The new episode of The Agency Podcast, called Inventory, is now available. You can listen to it here or find it at the usual podcast places. In today’s episode: a new movie and an older one too, some binge-watching, and a murder most foul.
As a bonus today we are also offering a video feed of this episode. Let us know what you think. If people like the video version, we may offer one regularly as premium content on our Patreon page.
Tuffy P requested some soup for dinner tonight. I rummaged around through the chaos which is our fridge and found some leeks, kale, carrots, celery, a few mushrooms and some Napa cabbage. I dug out some commercial stock hiding in the back of the pantry along our last dried ancho and an onion. Perfect.
I sliced up my onions and leeks and got them gently sauteing in the pot with some Salah’s Gold olive oil, some salt and some dried herbs, while I chopped up everything else. I like to keep those leeks and onions going until they start to caramelize. Eventually I tossed in everything else, and stirred it around for a couple minutes then added my stock and some water. Last thing in was the dried ancho, which I left whole.
This soup doesn’t need to cook for a really long time – just long enough for the carrots to start to soften and the kale to cook. I like my veggies to still have some body. Yummy.
A few years ago, a guy who was doing some work for us gave us a traffic light. It’s a real traffic light, which has been re-wired so that when you plug it into an ordinary outlet, all three lights come on. We rarely turn the thing on, but there it sits, out on our deck, and I suppose it fits in with the train set and the garden sculpture and the imagination stations.
There is a hole in the top of the traffic light, and each year a family of starlings builds a nest and has a bunch of babies in there, around the red light. Last week they hauled out some residual materials from last year, something I haven’t seen before, and now they’re busily building a new nest.
Today from the Department of Pandemic Comfort Food, spicy stir-fried squid and broccoli, served over steamed rice, with a liberal sprinkling of fried shallots on top.
When I awoke this morning, the first thought bubbling up from the depths of my ever-so-tiny brain was, “I think it’s time to shave off my beard”. And so I did it before my better judgement could kick in and stop me. I would have much preferred to have the fabulous Steph at the Nite Owl do this, but there is a pandemic and all, so I used the tools at hand.
Tuffy P had to ask me some skill-testing questions, like: “When is our anniversary?” to make sure I was her actual husband and not some cheap knock-off. I apparently passed the test.
I came across this little documentary about Philip Guston and his painting, a 2004 British production. It’s an interesting piece about a great painter, so I thought I’d share it….
You can see lots of our mosaics here.
I usually play Go over the board with Vox weekly, but with the Covid-19 virus, we’re staying isolated. Fortunately, we can play online. There are a number of Go servers available, and in fact there are a lot of players who rarely play with actual stones and a board.
Usually, we’re pretty close, but I had a particularly good night last night, winning most of the games.
In this game, Vox (he played the black stones) had a group of floating stones in the centre. There were several stones in the group and lots of liberties, but only one eye for sure. He didn’t take the time to secure a second eye, and I don’t think he realized what danger his stones were really in. I made an eye-stealing move while there was still a good deal of space and things started looking ugly for him immediately. Running wasn’t going to work because I had stones in all directions. He groped around for a while to see if there was some way he could complicate things and kill something but it was futile.
I prefer getting together with Vox and playing in person over the board, but still it’s great we can play online when we need to. I’ve been doing life and death problems (tsumego) daily lately. I don’t know if that is starting to help my game or if Vox just had an off night. I suspect he will have his revenge soon.
I’ve been working on a little book of collages, and previously I’ve posted some of the images. Of course I continued to work on the book, even changing pages I thought were complete. I decided this afternoon it was done and glued 173 Big Ideas to the front cover. That must be the title. Here it is…..
About the last thing I expected today was to hear a new 17 minute long song by old weird Bob Dylan. It’s more like a recitation than a song, with a lovely musical backdrop, a drifting narrative based around the assassination of JFK, filled with references to pop culture. “What’s new pussycat, what’d I say? Said the soul of a nation being torn away. And it’s beginning to go into a slow decay. And it’s 36 hours past Judgement Day”. It seems like a stream of consciousness ramble, a reflection on his own life and times and experiences. Strange and strangely compelling too. Listen here.
27th Street 