One year ago today, we gathered a ragtag bunch of friends in St. Paul’s Parish Hall for Crafting {:} a Life. These are those people.

Kirsten Dirksen on a three story shipping container house in Toronto.

The house was built on top of Harlem Restaurant, which closed last November:

On November 9th, 2019, Harlem Underground turns 10 years old. To celebrate this auspicious occasion, we have decided to close the restaurant.

“Over the last decade Harlem Underground has been an epicentre of black food and culture within the downtown core. The decision to close comes not from the restaurant itself, as I continue to be supported by the community at large, but from a personal need to see other creative endeavours grow.” —Carl Cassell

The conventional playbook is that, if you’ve got a good thing going, you should keep going, forever. It’s refreshing to see examples of the opposite.

One of the fringe benefits of the pandemic has been that the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle has launched an ambitious program of remote workshops over Zoom. Which is how I came to be learning about daredevil printing this afternoon from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. from the talented daredevil Jessica Spring, at Springtide Press in Tacoma.

This was only the second letterpress course I’ve taken since I started printing: the first one, in 2010 at The Arm in Brooklyn, set me on my way. Since that point there’s been a lot of figuring things out by myself, and making up names for things, and generally just futzing around. So, in addition to the value of learning how to print with my newly-acquired set of daredevil furniture, the great joy of the session today was simply being able to watch another printer–a much, much more experienced and talented printer–go about the trade.

Stay tuned for much round printing to follow.

Imani Perry, writing in The Paris Review:

I’m growing microgreens. Every couple of weeks they are sufficiently lush to be snipped and eaten. They sit on my nightstand, and there’s just enough light, coming from an adjacent window, to feed them. Outside that window, I can see a tree that is older than anyone I know. I photograph it frequently, watching it change with the seasons.

(via my mother).

I’ve updated my blogroll, the list of blogs that I subscribe to and read every day.

It’s simply an export out of the FreshRSS newsreader that I use for RSS reading, with the addition of a stylesheet to allow human beings to read it to.

My friend Brenda generously gifted us a hot pepper plant and a tomato plant, and I found a place for them in our back yard this morning. We have named them Fiero and Jackson, respectively (the tomato is of the Pollock variety).

The back garden was always completely Catherine’s domain, so this is a stretch for me, and starting out humbly with two plants seems the best approach.

Brenda was full of helpful advice, and I have the full power of The Old Farmer’s Almanac to deploy if needed (/plant/tomatoes has a whole new relevance in my life now!).

Four recommendations, all of which can be found on Crave in Canada (a Bell-owned mashup of HBO and Showtime):

• The Newsroom — The Aaron Sorkin one, not the Ken Finkleman one. Three seasons of Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer, with an excellent supporting cast that includes Sam Waterston, Jane Fonda, Dev Patel and Alison Pill. I just rewatched from the beginning and enjoyed it just as much as the first time.

• Homeland — Just wrapped up as a series after 8 seasons. Mandy Patinkin and Clare Danes never disappointed. Among my favourite series ever.

• Billions — Damian Lewis as a hedge fund billionaire vs. Paul Giamatti as district attorney. The fifth season just got underway and it’s not the strongest. But the first four were excellent, especially season four, which moved Asia Kate Dillon into a more prominent role.

• Picard — Star Trek continues, focusing on Patrick Stewart’s Jean Luc Picard. I could do without all the Romulan sub-plot, but I’d happily watch a Picard do nothing but tend his vineyard.

Crave is frustrating for its multiple subscription levels, meaning I often run into “you can only watch [this amazing new thing] if you have the + HBO + Movies extra package.”

(There’s also the danger of the entire Seinfeld back-catalogue, which can consume hours if you’re not careful).

But these four series are worth a month’s investment if you’ve exhausted Netflix.

When Oliver and I were on the beach at Wood Islands Provincial Park on Sunday, I recorded just under two minutes of the same of the water lapping against the rocks. You’ll hear birdsong in the background if you listen carefully.

An interesting project in these pandemic times would be to stick a permanent microphone at the shore to broadcast sounds of the PEI surf 24/7 to those unable to be on the beach in person.

Since Catherine died in January I’ve been lurking on her Instagram, drinking in the daily dose of heavily weaving, spinning, knitting and woodworking photos that she would have seen.

It’s been nice. I’m inspired to make more fetching outfits for myself (fetching outfits seem to be an Instagram staple).

But it was time to shut it down. So I did.

A reminder, though, that you can see Catherine’s Instagram photos in this archive I created earlier this year.