Category Archives: Monday Musings

Monday Musings

Monday Musings — 5FEB24

How about a book review?

Just finished this book, which has 2 long form interviews with Moebius, and a couple of shorter ones, and some other biographical stuff, and more.

This is definitely a book for the hardcore Moebius/Gir fan, and most people wouldn’t find it quite as interesting. It’s mor than just about his comics, it is in fact a biography written through interviews. It deals with his childhood, time in Mexico, his many Mentors/father figures, his drug experimentation, his philosophy, and also how he came to work on his various comics.

I found some of it tedious, but the parts I found so, might interest other people more. I think it came mostly from the interviewer trying to wring out all the juice from certain times in a couple of “cults”.

All in all it was a fascinating look at the life of one of the greatest comics artist who ever lived.

Artist Janice Lowry regarded the notebooks as “126 chapters of a memoir.” Her life’s journey, chronicled in her diaries, ended Sept. 20, 2009, when she succumbed to liver cancer. Archives of American Art

When Janice Lowry turned 11, inspired by reading The Diary of Anne Frank, she began keeping a journal. Not unusual for a young girl. What’s unusual is that throughout her life, Lowry—who died of liver cancer this past September at age 63—kept up her diaries.

From childhood on, Lowry filled small notebooks with daily musings and drawings. Then, in the mid-1970s, she moved to a larger format, 7 1/2- by 9 1/2-inch notebooks. For almost 40 years, Lowry—an artist best known for her intricate, three-foot-tall assemblages—filled the roomier notebooks with jottings and sketches. The pages contain everything from original drawings, collages and rubber-stamp images to observations about herself and the world, including the commonplace “to-do” lists many of us make: “pay bills/make plane res/get asthma med/Judi birthday gift.”

RIP Wayne Kramer

Wayne Kramer, the guitarist who co-created MC5 – of the rawest, most influential and politically engaged bands in US history – has died aged 75. His Instagram page announced the news: “Wayne S Kramer. Peace be with you. April 30 1948 – February 2 2024.”

That’s it for this Monday. The week is yours, use it wisely.

Monday Musings

Monday Musings — 29JAN24

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Well I thought a nice bit of color and niceness would go over good. Spent the weekend in the hospital getting IV-antibiotics for a foot wound, and am home now doing great. My shortest hospital stay in a long time. Today is for being home and making a grocery list (haha). But you all should watch the nice videos, and look at the pretty art, hopefully it starts your Monday nicely.

Teacups” (2023) – Written & Directed by Alec Green & Finbar Watson, Voiced by Hugo Weaving
For almost half a century, Don Ritchie would approach people contemplating suicide at the edge of a cliff near his home.

Sometimes all it takes is someone to listen, and a cup of tea.

“I enjoy the process of freely imagining myself, following the inspiration I get from everyday life. It is a process of forming new creations by connecting various ideas and images encountered in the process of work, like solving a guess or puzzle. Exploring this infinite world of imagination and feeling energized through this process fuels my passion for my work, and I find unique and vibrant traces in the results.”

Check out more from Junwoo Park below!

 

Monday Musings, motivation, Music, Science

Monday Musings — 22JAN24

From a commencement speech at Harvard by Charlie Munger (How to Guarantee a Life of Misery):

My third prescription for misery is to go down and stay down when you get your first, second, third severe reverse in the battle of life. Because there is so much adversity out there, even for the lucky and wise, this will guarantee that, in due course, you will be permanently mired in misery. Ignore at all cost the lesson contained in the accurate epitaph written for himself by Epictetus: “Here lies Epictetus, a slave, maimed in body, the ultimate in poverty, and favoured by Gods.”

The rest is pretty good too.

https://www.space.com/barbenheimer-star-defies-explanation

a purple and blue explosion behind the periodic table of elements The newly discovered Barbenheimer Star exploded in a supernova billions of years ago, leaving behind a cloud of unusual elements in its wake. (Image credit: University of Chicago/SDSS-V/Melissa Weiss)

Scientists have discovered evidence of a massive star from the early universe that does not fit with our current understanding of the cosmos. 

Epic: The Musical is a loose adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, who wrote the music and lyrics and also orchestrated and produced the tracks. His song clips and process videos have gone viral on social media with over 60 million views across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The yet-to-be-released musical also has an active Discord fan community of over 30,000 people who share fanart, memes, fan theories, cover songs, positive affirmations, and tattoos of the lyrics.

Free to listen on Spotify, or get the ones that have been released on Bandcamp:

https://jayherrans.bandcamp.com/album/epic-the-troy-saga-original-concept-album

A link filled Monday, of stuff that interested me this week. Not much musing going on is there. Just wanted to share good stuff. We all need that don’t we. See you next week.

Monday Musings

Monday Musings — 15JAN24

Source: suzi long

That’s from Suzi Long’s portfolio, of fun birds with fun shoes. Starting off your week.

It’s currently welded shut. But if you could open it, you would find the deepest hole that has ever been drilled into the earth.

The Kola Superdeep Borehole is 12 kilometres deep (7.5 miles). For context, the deepest mine is 4 kilometres deep. Cruising altitude for a passenger jet is 11 kilometres up. The bottom of the Mariana Trench is 11 kilometres down.

I really want you to understand that if you jimmied open that tiny rusty cover, there would be nothing between you and a hole that is deeper than the Mariana Trench.

They began drilling in 1970 and stopped in 1995 when they ran out of funds. The aim was just to try and drill as deep into the earth’s crust as they could. (Wikipedia says the company was liquidated due to low profitability, but surely no one thought “dig as deep as possible for no reason” was going to make a profit?)

Anyway, they made it almost halfway through the Earth’s crust. It’s hard to know how much further they would have got. Their instruments kept melting. (“At those depths, rock began to behave more like plastic. [The temperature] rises 25 degrees for every kilometre you go down.”)

We cannot even get to the Moho!

The Moho is what you get when someone named Andrija Mohorovičić discovers something (“MOH-huh-ROH-vuh-chitch”). It’s the boundary between the crust and the mantle, and is technically the Mohorovičić Discontinuity, but it just gets called the Moho. (Wikipedia page)

(A different attempt to drill through the thinner crust on the seafloor was called “Project Mohole”. It made it about a hundred metres.)

As an aside, I found out about the Kola Superdeep Borehole after reading about Theia and saying out loud, “I’m pretty sure this is a dumb question but could we get iron from the core?” so a point in favour of asking dumb questions.

Here’s some music.

That’s it for today. nothing profuound, since I’m too tired this week. Love you all.

Monday Musings

Monday Musings — 1 JAN2024

2 Comments

Happy New Year!

Don’t Make a “New” New Year’s Resolution

You don’t have to wait until the New Year to make a resolution. And you also don’t have to make a new resolution because it’s a new year. You can choose to have less stress and more success anytime by updating the meaning behind old goals, picking a quick win to cross off your list, and by helping someone achieve something that matters to them.

That’s my advice for you all (and Psychology Today’s).

I’m hoping this will be a better year than 2023. Spent a lot of time in the hospital. Don’t like that. My energy levels have sucked, especially towards the end of the year. Got to figure that out. Part of the problem is chemo drugs, part is that food doesn’t always taste good to me. Even trying to choke down a scrambled egg is hard sometimes. No resolution will fix that, but I’ll figure something out.

I am starting a new thing though. 30 days of drawing for 10 minutes, each morning. I belong to a group that’s doing this so hopefully we can keep each other on it. I may post the drawings here also.

Art, Monday Musings

Monday Musings — 11DEC23

1 Comment

As promised last week, the inks for that page.

And a fun video.

A video from Winsor McCay the artist on Little Nemo in Slumberland

A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people. Here’s how they spent it.

Because they were participating in a randomized controlled trial, their outcomes were compared to those of a control group: 65 homeless people who didn’t receive any cash. Both cash recipients and people in the control group got access to workshops and coaching focused on developing life skills and plans.

Separately, the research team conducted a survey, asking 1,100 people to predict how recipients of an unconditional $7,500 transfer would spend the cash. They predicted that recipients would spend 81 percent more on “temptation goods” like alcohol, drugs, or tobacco if they were homeless than if they were not.

The results proved that prediction wrong. The recipients of the cash transfers did not increase spending on drugs, tobacco, and alcohol, but did increase spending on food, clothes, and rent, according to self-reports. What’s more, they moved into stable housing faster and saved enough money to maintain financial security over the year of follow-up.

That’s it for this Monday. Remember to pull your pants up so you don’t trip over your legs.

Monday Musings, nature

Monday Musings — 4DEC23

It’s Monday, what’s on my mind?

Here’s a blue line of a page I’m working on for my comic. It’s going really slow, but I am working on it. I’ll post inks for this page next week. I have them done, but not scanned.

Everything is going slow for me. Low energy because of the chemo, and etc. Some days I just have energy to watch videos and do some light housework, and that’s it. Even sitting at a drawing board seems like a lot, which it shouldn’t, but does. When I force myself to do art it feels good, so I try to do that, if I don’t fall asleep first. LOL But stuff gets done, really.

Now for some health/science news. Check out the video.

A video about why statins aren’t really doing what they say, and are not all that good for you.

Writing this Sunday night actually, and we are getting snow. Supposedly about 6 inches by morning. I’ll let you know.

Yep. Snow. Not quite 6 inches but pretty close, and still coming down at 7AM. Now to get ready for my appointment.

Stay warm, careful shoveling, and remember, that this ends like everything else.

books, Monday Musings

Monday Musings — 27NOV23

I’ve been thinking (just thinking, mind you) about electric bikes, and maybe getting an electric trike. I don’t think I could do a 2 wheeler, because of my balance problems, but a 3 wheeler would work. I don’t go far most of the time, groceries, pharmacy, library. It would beat taking the truck out when I just want to go a short distance. Except in winter. No way, I can barely be outside in cold weather.

And they are better for the environment.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/11/280-million-e-bikes-are-slashing-oil-demand-far-more-than-electric-vehicles/

What advantages do electric mopeds and bikes have?

The electric transport revolution is a great chance to rethink how we move through our cities—and whether we even need a car at all.

Cars, after all, often have only one occupant. You’re expending a lot of energy to transport yourself.

By contrast, electric mopeds and bikes use a lot less energy to transport one or two people. They’re also a lot cheaper to buy and run than electric cars.

If you commute on an e-bike 20 km a day, five days a week, your charging cost would be about $20—annually.

In Australia, electric bikes are very rapidly going from a hobbyist pursuit to a serious mode of urban transport. Over 100,000 e-bikes were sold here last year.

Of course, you’re unlikely to use electric mopeds or bikes to drive from Sydney to Melbourne. Their real value is in short-hop trips—the school run, the milk and bread run, or even the commute—where they take roughly the same time or shorter than a car.

I finished The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin this week. Highly recommended.

“A gorgeous and inspiring work of art on creation, creativity, the work of the artist. It will gladden the hearts of writers and artists everywhere, and get them working again with a new sense of meaning and direction. A stunning accomplishment.” –Anne Lamott From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us. “I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” –Rick Rubin

Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities. The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments–and lifetimes–of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.

Or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-creative-act-rick-rubin/1141404747?ean=9780593653425 in case you’d like the ebook.

That’s it for this week. take care of yourselves, and stay warm.

inspiration, Monday Musings

Monday Musings — 20Nov23

4 Comments

Wow this crept up on me quick. I’ve had a cold this week, and got some meds for it on Friday, that seem to be killing it off. Trying to avoid pneumonia and a visit to the hospital.

It’s Thanksgiving week. Which, again, this year is going to be less stressful for me since all I need to do is make Anadama rolls. I use my Nana’s recipe, which I’ve had for years. Here it is:

Anadama Recipe Download

Well used. I made a pdf to give to family members, but there’s no reason to not post it here. It’s fairly simple, but does take a while.

So what are you thankful for this week? This month? This year? It’s time to assess your life, and see what you love about it, and what you don’t. I’m thankful for the people trying to keep me out of the hospital. From my wife, to my cardiac team, to my PCP. Been in too many time this year. The heart and lungs have been the big problems, and fluid retention, caused by them, mostly. I’m thankful that I can be home and safe with help just a phone call away. I’m thankful for Nora. I’m thankful that Oliver is still a goober, even though he seems tired most of the time. I’m thankful for the staff at Cancer Care, who treat me like family, because I’ve been going there so damn long. I’m thankful to still be here.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/ten_ways_to_become_more_grateful1/

1. Keep a Gratitude Journal. Establish a daily practice in which you remind yourself of the gifts, grace, benefits, and good things you enjoy. Setting aside time on a daily basis to recall moments of gratitude associated with ordinary events, your personal attributes, or valued people in your life gives you the potential to interweave a sustainable life theme of gratefulness.

2. Remember the Bad. To be grateful in your current state, it is helpful to remember the hard times that you once experienced. When you remember how difficult life used to be and how far you have come, you set up an explicit contrast in your mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness.

3. Ask Yourself Three Questions. Utilize the meditation technique known as Naikan, which involves reflecting on three questions: “What have I received from __?”, “What have I given to __?”, and “What troubles and difficulty have I caused?”

That’s it for this week. Remember what you have. Maybe it isn’t much, but it’s yours. Hold on to it.