browse all posts below
At the end of 2024 I read The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, by Thomas Ligotti. Not exactly a book brimming with Christmas Spirit, I fear. One of its central theses can be stated simply: consciousness was a mistake. For all the benefits the evolution of human consciousness has granted us, it is consciousness that makes horror and suffering possible. In fact it would best if no one ever lived to experience it.
I am not a fashion expert, but have taken an interest in fashion over the past few months. For decades I gave no thought at all to how my clothes looked or what they might express. I bought workwear brands like Carhartt and Dickies for their durability, and when I bought new clothes it was because I had gained or lost weight, needed something for a special occasion, or had worn out my clothes completely. Aesthetics were a secondary consideration if I considered the visual appear of my clothes at all.
One phrase I remember from being in the garden with my grandparents is “going to seed”. Plants produce new growth but eventually they go to seed - stop producing new leaves, roots, and fruits - and die.
Almost exactly one year after the last update I am proud to report that I did in fact find a new job. A new daughter and a new job in 2023 left little time for blogging but it’s been a hell of a lot of fun.
This week we spent Friday and Sunday morning in the garden. On the south side, and along the far edge, I planted onion and garlic sets. Today I cast onion seed on the entire parcel as a way of using those seeds up, and filled our containers with a mixture of arugula, lettuce, and mixed herbs. I also made a bed of carrots, and I set up some supports for the area where I decided I would probably plant our white beans when the time comes.
Starting the year off on the right foot (?)
In which uncle Snow attempts to show you true political maturity.
There’s an issue at the intersections of empiricism, the philosophy of technology, and sociology that has been on my mind having recently read Propaganda and only becomes more urgent as the Israel-Hamas War and subsequent competing propaganda campaigns continue to unfold. It provides space for contemporary propaganda to operate, from mainstream climate denialism to fringe Flat Earth theory. And it is simply that many problems occupying the minds of people in technological societies are too big to be perceived.
It’s been a couple months since the last update, so let me catch you up on how we’re doing so far this season.
If you landed on this page after seaching for “gardening technique” I offer my most humble apology.
Two months into paternity leave I got a cryptic email from my manager saying we had to have a phone call the following Friday morning. Because several people I know had been layed off that very same week I was sure I was about to receive similar news. But I was only half correct; everyone but me on my team was being laid off effective immediately.
These posts are going to be equal parts transparency and convenience for me. Transparency because I give an air of gardening skill and knowledge without providing any evidence that anything I do works, convenience because plaintext is just the fastest way for me to document things.