Alex's Musings

This just in: I made a now page. This is what they are. I’d seen several examples on blogs I follow and thought it was about time.

That’s all. Back to my weekend rhythms and obligations.

Just like in 2024, I kept track of books I completed in the old-school “50 Book Challenge” style. I got to exactly 50 this time around.

1. Parable of the Talents - Octavia Butler
2. The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare - G. K. Chesterton
3. How to DJ Right - Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster
4. A Hacker’s Mind - Bruce Schneier
5. The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. LeGuin
6. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
7. A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine
8. A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine
9. Piranesi - Suzanna Clarke
10. How To Eat A Wolf - MFK Fisher
11. The End of Policing - Alex S. Vitale
12. The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow
13. Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
14. Atomic Habits - James Clear
15. Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett
16. The Werewolf at Dusk and Other Stories - David Small
17. Walkaway - Cory Doctorow (reread)
18. James - Percival Everett
19. Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett
20. Sparrow Hill Road - Seanan McGuire (reread)
21. Girl in the Green Silk Gown - Seanan McGuire
22. Angel of the Overpass - Seanan McGuire
23. Spelunking Through Hell - Seanan McGuire
24. Erasure - Percival Everett
25. Backpacking Through Bedlam - Seanan McGuire
26. Aftermarket Afterlife - Seanan McGuire
27. Doppelganger - Naomi Klein
28. Installment Immortality - Seanan McGuire
29. Old Man’s War - John Scalzi (reread)
30. Networking for System Administrators - Michael W Lucas
31. The Nashville I Knew - Jack Norman, Sr.
32. When the Moon Hits Your Eye - John Scalzi
33. The Ghost Brigades - John Scalzi
34. Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett
35. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
36. Maskerade - Terry Pratchett
37. The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
38. Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh
39. The Last Colony - John Scalzi
40. A Physical Education - Casey Johnston
41. Titan - John Varley (reread)
42. Wizard - John Varley (reread)
43. His Majesty’s Dragon - Naomi Novik
44. Demon - John Varley (reread)
45. How to Resist Amazon and Why - Danny Caine
46. Zoë’s Tale - John Scalzi (reread)
47. I Take My Coffee Black - Tyler Merritt
48. Circe - Madeline Miller
49. The Human Division - John Scalzi
50. Throne of Jade - Naomi Novik

Hobonichi has started their month of previews for their 2026 lineup of Techo planners. I’ve been an avid user of their Weeks planner for a few years now and I’m pretty excited to see what they’re going to come up with this year. Granted, it appears they will have a more limited selection available for US addresses due to (I would imagine) tariff hijinks, but we’ll see how it goes.

They posted an interview with founder Shigesato Itoi today where he goes over this year’s tagline of “YOU LOVE YOU?” It’s precious, and wow do we need some precious right now.

“if it comes across as something a child would scribble on a wall with crayon, that’s fine. I think it sounds kind of poetic.”

“Literally just… consider the messages and messaging you’re being inundated with, and what grooves and patterns and paths of least resistance they’re wearing into your thinking.” – Dr. Damien P. Williams

How Muppets Break Free from their Puppeteers

Jim Henson and his team were such big pioneers in practical effects. Also, Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas is still my favorite Christmas movie.

Merlin Mann: The Right Zero

A few words on failing to see the forest for the trees.

Resilience is a practice | Seth’s Blog

Seth Godin has written a lot about resilience over the past several years. These days I think the concept is well worth reviewing.

This has been in my drafts folder for months, basically since Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show back in January, which really seems like years ago now. I was waiting for the inspiration to properly express my appreciation for Kamasi Washington, not to mention Patrice Quinn and all the other musicians that are in that glorious Los Angeles constellation.

I got tired of waiting. So, just… enjoy these. They’re amazing.

First, a lovely cover that I first heard on Kamasi’s 2018 EP The Choice. This live rendition is definitely worth the time.

Second, my favorite of his. This is one of those live recordings that make me wish I’d been in the room then. If you’re looking at the folks playing with him and asking yourself: “is that…?” then you’re probably right.

Our minds, our bodies, our feelings
They change, they alter, they leave us
Somehow, no matter what happens
I’m here

The time, the season, the weather
The song, the music, the rhythm
It seems no matter what happens
I’m here

Daylight seems bright
Because of night
It’s shade we need
So we can see

Our love, our beauty, our genius
Our work, our triumph, our glory
Won’t worry what happened before me
I’m here

I still have a lot of post ideas about what music has gotten me through the past few months. Here are some of those.

(General theme seems to be: my exposure to music as a child was at least partially “whitewashed” and I’ve been making up for lost time ever since.)

My first true taste of Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free” was from a FACT mix by Laraaji (an artist I first heard of through his Ambient #3 album via Brian Eno, and so on down the rabbit hole) and it’s… transcendent. Search for it and give it a listen. Hathaway’s voice is just fantastic and the wash of Rhodes arpeggios at the beginning locks you in.

This is a cover - single take, no rehearsal - by Corinne Bailey Rae and Jon Batiste. It’s a magic spell.

I heard a lot of Luther Vandross as a kid but he was mostly relegated to easy listening/the dentist office. I mean… “Here and Now” is a great ballad, and his collaboration with Mariah Carey on “Endless Love” was just everywhere in the early 90s, but… why did it take until I was an adult to hear this? (“Never Too Much”).

Now: Al Jarreau. “We’re In This Love Together” was a dentist-office staple growing up (and that song deserves so much more than whiny drills for accompaniment). It was much later that I was introduced to his other work (the gorgeous “touch the face of God” bridge on “Mornin’”, etc). This live performance of “Trouble In Paradise” from 1983 is a time capsule that deserves more eyes and ears:

More to come.

What though the tempest loudly roars?
I hear the truth, it liveth
What though the darkness ‘round me grows?
Songs in the night it giveth

No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I’m clinging
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?

Deep breaths, friends. And on a good inhale, sing.

Locally the current wisdom is to wait a few more weeks before planting anything, as we’re still expecting at least one more (mild) freeze. All the same, it’s a good time to start planning what I’d like to plant both physically and mentally.

On the mental side, it’s all about planting seeds of perspective, understanding, and above all hope.

Here are some links for that, and to remind myself: keep your eye on the ball.

i have started reading Omar El Akkad’s “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”

“No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. (…) Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.” bookshop link

Several things you can do!

“Hello, currently I am the leader of my local boy scout troop and we want to focus on citizenship and community and the first thing that came to my mind was solarpunk. What are some cheap activities or things to discuss that relate to community that I could run at our next meeting?”

How To Be a Fighter When You Feel Like a Punching Bag

“…not all traumatic circumstances allow us to act with agency. Sometimes, harm happens to us, and taking control of our bodies or actions simply isn’t possible. But in other cases, it only feels that way.

The more often we have experienced true helplessness, the more likely we are to feel powerless in situations where action is possible. And the more we freeze or flail in response to threats, the more deeply ingrained those responses become.”

A working library: Make life possible

“And yet, as Le Guin reminds us, uncertainty is also the only thing that makes life possible. Without it, we would move like automatons through predetermined paths, unspirited, unaware, unliving.”

I have a few blog ideas in the queue about art (mainly music, who is surprised?) that has been sustaining me lately. Those take a lot more effort than a links post, though, so it may be just a bit longer before you see them. Until then, thanks for reading.

Several years ago, spurred on by a friend’s posting of the LiveJournal-spawned¹ “50 Books Challenge”, I started keeping track of my own reading habits for the year. While she (and others) still post their yearly lists on social media, I figured the best place for my list would be here. So… enjoy?

1. Red Team Blues - Cory Doctorow
2. Be Useful - Arnold Schwarzenegger
3. Radicalized - Cory Doctorow
4. The Soul of America - Jon Meacham
5. The Lost Cause - Cory Doctorow
6. Fuzzy Nation - John Scalzi
7. Hands of the Morri - Heather K. O’Malley
8. The World We Make - N. K. Jemisin
9. Rise of the Gomeral - Jeff Pages
10. Prince: The Man And His Music - Matt Thorne
11. Chokepoint Capitalism - Rebecca S. Gilpin and Cory Doctorow
12. The Bezzle - Cory Doctorow
13. How Infrastructure Works - Deb Chachra
14. Termination Shock - Neal Stephenson [audiobook]
15. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. - Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland [audiobook]
16. Starter Villain - John Scalzi
17. The Death of Stalin - Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin
18. The Fund - Rob Copeland
19. Getting Things Done (Tenth Anniversary Edition) - David Allen
20. Play Nice But Win - Michael Dell
21. Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon - Spider Robinson [reread]
22. Monstress vols 1 & 2 - Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
23. The Souls of Black Folk - W. E. B. DuBois [audiobook]
24. Sleep No More - Seanan McGuire
25. Provenance - Ann Leckie
26. The Innocent Sleep - Seanan McGuire
27. Emergent Strategy - adrienne maree brown
28. Loving Corrections - adrienne maree brown
29. The Dispossessed - Ursula K. LeGuin
30. Time Management for System Administrators - Thomas A. Limoncelli
31. git commit murder - Michael W Lucas
32. Moby-Dick, or, The Whale - Herman Melville [audiobook/e-book]
33. The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein