Just A Peck 0044 // Birds, Karpeles, Morpheus
Welcome to the latest issue of Just A Peck. I’m glad you’re here!
JOURNAL
Jody and I were part of a Wingspan League this year, and our end-of-season activity was hiring a bird guide to take us on an early-morning birding trip. We walked part of the Munger Trail and spotted tons of birds (including two Trumpeter Swans!) which is good news, because all of the birds we spotted will be worth one extra feather point next season!
After a morning spent looking at birds with friends, Jody and I drove just a little farther to Chambers Grove to see more birds—flocks of migrating pelicans! They’re so huge, and they look a bit like dinosaurs.
Duluth’s Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum location is closing. I’ve been intending to go for a decade (I guess I’m part of the reason why it’s closing), but since the opportunity to do so will soon vanish, I made some time to visit. It’s awesome! If you haven’t been in a while, you should go before they close. Some really incredible documents on display, including a scrap of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Titanic rescue report, and Duluth Central High School yearbooks going back to the 19th Century!
On Saturday night, I drove down to Shell Lake to support the Arts Center at their annual Morpheus Fundraising Gala. It was lovely to see so many good friends. (I also won a silent auction for Big Top Chautauqua tickets, so Jody and I will be doing that for our first time this year.)
WHAT I WATCHED THIS WEEK
WHAT I READ THIS WEEK
In Progress:
- Babel, Kuang
- Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hofstadter
- Hollywood: The Oral History, Basinger, Wasson
MEMORIES
Fifteen Years Ago:
Lots of “lasts” as Alex neared graduation: his final Select Choir concert, his last Honor Society Banquet, and his last prom.
QUICK LINKS
- Taken: The page that tells you what your browser gave away
- Elizabeth Saloka's painted rocks
- Farne Island Puffin live cam
- A Japanese woodblock print search engine
- Your name spelled out in Landsat satellite images
- An interactive map of solar eclipses from 2024 to 2100
- A cool collection of optical illusions and visual phenomena
- The world's smallest books
- A new Every Frame a Painting on Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs
- Color palettes extracted from great works of art
- The original 1976 Star Wars trailer, restored
- The greatest comic character of all time is J. Wellington Wimpy
MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"If we stop calling it 'social media' and instead said 'ad platforms', many ridiculous aspects surface:
1. We construct whole identities on ad platforms
2. We get the 'news' from ad platforms
3. We see ad platforms as a medium to demand positive social change
4. We excuse our usage of ad platforms so we can 'keep up with our friends'
5. We let ad platforms degrade our attention to the extent that we insist podcasts and hearing a book are equivalent in cognitive effect to reading an actual book.
Precision when discussing social problems can surface a lot of work that euphemisms do."
That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!