Author: Chad
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Recent Views
More photography here and on my Instagram. Watching this little wanderer discover the wilds of Pure Michigan™: Caught some nice evening light in our local playground’s jungle gym: Technically this will be Mr. 22 Month Old’s third winter (he was born during a blizzard), but the first he remembers and appreciates. Hence his major surprise…
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Hope to love you long
In his post on the emotional intelligence of long experience, Alan Jacobs spotlights a letter from the great 18th century writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson to his younger friend, who at one point thought he had said something to offend Johnson: You are not to imagine that my friendship is light enough to be blown…
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Lowercase truths
Bret Stephens, in a column on the New York Times’s 1619 Project: Journalists are, most often, in the business of writing the first rough draft of history, not trying to have the last word on it. We are best when we try to tell truths with a lowercase t, following evidence in directions unseen, not…
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Send everyone all your vibe
Magazine mashup from the Shutterfly 2020 Cards & Gifts catalog. More mashups here.
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Hand in hand
Did some hand tracing with Mr. 21 Months, which reminded me of a picture I took of us last year while on a walk. Using a crayon made our hands look chunkier than they really are, but little man’s hand in the picture was just as chunky as it looks.
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A cheerful failure
For Filmspotting’s latest poll, they ask which of the provided movie failures you are the biggest cheerleader for. The criteria: “These are movie ‘failures’ that paired well-respected, ‘auteurist’ filmmakers with existing properties—and high expectations—resulting in significant disappointments critically and (usually) at the box office.” Check out the poll for all the options. I’ve only actually…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series on books, movies, and music I’ve encountered recently. Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Fire! Watchmen (TV show). This whole limited series is something special, but the three-episode stretch of “This Extraordinary Being”, “An Almost Religious Awe”, and “A God Walks Into Abar” is spectacular. I went into this basically as a…
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Pick up your kid
There’s a post by Jason Kottke I’ve thought about almost every day since he wrote it last year. He links to an animated version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, then reminisces about reading picture books with his now-older kids: We’ll likely never read any of those books together again. It reminds me of one of…
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An Iceberg to Remember
One of my favorite books of all time is Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember, a retelling of the Titanic’s demise. I finally got around to watching Roy Ward Baker’s 1958 film adaptation of the book on a beautiful Criterion Blu-ray from the library, and it got me wondering: what about the iceberg? In both…
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Little Book of Typewriters
I’m a little tardy on this, but I wanted to share what my wife got me for Father’s Day. After a great deal of secret preparations, she presented a one-of-a-kind Little Book of Typewriters for me and our son: The first page includes a scan of something we got from Tom Hanks in reply to…
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Recent Views (in my kitchen)
We’re finally redoing the original kitchen in our 1956 house. Once the old metal Youngstown cabinets were removed, I noticed this collision of patterns on the unfinished wall: I also discovered some old-school miscellanea:
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American Virus-Response Solutions
Magazine mashups from American Libraries, September/October 2020
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Ghost Papas: Fatherhood in ‘The Patriot’ and ‘Interstellar’
I recently rewatched The Patriot for the first time in a long while. I was big into this movie as a lad, so rewatching it as a thirtysomething dad was something of an experiment to see how my adolescent tastes hold up. There’s good (John Williams’ score, Mel Gibson as likeable movie star) and bad…
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Recent Views
More photography here and on my Instagram. As much of a selfie I’m willing to muster: From back in coat-wearing weather, the cover art for our future family band’s debut album: Backyard greenery: Exploring the tiny patch of wildness in our suburban backyard: A fence post in the local park that’s seen better days: Our…
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The Last Dance
Pretty much inhaled the Michael Jordan docuseries The Last Dance on Netflix. As I was a mere lad during the Chicago Bulls’ extended championship run in the ‘90s, the series really added color and context to the on- and off-court happenings I wouldn’t have understood at the time. Though a Wisconsinite, I didn’t feel any…
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Playing havoc
Jay Rosen, writing back in May about the Trump administration’s response to COVID-19, remains accurate: To wing it without a plan is merely the best this government can do, given who heads the table. The manufacture of confusion is just the ruins of Trump’s personality meeting the powers of the presidency. There is no genius…
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Home is where we all are back to school
My first magazine mashup in a while. This one is courtesy of the July 2020 issue of Costco Connection: