Lotic, interviewed on starting from scratch:

A lot of artists have this fantasy of pulling up stakes, getting rid of all their stuff, and running away to a new city to reboot and recreate themselves—which is basically what you did when you moved to Berlin. How was that experience?

It took a long time to find my footing here, to be honest. I moved here with my husband, who was my first boyfriend ever. We’re not together anymore. I knew one person here who would book me for gigs. Luckily I met basically everybody that I know now—or about half the people I know now—during that first week. That helped a little bit, but it was fucking crazy and stupid and when anyone has asked me if they should do it too, I say no. No.

I had never even been to Berlin before. Why did I do this? What was I expecting? I don’t know. For me, it wasn’t about coming someplace new as much as it was about getting away from someplace else. It was about leaving the States. I was in the suburbs of Houston, which is nothing like being here. Given what was happening in America, I just felt like I had to leave. It was less about running towards something than it was about running away from something else. Now that I’m here and things are good—and I’m really good now—it’s hard to talk about, but it honestly did take four or five years to get my life together here. Also, I still don’t speak the language.

See also France, by the Ceedees.

From Euan Semple, Your phone doesn’t have to be your enemy. In part:

Don’t let the media convince you that it is inevitable that you are a victim of technology, and make the effort to ensure that you are not. I’ve made my phone my friend. You can too.

He’s written what amounts to, unintentionally, a very good ad for the iPhone.

This short film about the Irish border written by Clare Dwyer Hogg and performed by Stephen Rea, has singlehandedly convinced me that poetry can change the world.

For the past year (or more), Oliver’s been focused intensely on October 1, 2018, the day he turns 18 years old and becomes an adult.

A big part of this has involved organizing a birthday party that includes people that have been a part of his life to date. What we’ve discovered this week is that’s a lot of people: schoolmates, daycare workers, teachers, farmers’ market vendors, politicians, childhood friends, and the doula that was there at the very moment of his birth.

We’ve rented the St. Paul’s Parish Hall for the evening, organized a meal of vegetarian chili, and booked a cross-section of musical acts that have touched on Oliver’s life.

It promises to be a barn-burner of an event. If your life has overlapped with Oliver’s and somehow the reach of his invitation blanket had missed you, please come.

I was toying with the idea of going to Nuremberg in October for IndieWebCamp, as all the cool kids will be there.

I’ll be in Boston on October 19, so I looked for Boston to Nuremberg flights that evening. To my surprise, I found a one-way fare of $315 Canadian on Kayak.

Unfortunately it’s a marathon Boston to Reykjavik to Copenhagen to Milan to Nuremberg routing that takes 35 hours and would put me in Nuremberg with IndieWebCamp all but over.

Wednesday morning and Catherine was off early to the hospital for a scan so Oliver and I came to Receiver Coffee for breakfast out.

While I was emptying the leak buckets in the attic this evening, I came across this photobooth picture of Catherine and me. It must have been taken in 1992 or 1993—25 years ago!—as neither of us is wearing eyeglasses.

How young we were; literally half a lifetime ago.

David Noel recommends a visit to Mucem when in Marseille.

The museum has a better-than-usual focus on accessibility:

Recognising the need to surround itself with experts in disability so as to consider and create a global accessibility policy, from the outset of the project, the Mucem formed a committee bringing together Marseille-based associations representing disability. Together, they considered the physical, sensory and cognitive accessibility of the museum.

The museum includes a “tactile and sensory” route through its galleries:

The objects selected for this tour convey the fundamental points of the exhibition’s main themes. In addition, its tactile, sensory dimension allows all visitors to comprehend the objects, through both their intellects and their senses.

I wish all institutions placed such emphasis on meeting all of their patrons where they stand.

(I met David years ago on a visit to SoundCloud; he was one of the most welcoming people I’ve ever met; I take his recommendations seriously).

Madeleine Morley assembled a delicious list of 46 bookshops around the world.

I’ve been lucky to visit four of them so far.

I could do worse in life than to send this list to my travel agent and ask them to book flights connecting the rest.

(Aeroplan round-the-world itineraries start at 200,000 miles; I’m about 1/5 of the way there).

The Athens Zine Bibliotheque is “a zine-library, collecting zines from around the world, focusing mainly on the field of architecture, design, photography and art.”