J. Martin

August 14, 2022

Vacation Diary | Week 2

The second week was more relaxed than the first, and I managed to keep away from almost all work-related activities. I’m so proud of myself! :D Most of the time, I lived on the balcony, enjoying the sun. I also listened to music a lot, which I hadn’t done for ages; a balanced mix of art music and popular music albums that I randomly select every day. Why randomly? First off, I own lots of stuff in both departments that I haven’t ever listened to, forgotten how good it is, or forgotten that I bought it in the first place. Then, without random selection, I’d just listen to the same stuff again and again! It’s like going to the restaurant and always ordering the same dish, the one you remember was tasty. Well, ordering randomly at the restaurant is probably a bad idea even if you don’t happen to have any dietary restrictions or aversions. Thus, I love eating out in Asian fashion where one person, in consultation with the server, orders a balanced mix from the restaurant’s stunningly voluminous menu, usually one more item than needed, and then everything is shared. It works with two people as well, and it’s just wonderful. It broadens your horizon of things you can enjoy. Same with music, yo!

Besides all that, I kept reading a lot. In addition to what I started out with last week, I picked up Derrida’s introduction to Husserl’s Origin of Geometry (to complement the archeological/source-based history of math) and the March 1939 issue of Science Fiction. In the comics department, I followed up with Dark Days and Adventure Comics 1940 Sandman stories; added North 40 and the first part of Ladies with Guns; and picked up again, after a long hiatus, the glorious Judge Dredd Case Files. I finished playing The Unfinished Swan, which, sadly, didn’t live up to expectations for various reasons, and proceeded with Detention and the usual dose of UT.

No re-edits on Glass this week, but a new album on Flickr with ten shots from the Emerald Hill conservation area in Singapore, plus one post each on my Instagram accounts betweendrafts and voidpunkverse. That’s it!

No Sunday funnies, but you might want to check out Vaskange’s animated illustrations, particularly this one and this one. Enjoy!

J.