Issue #171 - The Spaces in Between
Summer Micro Edition #7 - Track Back
Just like last year, I’ll be taking a break over the next four or five issues, so this is a shorter issue than would normally drop into your inbox. I hope that you enjoy this selection of links and pics, feel free to get in touch, and look forward to catching up later in the summer.
We are back in Pittsburgh, after saying our sad goodbyes, taking a flight to Washington, crashing one night, and driving home. It all seemed quite easy, the family are good at traveling whereas I fuss loads, about check-in times, about how much the bags weigh, that we need to separate fluids into small ziplock bags, and more, but they manage to cope.
While we were away, our street flooded from a burst water main that mean basements are drying out. The workmen who have been digging up pavements, are now finished, so finally everything has been made good again. Last weeks’ food truck was finally allowed to come this week.
There’s been work in our basement too, making it watertight for another reason, that each winter ground water leaks through; so we had a pump fitted and a few other bits replaced. It looks great, but now have the job of moving everything back from the garage where we put stuff while the work could take place. There’s a thick layer of dust, so a few hours each day I’m wiping down and slowly putting the basement to how it was. It’s an opportunity to have a sort and throw a few things away too, which is always good.
I only have a few items for you this week, but it is a proper list, from notes that I made while away, which is suppose to be what the micro-edition is about.
Keenious is an interesting bit of AI, that analyses your text and offers research papers, it is free and quite useful, it didn’t seem to like a couple of VR articles that i wrote, not returning much, but on other bits of text it worked quite well.
This series on educator training by Harvard has been recently launched and there are a ton of interesting talks and articles.
I thought this talk with Çiğdem Bozdağ called Embracing diversity: Media education for culturally diverse students was excellent, and will try to incorporate a few elements into my fall course.
If I’m only allowing myself two articles about AI a week, then this is my second from FLTMAG. It’s also work checking out the conference report on CALICO which I attended just before heading to the UK.
I’m missing Sheffield Documentary Festival, it was so good. Here’s a clip from one of the shorts that I saw. I would love to invite Jonathas de Andrade to CMU to talk about their work, an incredible artist that explore many different forms of media.
I’m listening to the audio book of Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq which includes her singing and sound-making, it is beautiful and emotional, this is the extra that you get with audiobooks that make them so worthwhile.
I had to smile listening to Jacques Derrida talk about students in American Universities, he knows he’s making a generalization, but there’s a shred of truth in what he says, I often think I’m being asked to do the work because I’m the “educator”, to provide an answer when the whole point is that students find one for themselves.
Many summers ago I read Nick Hornby’s Stuff I’ve been reading and as soon as put it down I went and found so many of the titles that he mentioned, apart from those he didn’t enjoy. This year’s article in the Believer has a few interesting recommendations, that might keep me going for a while.
We’re off to watch Mission Impossible this evening, and I really want to see Oppenheimer, I’ll pass on Barbie (although I bet it’s a hoot), and I’ve been enjoying the Barbieheimer mashups, thank you internet.
Finally, I read Milan Kundera’s obituary in The Guardian, possibly one of the first authors when I was 15 or 16 that I enjoyed reading, that I was totally absorbed by, lying on my bed, in my childhood room. It’s a memory of peace and tranquility that I’m forever trying to make real again.
Plants are doing well thanks to our neighbor Sue, TY - photo by Stephan
Thank You
I have a list as long as long as my arm of work things, emails to write, people to follow up with from various travels, students to gently encourage to get work completed. Already the summer feels like it is running out, I have courses to prepare, projects to complete, it is going to be a busy month.
Thanks for all the messages that I got during my travels, seems you enjoyed the photos and stories of what we did. My wife told me that she’s already missing the sea, she would walk down most mornings and take a look at the waves. I’m that way too, it was so lovely to swim and just sit and look out at the horizon, the sea changing colors throughout the day, clouds moving slowly, the occasional boat or kite-surfer out zipping across the view.
We’re looking forward to some trip to lakes, there are many that we’ve not been to yet and I hear a few of them you can rent canoes. It’s going to be great catching up with folks again, I have met so many new people this year, a really special, creative group, who are full of ideas and fun to be with.
Okay, time to do some more work, see you later.