Geoff Manaugh, writing in Of Comets and Ruin in the Volume 24: Counterculture in 2010, about his friend Allen Ginsburg:

Allen once urged me to write as simply as possible so that whatever I wrote could be translated and thus, reach as many people as I could all over the world. It seemed like absurd advice: why not strive to write something that was worth translating in the first place? But his point was to get the message out, to make people — no matter what continent they were standing on or what language they spoke — think differently about something, about everything, about one particular thing they’d never thought of before. Allen thought we should write for the entire world, so that people with nothing in common with us — not politics, not gender, perhaps not even species — might get some vicarious thrill out of a unique idea or experience. ‘Particulars!’ This terrestrial moment lives on, he’d often point out, whether or not someone is recording it. But a planetary human community of readers and friends will never continue if we give up telling each other stories, if we stop reconfiguring myths, stop typing our own magic psalms of rotting cities.

Bill Voyd, from Funk Architecture in Shelter and Society, 1969, on Drop City:

The hardest time in a commune, particularly Drop City, is the time after the building gets done. While everyone is working together on actual construction the energy is centered, there is fantastic high spirit, everyone knows what he is doing all the time. But after the building is done comes a time of dissolution. There’s no focus for the group energy, and most hippies don’t have anything to do with their individual energy.

I’ve been trying to piece apart why my level of general anxiety has been exponentially higher since Catherine died: this has never made sense, as the really hard parts, the parts you think would push one over the edge, were in the years leading up to her death. Perhaps this notion explains why.

(If you’re interested in learning more about Drop City, there’s a documentary for that, which you can stream on demand).

Sarah Miller writes about her bedclothes:

Adult bed was about aesthetics, not pets or snacks. “Adult bed” just meant no more aggressively mismatched sheets, pillowcases and comforter covers. The bed didn’t have to have hotel-quality linen matching, like where every single element is the exact same fabric and color. “I just don’t want it to be a complete mishmash,” T. said. “Right now we have a pink paisley sheet from Pottery Barn Kids and then we have another Pottery Barn Kids thing, a quilt with vintage airplanes on it, primary colors – and the pillowcases are earth-toned, red and tan, with dusty blue flowers!” He said our bed was giving him an anxiety attack.

I love that this freshwater spring in Nova Scotia has three reviews and a 5-star rating on Google Maps: it feels like a subversion.

The ability to seamlessly copy-and-paste text directly from photos in iOS 15 is breathtaking. 

Standing a few steps from the Poll 53 table in the Murphy Community Centre this morning, just after 9:30 a.m., watching Olivia vote, I had tears in my eyes.

The tears had many tributaries.

Olivia finds choice-making really, really, really hard. It is her kryptonite. What is voting but big hairy choice-making, the choice-making of all choice-making. But she did it.

This is Olivia’s first post-transition election, and the voter identification card arrived with her old name on it, a source of great frustration for her in ways that non-trans people may find difficult to grasp the depth of. This was almost a deal-breaker, but thanks to a helpful advance team of supporters, excellent Elections Canada staff at the Murphy Centre, and helpful Elections Canada policies, we were able to right things: upon arrival she was able to fill out a name change form with her proper name, and vote as such; the data will also, in theory, flow upstream to the National Register of Electors, so this was a one-time thing.

This was the first election Olivia voted in since Catherine died. Catherine was there for the first time she voted; this time it was just the two of us.

And, democracy. It’s humbling. How can it not bring tears to your eyes to witness its mechanics in operation.

In the end, I am just so, so proud of my daughter.

I accidentally ended up being the “runner” for Darcie Lanthier’s Green campaign, responsible for picking up the “bingo sheets” that record the sequence number of people who’ve voted and entering them into the Green Party “get out the vote” system; it was in doing so that I realized that on my second visit to the poll I’d accidentally been handed duplicate sheets, ones intended to go to other parties. I quickly returned them to the polls, and arrived to find a (friendly) APB being put out on me. Once things were righted, I realized I never would have discovered that without Olivia having voted. 

At 8:30 p.m. I’ll go into the cone of silence to observe the count as Darcie’s representative: if you’ve never done that before, I highly encourage you to volunteer at your next opportunity. Observing the count is like mainlining democracy: there’s something about watching the ballot boxes get unsealed, and each vote counted, one by one, watched by invested eyes, that transports it from the mechanical to the magical.

Riding back from a paddle at Andrew’s Pond this afternoon, pulling my canoe behind my bicycle, I passed a family out in their front yard.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before!”, said the father, looking at my unusual roadshow.

“Daddy, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before!”, replied his daughter.

And in that moment I realized my reason for being: to create small moments like that, small moments where people can see things they’ve never seen before.

You can buy an official Blackwing Pencil Point Guard for around $14.00. They are lovely and well-fitting and appropriately beautiful. Alas that level of stationery nerdery is too much even for me.

But.

I have a Blackwing pencil, which I love, and carry around with me in my sketchbook satchel all the time, and its point is forever getting dulled, and peeking through the satchel, in the most annoying way.

The solution? This 3D model of a point guard, which loosely approximates the official model, just enough to serve my purposes. Thirty-three minutes on the 3D printer and a little bit of sanding.

I got in my Kia Soul EV this morning to head to Freetown (to ride Tye the Horse) only to find that I hadn’t plugged the charger plug into the car sufficiently snuggly for it to actually charge. So I had 74 km of range for a 92 km round trip.

There was no way I wasn’t going, so I threw caution to the wind and drove out anyway, confident that everything would work out.

Which is how I found myself, post-ride, with 19 km of range as I pulled up to the Sun Country Highway charger at the Kensington Train station.

Fortunately modern Kensington is well-outfitted for the Bohemian EV charging traveller: I just finished up a salmon bagel from the C+B, and I’m headed across to The Willow for coffee.

I’m up to 34 km of range now, for a 49 km trip, so if the electrons continue to flow freely, I’m on track to be able to make my 3:00 p.m appointment in town