Just A Peck 0049 // Tonys, Malts, Weddings
JOURNAL
Jody and I mark the official start of her summer break each year with ice cream. This year, the timing worked for us to celebrate it with our first visit to Portland Malt Shoppe for the summer.
We got together for games with friends. It was a great opportunity to fire up the grill for the first time. We also got to try River Valley Glassworks — a new game we recently picked up at the grand opening of the BigBadGameStore.
APT accepted their Tony this week. The video of their lovely acceptance speech is here. (Have I mentioned how ecstatic I am about this?)
I'm officially halfway through my 250-day intermittent fasting challenge. It's all downhill from here!
On Wednesday, I drove to the Twin Cities to attend my niece's wedding. Corey, Alex, and Kelsie were able to attend too.
After nearly six months, our wall reconstruction project finally drew to a close this week with the installation and wiring of the shades. I'm really excited not to have to think about this any more.
Jody and I attended the Women in Theatre New Play Festival at the NorShor on Friday. I always enjoy this annual event amplifying the work of women artists.
I got together with two different groups of friends this week to talk about books. First Babel, and then No Presents Please with my book group. I'm so grateful to have friends who want to talk seriously about books.
Jody and I went to see our multi-talented friend, Alyson, perform with her jazz(ish?) trio.
And then I got together with my poker crew on Saturday night. I started with $20 and left with $37.50!
WHAT I WATCHED THIS WEEK
WHAT I READ THIS WEEK
Finished:
In Progress:
- Dept. of Speculation, Offill
- How Plays Work, Edgar
- Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hofstadter
- Hollywood: The Oral History, Basinger, Wasson
MEMORIES
Fifteen Years Ago:15 years ago, I left my position at Ally Financial to work on my startup. I had built an incredible team there, and they suprised me on my last day by all "dressing like Justin" (either in black fleeces or black polos). I'm still connected with a lot of them, and while I don't miss that particular job, I do have very fond memories of that team.
QUICK LINKS
- Rigby's Encyclopaedia of the Herring
- An interactive demo showing how gravity shapes orbits
- Ask an Astronaut
- CrankGPT: A hand-cranked AI
- Eva Parish on what she thinks about when she edits
- An oral history of Steven Spielberg
- Noah Webster's 1828 definition of a cat
- The banned-for-life list from the Parkview Tavern
MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"[American Players Theater] is statistically impossible. We only exist because of a deep faith in storytelling, and that when you bring greater artists and a curious audience together, it creates community. And for us, community is the point. We are very lucky to have talents of people from all over the country to come work for us, and when they get there, they're like, 'what the hell am I doing here in the middle of nowhere?' until they meet our audience, and they experience poetry under the stars. Then they know [why] they're there. And many of them will stop and say, 'Wow, I remember why I started doing this in the first place.' Because we all know in this room that live theater can crack people open. It can bridge those differences that we've convinced exist between us. And as artists, we live to walk across those bridges."
— Brenda DeVita
That's it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!