Weeknote for 10/4/2020

Christmas labels

😐

I got started. That’s about all the progress I made. I also realized a week late that October’s project month started this week, not last week, so I shorted last month’s project. But it doesn’t matter, since I’m hoping to finish this one early and return to last month’s project.

AI

🙂

I listened to Lex Fridman till the start of October. The interviews that stood out to me were Michael Kearns, who takes an analytical look at AI ethics, and Whitney Cummings, who offers uncommon perspectives on several AI issues along with philosophical and neuroscientific takes on dysfunctional relationships, addiction, and the meaning of life.

Fiction

😎

I started listening to Brian Evenson. I’m going through three of his short story collections: A Collapse of Horses, Windeye, and Fugue State. I finished the first one last week, but I’ll wait till next week to comment on them.

I watched a bunch of SFF reviews and recommendations. These came from two channels: Daniel Greene and Media Death Cult (H/T my boss for that one). Here are Daniel Greene’s top ten fantasy series and his dream team of authors for creating the perfect fantasy book. Here is Media Death Cult’s first top 10 sci fi books list, second, third (though I didn’t get to it that week), and top 100 list. Both channels have a very community feel, and they make me want to get back into SFF.

TV

🙂

I finally finished the Netflix show Dark. They wrapped it up clearly enough that I could follow the ending without sorting out the whole morass of preceding detail. The show has plenty of substance to chew on, so if you like philosophy and complicated sci fi mysteries and you don’t mind the TV-MA rating, I recommend it.

I’m giving Twin Peaks another try. I wanted something weird to watch for October, and thanks to the many screenshots from Black Lodge Cult on Twitter, I settled on Twin Peaks. I watched the first few episodes several years ago, but it didn’t grab me enough to continue. This time I’ll watch the whole thing.

I started over with the pilot, and I was surprised at how much I’d completely forgotten. I wondered if I was watching a different edit, but I suspect it’s just my highly selective memory. I was also surprised at how gripping some of it was. I have a new respect for David Lynch.

Music

😎

I discovered some new jazz artists to follow. Normally I have to make myself listen to jazz, but these carry me along.

• Jesus Molina
• Justin-Lee Schultz – Here he is jamming with Jesus Molina.
• Hiromi Uehara
• DOMi and JD Beck – A duo from Dallas, the area where I grew up. This recording of “BC Invaders” is a nice display of their coordination.
• Cory Henry – Here he is backing up a preacher.
• Yohan Kim

And of course there are plenty more where those came from—namely, the world, but more specifically YouTube.

Here are some brands I’ve run across that showcase musicians on their channels:

• Spectrasonics
• Nord
• Zildjian
• Drumeo