovered Stanley Kubrick subway photographs at the Park Avenue Armory. Sounds like this weekend is the only time they’ll be on public view for the foreseeable future.

Hi all
I’m trying to get a new blog off the ground about my time living in Iran and i’d be honoured if any of you would check it out and give me your thoughts.
I was one of the only foreign journalists allowed to live and work in Iran in the late 2010s. I've been compiling some of my experiences and the stories of Iranians that I met, which I hope will give a richer and more rounded view of the country in this crazy moment. ericwrandolph.substack.com

Posts include:

- The Dangers of Diplomat Parties https://tinyurl.com/4cuznxhu

- The Frogs of War: Not all the Islamic Republic's fanatics are real fanatics https://ericwrandolph.substack.com/p/6-the-frogs-of-war

- An Audience with 'Screaming Mary' https://ericwrandolph.substack.com/p/an-audience-with-screaming-mary

1) I got hired for a new job this week doing the kind of philanthropic support work that will make a real difference in people's lives. I'm super excited.
2) But before that, I'm going to Ireland for 10 days. I've never been and it will be amazing to get away for a while and explore my ancestry a bit.

Recently purchased a camper-van and moved north from Phoenix to Flagstaff for the summer, to avoid the summer heat. Flagstaff may be the perfect town for me—not too big, not too small. Great college vibe, friendly people. Lots of hiking trails all around and surrounded by national parks. I should have moved up here 30 years ago. Working part time helping Seniors is a great way to appreciate the fragility and beauty of life.

Has anyone heard a new-in-2026 album that they have liked a lot?

So far I've heard a lot of songs I have liked but only a few albums stand out, mainly No by Langkamer (https://langkamer.bandcamp.com/album/no) and Dust by Accessory (he is the lead guy from Dehd) (https://accessoryy.bandcamp.com/album/dust)

I'm trying to rebuild my stamina for full albums instead of just song hopping all the time.

A kid from one of the families I run a fundraiser for in Gaza—16 year old Mahmoud—video calls me almost every day, whenever the internet allows. He always asks if he can speak with my mom, too; she’s elderly, and I’m her live-in caregiver. Last year, he asked when her birthday was, and this past Saturday—on her birthday—I woke up to this surprise video waiting in my DMs. I've probably watched it 100x since.

We're newly empty nesters and are trying to fill our nights with fun distractions:

The algorithm just introduced me to this fun fantasy metal band, Castle Rat, so I'm going to catch them in Grand Rapids tomorrow (CW: chain-mail bikini and fake blood):
https://youtu.be/rQixE9aPd0w?si=G1sS8f7Jdp06jW2M

Next week I convinced a friend to join me at this annual pop-up cantina in Detroit to celebrate May the Fourth (always wanted to go but never thought about it in time to put together a costume):
https://spacedive313.com/

Should we allow people to be buried on the moon?