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“Do the hard things” – Futurist Jim Carroll How many times do you say to yourself, “I’ll do the easy things first!” And then you just keep doing the easy things over and over again, always avoiding the hard stuff. And you never make any progress – because at some point or other, you have to do the hard things. What if you did the hard things first? What if …

Murder at the Monastery by Richard Coles Canon Daniel Clement, Vicar of Champton, is not having a good time in this fascinating novel. The Reverend Richard Coles continues his series of mysteries set in the English countryside in the late 1980s and early 1990s, where Daniel’s thoughtful approach means that justice can be done. This third novel, however, is set mainly in a monastery, and even with some specialist knowledge …

So thanks for the questions/discussion topics you dropped into the comments for Monday’s entry. That’s a whole lotta comic book talk for me to start makin’ with, so I’ll likely get to it next week. Also, sorry for no post on Wednesday, the mind was willing, the body less so, and thus the surprise day off. But today I have…lazy posting, as I pulled out the Marvel “Sales to Astonish” …

After visiting Little Bighorn Battlefield, we stopped by Custer Battlefield Trading Post & Cafe on the Crow Indian reservation. Swag: Cafe: Menu: We’re big fans of Indian fry bread, so had Indian tacos for dinner:

The last piece (for the minute) for Rhiw is a skip; one of those that sits by the lineside with a mix of gash inside and seemingly has no means of being retrieved.The root is one of a pair from the Peco Modelscene range which is stamped Leafdale Models 1988 underneath. A couple of coats of paint to dull the bright yellow plastic and then the full scrapbox treatment for …

Why romanticising your own life is philosophically dubious, setting up toxic narratives and an inability to truly love - by Anna Gotlib Read at Aeon

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on Strong Towns member Will Gardner’s Substack, StrongHaven. It is shared here with permission. All in-line images were provided by the author. This raised crosswalk and the separated path on the right are examples of infrastructure that keeps walkers and bikers safe. With the fall routine comes the launch of the bike bus here in my hometown of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Last …

We still occasionally speak of “Kodak moments,” making conscious or unconscious reference to the slogan of the Eastman Kodak Company in the nineteen-eighties. Even by that time, Kodak had already been a going concern for nearly a century, furnishing photographers around the world with the film they needed to capture images. Its very first slogan, unveiled in 1888, was “You Press the Button, We Do the Rest,” and it heralded …

Photo: Anna-Rose McChesney Drawing is the act of translating a thought to a mark on the page—where the hand is in conversation with the mind. This conversation is marked by an unbridgeable gap between the idea and the output—sometimes betraying and exposing the thought, and other times surprising you with an unintended vigour and clarity. Miles Davis once said that ‘what makes a wrong note right is the note you …

Fifteen years ago, Electric Literature started as a print and digital quarterly journal during the glory days of the print magazine era. Our very first issue surpassed 10,000 copies in sales, we were stocked in newsstands and bookstores, and as an e-book. We were one of the first to publish literary fiction using an online platform, winning the 2011 National Book Foundation Prize for Innovations in Reading. In that decade …

Exclusive video premiere of ‘Rock in the Swing’ by Don Aaron Mixon, taken from the latest album, ‘The Welcome Mat.’ Don Aaron Mixon invites you to swing into his world with the premiere of ‘Rock in the Swing,’ a heartfelt track from his new double album, ‘The Welcome Mat.’ Born in Wheeling, West Virginia, and raised in a trailer park in Pensacola, Mixon’s music is a raw, autobiographical exploration of …

Kinn Hamilton McIntosh is a British mystery novelist, known as "Catherine Aird," who started her writing career in the sixties with The Religious Body (1966) and published her most recent novel, Constable Country (2023), when she was 93 – bringing the tally to twenty-nine published novels and short story collections. All except the non-series, standalone novel A Most Contagious Game (1967) featured her series-characters, Inspector C.D. Sloan and Detective Constable …

You know how “all the books say” not to cut Lavender back too hard, as it won't grow back.... well, a fortnight ago, I was doing the annual clip of a low Lavender hedge, and I spotted this: Uh-oh... is that a bare brown patch coming up?Hahaha! I'm teasing you, this was not a case of it having been cut back too hard, it's a case of two of the …

Just because I have been looking at lots of music from the Britpop era this year doesn’t mean there isn’t room for one of the bands that were an inspiration for good number of the musicians during that era. That band is The Beatles and today is also the 55th anniversary of ‘Abbey Road’. This post could easily have been title ‘The Beatles in 1969’. As it is, this this …

The Architects’ Journal AJ Architecture Awards 2024 shortlists revealed for workplace, mixed-use and leisure The AJ is delighted to announce its fourth set of finalists of this year’s AJ Architecture Awards. Revealed today are Leisure, Mixed-use and Workplace The post AJ Architecture Awards 2024 shortlists revealed for workplace, mixed-use and leisure appeared first on The Architects’ Journal Fran Williams