The penultimate summer break issue, yes next week we’re bringing the summer to a close with a few days traveling, and then we’re back in for the fall and a week to go until classes start.
This week there were few lake swims, bike rides, and food truck evenings, otherwise reading, writing, and sketching.
I managed to ride 190 miles in July according to Strava and feeling so much better for it. My sleep has improved and there are even reports that I’m not snoring like a bear. I plan to keep it going. There is a long-distance trip planned and hopefully, I can keep riding well into October.
These bridges make every ride special.
Here are a few things that caught my attention this week along with some useful links.
Coverage of the Olympics on NBC has been tricky, sure there are highlights on Peacock, but some of these don’t even carry commentary and you don’t quite get the sense of occasion of tuning in live, which we can’t do with the time differences.
However, there have been some special moments, this from the Men’s high jump is my favorite so far. What emotion.
I’m a huge fan of Canva, the online design and desktop publishing platform. I’ve said it before, it’s almost impossible to create something terrible! Canva now has free education accounts, so you can make and share with your students.
The kids are asking to go to Kennywood but if I show them this trailer of Action Park then…it might put them off completely! How nuts is this? (The first of two links from the KKB’s newsletter)
Creative Nonfiction is having a summer sale of back issues of their journal and this week I found myself reading this interview with Dave Eggers, talking about his craft and some of the devices he uses to create suspense for the reader.
Every week now I hear about a school board coming out against CRT, saying that they don’t want pupils “indoctrinated” which is a bizarre word to use about your own history and fact. Again, there’s no evidence of any massive shift or adoption of CRT by teachers, but those on the right are desperate for a cause, beats talking about policy and the things that actually affect people, such as clean water, housing, health care, jobs…
I have been enjoying Women in Sound, a zine (featuring beautiful artwork from Pittsburgh illustrator Maggie Lynn Negrete), and a podcast dedicated to women and non-binary people working in sound. I loved the episode with the Korean-American artist Yaeji, You might like to check out some of her videos, especially the title track of her last record WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던
This has gone viral elsewhere, so apologies if you’ve seen it already but for those that haven’t I give you Tehran’s Colourful Pencil’s Shop. (via KBB)
Icelandic Band Sigur Ros has been quietly releasing videos of their field recordings, these are a bit special, here is one of my favorites - Vaka from their untitled ( ) album released in 2002.
So many videos this week, hope you don’t mind.
Stay safe, that’s all I have for you this week, next week will be the final summer micro-issue (some days they don’t feel micro :) but I usually take a look back through my history and check in on some reliable sites that always have the good stuff.
Leave you with this.