GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Notes

  • Aaron Copland 80th Birthday Concert, 1980

    The algorithm me fed this 80th birthday celebration for Aaron Copeland at the Kennedy Center in 1980.

    For 80, the dude is spry, I can’t imagine being on stage at that age. I don’t care if the adulation of the crowd is addictive. I don’t think I’ll have the energy to get out there and put up a show.

    It’s also wild to remember that this event happened more than forty years ago. At the time, our elites were not shy about patting themselves on their backs in highbrow fashion. This was more than a birthday concert, it was a celebration of the century of American ascendance.

    The program was properly populated his classics: the Fanfare for the Common Man, an excerpt from a concerto that sampled jazz, Appalachian Spring, and Lincoln’s Portrait. I’ve listened to them all in the past (as background music) and it was good to just sit and focus on the music for once.

    However, I must admit that I watched this concert over the course of the month, one piece at a time. I can easily consume a feature-length action flick in one sitting, but I couldn’t properly ingest serious fare in one sitting.

    One might blame the instant gratification of this internet age for such weakness, but I don’t think I would have ever thought to watch this concert when I was younger, pre-internet. I never disliked classical music; I just never had the patience for it. So I guess it’s a sign I can now watch a long program (piecemeal).

    But let’s not get carried away – I don’t think I would ever pay real cash to sit through a concert, whether classical or contemporary. Music is good for background noise, but I don’t value it enough for attention or money – especially now that everything is on Spotify for free.

    We live in wondrous times.

    Unfortunately, everything somehow ties into culture war politics nowadays. One of the surprising highlights of the program came at the start of the concert when the cameras highlighted Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in attendance. The date of the concert was November 12, 1980, one week after he had lost his reelection campaign. What a contrast from the most recent election. Maybe some great music will do us all some good.

  • Plates + Dishes, Stephan Schacher, 2005

    Every few months, I rummage through my boxes of books looking for a specific volume. I usually come out with several books to reread, which is what happened last year (even though I didn’t find the book I was searching for).

    This photo book takes a journey through North America, photographing the food and waitresses (all women) along his extended road trip, taken over three separate legs.

    The early 2000s was a tenuous time, having just dealt with the upheaval of 9/11 and the Iraq war. But our lives had not been infected by the smartphone and its ubiquitous internet in the pocket.

    As such, Stephan foretold the incoming future. He just barely beat the trend of uploading sexy photographs of one’s meal and sharing it with the digital world.

    Not that he was searching for sexy. It’s a damn shame to travel 13,000 miles in a big loop around this large continent and just eat diner food. But that’s what he signed up to do.

    Sixteen years after publication, reading the book felt like entering a time capsule. Twice. Both for my initial page turn and slowly reviewing each photograph over the period of a week, reliving communal scenes from my early adulthood.

    As a fan of shoddy diners, the settings are intimately familiar. However, it is strange to think that I am now older than many of the ladies whose portraits are frozen in time. I wonder what they are doing these days. I wonder if they ever ponder what happened to that strange photographer who took a portrait of the meal and of them, almost two decades ago.

    After a while, it felt a bit voyeuristic (especially since the German edition is titled “Cuties and Calories”). Even so, I’ll posit this is a good book. It was definitely a great deal as a deeply discounted remainder item at Half Price Books, even worth moving across the continent for its own road trip from Houston to Las Vegas.

    The book is an interesting concept, a well-executed portrait of our nation. Well worth a read.

  • Burning Chrome, William Gibson, 1986

    The dates are now, the technology is anachronistic, its dystopic urban landscape never materialized, but these short stories still feel real and urgent.

    College was a foreign world before smartphones or wifi, so Gibson’s landscape seemed merely a couple of left turns from being real. Our inner cities had not yet become the playground of the wealthy and the tech in his stories was more advanced than what we had on our desktops.

    Two decades have passed and his dystopia still seems frighteningly close to happening. We have much cooler toys in our pockets, but are we that far away from societal collapse? Even more terrifying is the threat of chaos, we’d now be backsliding into a dark age of decreased technological capacity.

    Progress is not inevitable, and my adulthood has straddled this book portending a future in both directions. Who knows where the future will land? Ultimately, the accuracy of his future-present is irrelevant. Gibson’s genius is in excavating our shared humanity within the heart of these tales.

    The enduring core of these stories is anchored in Gibson’s wistful tone. A more sophisticated reader would find this maudlin tone offputting, maybe too cute by half. Then again, I wasn’t very sophisticated in college when I first read this anthology and I’ve only softened up over time.

  • The Spoon

    My wife toasted a pan of sesame seeds to grind into a paste (which goes great with jam on toast).

    She mixed the seeds with a spoon to speed up the cooling and left the pan on the dinner table to cool.

    While playing around after dinner, the boy climbed onto a chair and grabbed a spoonful to taste.

    I saw him put the spoon in his mouth and sqauwked loudly to keep him from dipping the now-dirty spoon back into the seeds.

    He’s quite sensitive to being reprimanded and immediately started bawling.

    When my wife went up to him, he was blubbering about not wanting the spoon on the table.

    There’s a certain measure of truth to his complaint. After all, he couldn’t have misused the spoon if it wasn’t there in the first place!

  • Another year in the books

    We took down the tree yesterday, marking our official end of 2021.

    I had wanted to take it down on the first, but the kids lobbied an extra day, but we got sidetracked on Sunday and it was suddenly bedtime.

    Same for Monday. So I was going to take it down myself that night, but the kids insisted on being part of the process.

    So we took it down on Tuesday morning. I put on the Peanuts Christmas album in the background and we enjoyed our last party of the holiday season, taking down the ornaments, lights, and tree, punctuated by a breakfast halfway in between.

    A mundane event; a punctuation for the passage of time. I’ll get maybe ten more of these with my daughter (if she doesn’t grow out of it before heading off to college).

    2021 was again a strange year, but with the kids growing up fast, I suspect every year will be unique, whatever “normal” we settle into.

    So here’s to the next strange year. Let’s hope we make the most of it.

  • Another way to slice up my reading

    Last year I created a method to divide my unread books by categories (fiction, non-fiction, spirituality, self-help, art).

    Recently I’ve taken a different approach (most likely because we got an ebook reader, which made the entire world’s library easily accessible).

    I’ve started sorting my to-read list by era:

    • Ancient – Older than 500 years old
    • Almost Modern – 1492 to 1776
    • Modern – 1776-1945
    • Contemporary – 1945 onward.

    When I wrote the first draft, the reading list was:

    • Bhagavad Gita (1000 BCE)
    • Journey to the West (1592)
    • Walden (1854)
    • Oranges (1975), The Tao is Silent (1977), and a couple photography monographs

    I had a sneaking suspicion that something might change, but I thought this loose structure was another good way to create a cross-section through my library.

    Unfortunately, something did change. Since August, I’ve become obsessed (addicted) to an online implementation of the card game Magic the Gathering. Naturally, this has drastically reduced my reading time. I may need to quit that habit so I can go back to my old ways. Maybe an entertainment diet is in order for the new year.

  • My Bread (and Pizza), December 2021

    I spent November on a bad run.

    It was completely self-inflicted. I’ve always wanted to develop the laziest possible process for making sourdough so I kept trying to use old dough to start the next loaf several times. (I also tried this last year with the same dismal results).

    After a month of gummy loaves, I returned to the basic process. Use a clean starter and refresh it a couple of times. Once the starter is popping, then mix the dough. I also went back to my usual 2% salt after trying a low salt mix.

    Unsurprisingly but reassuringly, the results also returned to their old success.

    My boy unwittingly trolled me when the first good loaf came out. He looked at the big poofy thing in the oven and asked why I started making mommy’s (yeasted) bread. He was so surprised at this new development that he repeated the question several times, even though I kept explaining that this is what my sourdough should be.

    By the way, the bread was also as tasty as it looked. Going low salt is might be good for blood pressure but a few grams makes a huge difference.

    With multiple refreshes per loaf, I now have a bit of starter floating around. However, it’s not a big deal. Weekend pancakes can eat up a lot of starter for breakfast and we’ve also started making pizza for lunch.

    The pancakes have been covered several times before, but the pizza is equally as simple. Take 150g of starter (1:1 hydration) and add 75g of flour. That changes the dough to a 2:1 ratio (67% hydration), a pretty standard mix for bread. Let the dough proof for as much time as you have available. Spread the dough out on an oiled cast-iron skillet. Throw on the toppings (cheese, oil, and miscellaneous veggies) and bake at 350 for about half an hour. Once the pizza is stiff, take it off the skillet and let it bake another 20 minutes on the rack.

  • Dixit (2 player cooperative, Mike Zielinski)



    I’ve used Dixit cards to play with my girl many times. We would admire the art and pick out the cutest cards.

    However, we’ve never played Dixit as a game.

    A few months ago, I searched boardgamegeek.com and found a cooperative variant which deals twelve cards in two rows (six on each side). Each player places a token pairing each of their six cards with the other player’s six cards. We then score a point for every pair that matches what the partner selected.

    This is a good game.

    It’s a really interesting exercise to pair up the cards and compare your mind with your partner. I suspect this is something that we can play long after the cute wars have ended.

    Highly recommended, we went through the entire deck (five packs worth). And we actually scored 6 out of 6 on our last chance!

  • Dixit (Cute Wars)

    It is impossible to play Dixit with a child. They don’t understand the balancing act of giving away just enough information so that only some people will correctly guess your clue.

    But beautiful cards must be played.

    So we invented a variant called Cute War. As the name implies, this is a variant of the old card game War.

    Pull out a Dixit deck and twelve poker chips (six for each player). Split the deck in half for each player.

    Every round, flip a card over. Instead of comparing numbers, discuss who flipped the cuter card. The winner takes both cards.

    If there is a stalemate, a player may offer a chip to buy both cards. The other player may ante their own chip. They may raise each other. If neither player offers a chip or they stalemate at a tie, then flip over the next card and judge accordingly (winner take all, of course).

    After someone has won a match, the losing player may offer a chip to buy one of the cards from the winning player. The winning player may accept the chip and give up the card. Otherwise, they must counteroffer with an equal quantity of chips. The losing player may take the counteroffer or up the bid, back and forth until someone acquiesces.

    We never go through the deck more than once so there isn’t ever truly a “winner”. This is more of an activity than a game – the chips add a gamey patina but are really just a way to crystallize someone’s valuations.

    One day, we’ll get around to playing “real” Dixit. Until then, we have fun with this opportunity to plumb the aesthetic preferences of my daughter.

  • OPM.21 (notes on) Find Your Why, Simon Sinek, David Mead, and David Docker, 2017

    Thanks for reading. Please subscribe if you’d like the next letter in your inbox.

    (notes on) Find Your Why

    Sinek’s first book was a TED talk that was bloated to book-length. This is the book that Start With Why should have been.

    The first chapter of Find Your Why is a perfect encapsulation of its more famous predecessor. The rest of the book completes Sinek’s “why-how-what golden circle” concept, fleshing out the idea within the standard structure of the self-help genre:

    • Introduction: Sell the Concept (Start With Why)
    • Body: Instructions for the reader actualize the Concept in their lives.
    • Conclusion: Reiterate the Concept with final encouragements.

    The Find Your Why method asks you to recount the moments in your history that lit you up inside. Then you process these memories with their method to develop a why statement formatted as:

    TO <blank> SO THAT <blank>.

    “TO inspire people to do the things that inspire them SO THAT, together, we can change our world.”

    Sinek’s own why statement

    Unfortunately, the Find Your Why process requires a partner for half a day to talk about yourself and probe your memories. I generally avoid self-realization exercises (even though my experience with Golden Parachute was fairly illuminating), much less burdening those around me.

    The authors claim their process isn’t possible to execute by yourself, so I’m not going to try. But if I were to take a stab doing their program, I would first try it on my own to probe the weak points of their method, before forcing an acquaintance (spouses aren’t recommended for this exercise) to participate in my navel-gazing.

    If you’re curious about discovering your why, and if you have someone who owes you a big favor, it’s worth checking out. And even if you don’t, this is the better of these two “why” books.

    I listened to this book at double speed, taking two and a half hours to “read” while doing chores. I don’t regret this minimal investment, however, if I were to do anything further, I would need to get a printed copy. I can’t imagine running this elaborate exercise without a visual reference. Then again, I haven’t felt any urge to find my why so over the past few months, so it is unlikely it will ever happen.

    Even though I’m meh about both of Sinek’s “why” books, I very much enjoyed his other books Leaders Eat Last and Infinite Game. They are both excellent reads.

    ~

    A Question

    Is the whole “why” thing is overrated?

    Hit reply and let’s chat!

    ~

    A Few Links

    ESPN occasionally commissions a great essay. This is a lovely portrait of a Will “Akuna” Robinson, a veteran who has hiked the three great trails in the United States.

    Self help books may be a contemporary route to self knowledge, but I wonder if traditional wisdom books may be a better path. If my hunch is correct, I’d recommend Ecclesiastes, Dao De Jing, Analects, Bhagavad Gita, and Havamal. If nothing else, these have stood the test of time.

    … and a photo.

    Supersonic Wing Wind Tunnel Model – A three-quarter rear view of a wooden Langley display model in January 1958 showing the radical twist and camber of a supersonic arrow-wing design. Note the cobra-like raised nose at the upper right and the cambered, drooped trailing edges of the 75-degree swept wing. These features were inverted in the first seal design by Modarelli. (NACA L-00502), January 1958

    ~

    Thanks for reading the OPM letter! I’d love to have a conversation if you have any feedback. I hope you found some prompts to stretch your craft and relationships as a curious Owner PM. See you next week!

    Stay humble, be kind, and keep experimenting!
    Justus Pang, RA