Show Notes - Week of July 22, 2019

It was a wet and then warm weekend at 53.5° north latitude. The week was interposed with rain, wind, coordinating camp dropoffs and pickups, and all that is entailed in the first week back to work. Let’s kick off this week’s Show Notes with a nod to one of the most influential sources in my teen years.

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The end of MAD Magazine:
Adam Greenfield’s newsletter, “The Dispatch from London”, alerted me to the end of new content from MAD Magazine. MAD was a constant in my teenage years, and I suspect I’m much like Greenfield in how I learned to wield cynicism and sarcasm as comedic weapons. More importantly, the constant satire from MAD convinced me to question and be skeptical when others would rather just not think about the celebrities and institutions around them. It is hard to take anyone seriously when they are being lampooned in print. But, again as Greenfield said, it would be hard to argue that the time of MAD isn’t off in the past. I’m not sure if there is an archive of Greenfield’s newsletter that can be referenced, but instead of rehashing his points, I’ll hope that you’ll be able to subscribe and fine the archive.
Reading Pile: Part of the problem with coming back from vacation is that the routine is a mess. Reading was almost non-existent this week, but I did manage to finish “The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict” with my younger daughter. That was a difficult book to get through, with the middle third being fairly tedious. However, we both liked how the story came together and we are both looking forward to reading the next book, which is really the first book in the series, “Extraordinary” being a prequel.  Speaking of prequels, that word is something that people born in the last fifteen years seem to intuitively understand. However, I certainly have no recollection of the word ‘prequel’ before Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Wikipedia mentions that it might have originated with the “Butch Cassidy: The Early Days” movie from 1979.  Back to reading, I also read “The Training Commission” this week, which its authors describe as “a speculative fiction novella about the compromises and consequences of using technology to reckon with collective trauma”. Without giving too much away, the story is set in 2038, and the authors use that future setting to riff off the PATRIOT acronym, and spell it out in the writing as “Prison Abolition, Transfer of Reparations, and Inquiry into Transition (PATRIOT)”. Check it out; it’s a good read. Picture Picture

Lastly, I was also able to finish “The Starlit Loom” with my older daughter. “Loom” is the fourth and final novel in the Keepers series by Ted Sanders. I absolutely loved the series and the last book was very emotional, both for the characters and for the reader. Reading books with the kids is somewhat frustrating because we only read about a dozen pages a day, and probably only three or four days a weeks, so a 424 page novel like “Loom” takes a LONG time to read. Added to that is the fact that we started this series well over three years ago (with many other books in between). However, the wait, and the elapsed time, were both worth it in the end. If you do read the series yourself, and I highly suggest that you do, I do encourage you to read them faster. Thanks to Sanders for four very enjoyable books. Do check them out.

Hey, not depressed yet? Read this.
The Washington Post has an opinion piece by Max Boot entitled “What comes after Trump may be even worse”. If you are interested in American politics, it is worth the read. Spoiler alert: Tucker Carlson.

Birds:
​Grabbed a few pics of some birds out at Elk Island this week: Red-headed Grebe; American Coot, and American Bittern. Seriously, there is a bittern in that last picture, I promise.

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New Beers:
I haven’t updated the blog with my new beers since before I went on vacation. As a result, this update has 16 beers in it. In the picture below are the following beers (and ciders, in some cases):


Most were pretty average, although I really didn’t like the Granvillie Island NW Pale. The best were the Spinnakers IPA and the Alley Kat Dragon DIPA. I will say that there are a lot of good beers on our Pacific Coast.\

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Those 16 check-ins on Untappd gave me 12 badges, 3 new and 9 with increased levels. Reading across the image are:\

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New Words:

samizdat
[ˈsämēzdat]
NOUN

  1. the clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state, especially formerly in the communist countries of eastern Europe.


sigil
[ˈsijəl]
NOUN

  1. an inscribed or painted symbol considered to have magical power.


habiliment
[həˈbiləmənt]
NOUN\

  1. clothing.


mete (as in mete and proper)
transitive verb
1: to give out by measure : DOLE OUT
2: archaic : MEASURE

vulpine
[ˈvəlˌpīn]
ADJECTIVE

  1. relating to a fox or foxes.