Live Forever

This popped up on my Twitter this morning from a unexpected and practically random source. The following story is told in Sam Weller’s biography of Ray Bradbury.

Liturgical Music for Holy Week

Some of what I’ve been up to over the past week. This is a recording of the church choir taken after Palm Sunday liturgy. I believe it’s meant to be instructional for the other cantors who will be assisting during Holy Week services.

→ The Windows of Our Isolation ∞

Since the coronavirus started spreading, our little computer and phone cameras have become the windows of our isolation, looking into other people’s lives, catching glimpses of pets, children, and spouses in the background of video calls. I find these moments deeply humanizing; reminders that we’re not perfect work machines, just people trying to do the best we can. Our hair is messy, our faces poorly framed and lit. Sometimes we leave the mic on when we go to the bathroom.

Through this tiny lens we see the ambient background of life: people working in kitchens, bedrooms or spare rooms, the hoarded detritus of life piled behind them.

Interesting article on the sudden predominance of Zoom in all of our lives. It makes some strong points about the dangers of the product itself, but also why it works the way it does, the tradeoffs we are willing to accept for the sake of convenience, and what I think are the fundamental shortcomings of all our collective characters, in that we cannot have anything good without some seeking to exploit or weaponize it.

Technology is made stupid by the constant necessity of having to guard against and outthink the bad agents.

Also, Zoom, a product known to have egregious security holes, that behaves like a virus and points a camera and mic into your home, was developed by a team of contractors from China.

→ Elote Ramen May be the King of Fusion Cuisine ∞

This comes courtesy of good buddy Brian Hammons at reviewtheworld.com, now celebrating its 15th year on the internet, I believe. As if I didn’t need another reason during this lockdown to get my hands on some Tajin.

I tell you, fans, I could not be more ready to reintroduce cheese into my diet.

Haters be silent. Cheese in ramen is a cheap American innovation, granted, but ramen is nothing if not versatile and accommodating. And there is surprisingly nothing wrong with the flavor, either. And it was in Pasadena, no mean ramen town, that I first discovered corn in ramen, and I was surprised at how well it meshed with the flavor and texture profile of traditional ramen.

Not to mention that I just flat out love elote.

Yeah, come next week this is definitely happening.