Fennel & Dill 25
It’s a foggy, overcast Saturday as I write this newsletter. Yesterday, my company gave Juneteenth off as time to volunteer and remember, and I spent most of the day with the Women’s Foundation of Oregon discussing budgets and our COVID relief fund. As a Texan, I grew up hearing about Juneteenth, but still hadn’t fully understood Texas as “part of the south” until a few years ago, since Austin had firmly insulated itself from owning our history. Take some time to read about Juneteenth, and why its the real Independence Day for our country.
(Insert picture of Snorri)
My good friend Snorri stood on my shoulder for this part, so I figured I should add a photo of him saying hi. Do you have a pet? Send me a photo of your pet being cute. I’m heartened by how many friends have adopted pets during this quarantine, and it feels like almost every week there are new cats showing up in our cats channel at work. I’m still studying how Snorri handles being permanently shelter-in-place for tips on how to deal with COVID. Mostly, it seems like the key is naps and purring.
Let’s get to the links!
Links
- These two essays from Craig Mod are a very interesting look at attention and hiking. If you’re anything like me, it’s pretty hard to look away from the constant pull of the news and minute-to-minute narration of current events Twitter brings us every day. I’ve still largely stuck to my RSS Twitter diet, which I still recommend, but I still load the news up on Google or Apple a few times a day. It’s super important to stay informed, but I think it’s worth thinking about the cycles of meaningless scrolling we all get into.
- The man above makes what I call “BeEDM”. I’m fascinated by the combination of shed-made electronic music, with beekeeping. If bees aren’t your thing, you can instead make music from your plants. Honestly, I think it’s hard to beat music that cats make.
- Robin Sloan is on a roll lately! This piece in the Atlantic was a delight, and he’s also serializing some fiction in the local paper every day too. The guy also makes a pretty solid olive oil, which I received yesterday for the first time, and immediately poured on my sourdough.
- I planned to send a few comic recommendations, but one of the folks who I’ve been reading lately was revealed to be a predator this week, so I’ll only give you one recommendation. The creator of Blade of the Immortal has two new series, and one of them is all about female assassins: Die Wergelder. It rules. The other series is on my to-watch list, as the anime just aired.
Well, the clouds have parted, and Saturday is looking sunny and nice. I think after I take today’s loaf out of the oven, I’ll go on a bike ride with a few friends at a distance and maybe pick up some beer. I hope your Sunday is lovely, and your week is fully of love, solidarity, and rest. Stay safe, and keep fighting, space cowgirls~