Clouds and Mountains
Clouds and mountains were dancing this morning. I think they’re in love.
Archive of posts filed under the mind category.
The alley behind Aldo Leopold’s house
There’s an alley off Albuquerque’s Central Avenue, old Route 66, between the Southwest Capital Bank and St. John’s Thrift Store. You can’t go down the alley on Google Street View. Google Street View mostly doesn’t go down alleys. Alleys mostly don’t have names. You have to go there for yourself. Down past the “Drug Free …
Quoting Tocqueville
If each citizen did not learn, in proportion as he individually becomes more feeble and consequently more incapable of preserving his freedom single-handed, to combine with his fellow citizens for the purpose of defending it, it is clear that tyranny would unavoidably increase together with equality. Alexis de Tocqueville, “Of the Use Which the Americans …
From the Sands to Thriller
I don’t remember how I stumbled onto Ernie Smith’s Tedium. All you need to know is that he wrote the definitive guide to why Butterfinger candy bars break so easily: I’m always drawn to the structural integrity of candy bars. On the surface, they are often stacked, solid, as thick as a smartphone. (It must …
“institutional artisanship”
Water resources must be governed before they can be managed, and the crafting of governance institutions is an ongoing challenge of the human condition. Institutional artisanship requires the availability of tools for institutional design and creation, and a reflective understanding of the use of those tools. Yet neither the tools nor the understanding exist in …
Rubber Soul, the path to elevation 1,040, and the game of chicken on the Colorado River
Two years ago, when the level of Lake Mead was hovering near elevation 1,040, my artist wife Lissa Heineman and I drove out over UNM’s fall break to see it for ourselves. Out beyond the old Boulder Harbor, we walked a half mile across mud flats to get to the water. I could look out …
the promise of art supply stores
I tagged along Friday with my glass artist kiddo Nora on a trip to Bullseye Glass, an art supply store in Santa Fe. Nora makes stuff out of glass for their jewelry business, and needed to stock up. After a busy week, I needed to not work, and have fun instead. We went to our …
Quoting Foucault
I write a book only because I still don’t know what to think about this thing I want so much to think about, so that the book transforms me and transforms what I think. – Michel Foucault
The socioeconomics of jogging
The reflection of socioeconomics in Strava’s running heat map for my town is striking. It’s sort of Tiebout sorting?
Tacos and a bike helmet
The “plate of food with a bike helmet” is my favorite genre of Strava photo.