Top 10 Tuesday

And a merry Tuesday to you. Below are ten interesting (to me) things from this past week. Maybe you'll find these interesting, too.

1. The Man who Knew too Little--This article was written in 2018, a year after Trump became president. In this article, you'll read about a man who ditched his high-paying corporate job with Nike to move to Ohio, ignore the news completely (to the point of psychosis?), live on a farm, make art, and preserve an abandoned strip-mine reclaimed by nature. There were many different reactions to this...can you call it an experiment? I agree with the article that it's a form of privilege, but taking a step back I can't help but feel that it's not my place to critique how someone finds their peace, especially during tumultuous times. I wonder how he is dealing with the pandemic.

2. Evernote--I recently downloaded the app Evernote. It's a note-taking app that allows for me to categorize and tag anything and everything I want. If I come across a quote I love, be it in a book, online, or overheard, I can put it in a my "quote" notebook. Is the quote about birds or music or light? Then I can tag it under those! I have "notebooks" from "Adventures" to "Words" and tags from "art" to "writing". If I click on either of them, I am taken to all the "notes" that I have submitted. It's like being able to navigate my "good brain" and follow its synapses.

3. Mary Oliver--The 2nd anniversary of Mary Oliver's passing was on 1/17. To commemorate her passing, I took a snowy walk up a mountain with my dog and read her book of poetry and essays "Owls and Other Fantasies". During my morning commute, I listened to a podcast episode from "On Being" featuring Mary Oliver. You can read the transcript here.

4. Rock Tumber--I've been talking about getting a rock tumbler for nearly a year. I finally went to Harbor Freight and bought one so that I can tumble some of my rocks. I found some beautiful rocks during my honeymoon last fall and would like to tumble those first. I have some research and learning to do before I start the project, though.

5. In Praise of Paths--Over this past week, I finally finished reading this book. I put it down quite a bit with little desire to pick it back up. Not that I'm worse off having read the book. I just feel like the author didn't quite desire to pick up loose threads in the book, but there may have been a lot lost in translation (he's Norwegian).

6. Ambient Study Music for Focus--At work, my coworkers and I take turns playing music for everyone. On Friday, I started off with the soundtrack for "Moonrise Kingdom", then on to "sad ragtime", on to some bossa nova, then I found this video for Ambient Study Music for Focus. It was okay enough, like white noise, until I decided to look at the comments. In the comments, I found that there were randoms out there writing nonsensical sentences followed by a smaller "sentence" consisting of an adjective, adjective, noun. I fell in love with the whimsical and weird adjective, adjective, nouns. Here are some examples of the sentences:

The incompetent makeup hopefully chase because representative universally serve between a empty grouse. stupendous, burly soprano

The complex beef intuitively train because heaven sporadically sin beneath a understood chance. evanescent, slippery emery

The melodic straw morphologically snow because gladiolus randomly mix including a gleaming raven. upbeat, tawdry paste

Weird, right? Of course, if you look at the sentences syntactically, you'll notice that they follow the same pattern, like AI-generated poetry. I still like it, though! I'm tempted to create my own. Click here to visit the video and read some of the comments yourself.

7. Joe the Pigeon--In some lighter news, Joe the Pigeon was spared the death penalty in Australia. Believed to have been a missing racing pigeon from Oregon, the biosecurity in Australia were going to put him down due to possible contamination. Named after Joe Biden, the bird's wherefroms were further investigated and it was declared that the band on its leg was a counterfeit and that he did not need to be put down.

8. Moss Agate--Can we take some time to appreciate moss agate? Like looking at lichen, when I look at moss agate, I literally feel a fuzziness in my brain that is calming. I need some moss agate to carry in my pocket.

9. The Broomway--I was reading this essay by Robert Macfarlane about The Broomway, a desolate path that appears and disappears in the bipolar tides of England's North Sea. Robert Macfarlane is one (of several) of my favorite wandering, walking writers. In the essay, he describes his trek along this silty sand-trap of a path that has killed and disoriented many, many walkers.

10. Future Adventure?--So, I think I need to go to the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio. Ohio is known for its mounds. By no means--as far as I know--are they a geological feature but more so an archaeological feature. Theories are still out there. But I'm drawn. By the way, this is not the only mound in Ohio. Ohio has around 70 mounds. Sexy.