I’m at another low point. A couple days ago, my mum phoned me
and I had the chance to introduce the idea of quitting my
internship early, graduating and then spending the summer as an
audio/FOH engineer in some holiday village somewhere. She didn’t
like that idea, it was clear. She didn’t want to tell me directly,
but I could hear her struggling not to say “This is a terrible
idea, and you should aim to something else, something better”.
I can’t blame her: after all this work, after going to university
and so on, who could waste all of that and go towards a job that
pays poorly and has no real carreer?
I’m tired. So tired.
2025-06-09 Whack Follol Le-Dah - a
It appears that I have been too busy to work on my site of late! I managed to miss a monthly update, and it is because Devine & I have left the Victoria docks and have been sailing northward to Texada for a haul-out. The timing with the weather was difficult, it's been very windy ever since we arrived on the water. We left on a very blustery day, and the blusteriness has not let up often. We arrived to Texada a few days ahead of the haul-out, staying ahead of strong northwesterlies. Pino became a land creature for a few days, while we repainted the bottom, changed the zincs and did other out-of-water maintenance. Now, Pino is back in their element, we are in Ballet Bay waiting for some strong weather to pass so we can head back southward.
HEALTH. Since leaving the dock, I have been working my way to making a single pull-up. It is not easy, I have long neglected my arms in favor of my legs. After a bit of practice, I am able to pull myself up when standing on a low step and heaving my body from there, but I cannot do it from a fully hanging position. To work my way to a full single pull-up, I've been doing reverse pull-ups, which involves starting from the finished position and lowering myself down slowly into a full hanging position. My arms and shoulders are tired, but I have a lot of time to practice and work my way to make one.
Devine bought an elastic so we could turn Pino into a floating gym. We get restless aboard a lot, especially when anchored in places where we cannot walk ashore, so this will help.
I feel good currently, in my head and in my body and I hope that it lasts.
ART. I finished a yet another page for sabotage study for hakum, in which Hakazi and Dae sign together in silence some more, and have a friendly visit. I really like shading and drawing with pencils. I'd like to work my way to making many more full pencil illustrations like my self-appointed sensei, and pencil-shading master Hiroaki Samura. I recently completed a pencil illustration for mindbird, featuring the characters together.
Also, Bill Atkinson, who created Hypercard, and who was the creator of my favorite dithering algorithm, has passed away. RIP Bill. Your work lives on.
BOOKS. I have finally finished reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I read aloud to Devine most nights, and I very much enjoyed reading for Boris. His "flow of speech" was really quirky and fun. Although, the Goldfinch could have been 300 pages shorter. Most of the characters in this book are a bit of a mess, that is fine, but even walking alongside Theo across 800 pages wasn't long enough to warm up to him as a person. In all, I like Tartt's writing, and I enjoyed her descriptions of artwork, people and places, but this is not a book I would ever care to revisit.
Next, I read through Andy Weir's Artemis, my least favorite of his works. Weir is Mark Whatney, he is Ryland Grace, he is also Jazz Bashara... the problem with him being the hand-puppet and voice of Jazz Bashara is that she is a 26-year old Saudi Arabian woman. With his voice, she sounds like a rude pubescent boy. Once you look past Andy-Jazz, Andy-Dale and Andy-Svoboda, the world of Artemis is actually very rich and fun. Weir truly shines when describing the city, its innerworkings, and the complexities of manufacturing material and welding in space. It his evident from his writing that he spent a lot of time designing this world. Solving problems in space continues to be what he writes best.
MOVIE. I went to see the movie Sinners twice at the theater. Yes, it was that good! I saw it with Dev in Victoria, then again with another friend in Sidney. Films like this give me hope for the future, that there are still directors out there who love what they do, and collaborate to make beautiful original creative projects with their friends. The music in Sinners is excellent, I've been humming Sammy's and Remmick's songs for a few weeks now. Whack follol le-dah!
I also watched The Boy and The Beast by Mamoru Hosoda, not a new film, but I had not yet seen it. I loved the first 3/4's of the film, but was disappointed with the climax and resolution. It will be difficult to want to watch it again because of what it becomes, I felt the same way about the second half of the movie Your Name by Makoto Shinkai. In the Boy and the Beast, there was an opportunity to do something great, to talk deeply and seriously about chosen families, but Hosoda instead insisted on heart swords and dark chest vortexes. Damn it... Kumatetsu deserved better.
As the culture of the Who Cares Era grinds towards the lowest common denominator, support those that are making real things. Listen to something with your full attention. Watch something with your phone in the other room. Read an actual paper magazine or a book. Be yourself. Be imperfect. Be human. Care.
Dan Sinker
ARTICLES/VIDEOS I LIKED
It's happening! I've begun drafting a rough layout for a tentative book
project, for which the working title is currently Turnip Complete. I
don't know if I can actually go through with this idea yet, but I'm going find
out over the summer, and hopefuly have something to show in the fall. The idea
would be to have a paper artifact that contains everything that currently makes
up the Uxn/Varvara ecosystem, from implementation details, to language
specification; all from basic principles.
We're just about ready to cast off from Victoria for the summer, and today was
my last day at the gym. I pushed hard these past few months, and it's beginning
to pay off. The back pains I had are gone, I sleep much better, I feel stronger
and clothes even fit me better. I gained 10kg, and I'm hoping to reach my ideal
weight of 80kg in the next few months. I have plans to work out from aboard Pino, but in practice, I'm not sure how possible, or safe,
it'll be..
I went back to the city. I spent slightly less than a month in
my home town to attend some masterclass lectures at uni. While
they were interesting, I felt some distance with one of my
colleagues, somebody I was keen to calling friend. Well, I can’t
expect to maintain a high status if I’m away and I don’t reach
out unless I need something.
Next month, exam season will threaten me with two tests, one of
which is infamous for being rather hard and unfair. Let’s wait
and see.
