Quote wall: Questlove
On the bulletin board above my desk, I keep a handful of quotes that have taught me something, or that I hope to learn from. Here's one: > You have to throw some things away so that there is some value implied by the act of keeping others.
Traditions
Paul Thomas Anderson is possibly my favorite filmmaker. I saw Boogie Nights when I was in college, then Magnolia a couple of years later, and then backtracked to catch Sydney/Hard Eight. But while I love those early movies, the ones that mean the most to me have come much
Magnolia
When I was seven years old, my family moved from Alaska to Texas. I started the third grade a little younger than the other kids. A new school. A new town. My classmates had all been friends for years by then, having come up through all the previous years together.
Friday Harbor
For the last fifteen or so years—I honestly can't remember when it started; perhaps with a long weekend in Cambria, CA, while writing Eleanor [https://www.jasongurley.com/eleanor]?—I have taken a week off in September, then traveled somewhere alone to work on whatever project I
Brothers on a hotel bed
Recently I spent a few bucks to watch a livestream of Death Cab for Cutie playing a show at Red Rocks. The band was on its first (small) tour in nearly two years, playing a vaccinated crowd; the idea of being in a crowd, regardless of vaccination status, still sets
Quote wall: Colum McCann
On the bulletin board above my desk, I keep a handful of quotes that have taught me something, or that I hope to learn from. Here's one: > You have to show up for work. You have to sit in the chair and fight the blankness. ... You have
Glowing pixels
I have a soft spot for small games. By that I suppose I mean games that are built by small teams, that attempt to do something unique. One of my favorites of the last few years was Firewatch [https://www.firewatchgame.com/], a visually delicious and narratively fascinating game about
Oscam's razor
As I write this, Squish is in the next room, watching her latest favorite cartoon (Summer Camp Island). Two characters in the show have incorrectly deduced that another character is being tortured, so attempt to rescue her. They discover, however, that the character in question is just homesick, and is
General systems collapse
> Apparently in the Late Bronze Age, starting about 1,500 years before the Christian era, the Eastern Mediterranean region was characterised by a system of centralised palace governments, which redistributed money and goods thorugh complex and specialised city economies. I read about this on Wikipedia. Trade routes were highly
Wonder famous almost boys
Recently I was talking with Felicia about movies, in particular movies about writers. Movies about writers shaped my beliefs, as a younger man, about what a writing life would be like; for the last many years, I have learned to unwind those beliefs, as they don't reflect any