From today’s newsletter:
As I rapidly approach middle age (I’ve got exactly one week before the big 4-0), something I’ve been saying a lot to myself lately is “More for me!” Oh, the kids are rolling their eyes at something I like? More for me! People have soured on an artist I like? More for me! Not only one of my favorite conversational shortcuts, but a way to stay focused on minding my own business and doing my work.
If you can’t afford an Apple Vision Pro but you’d still like to see what isn’t really there in front of you, just get yourself some tape, a ping pong ball, and a radio, try out The Ganzfeld Procedure:
Begin by turning the radio to a station playing static. Then lie down on the couch and tape a pair of halved ping-pong balls over your eyes. Within minutes, you should begin to experience a bizarre set of sensory distortions. Some people see horses prancing in the clouds, or hear the voice of a dead relative. It turns out that the mind is addicted to sensation, so that when there’s little to sense — that’s the purpose of the ping-pong balls and static — your brain ends up inventing its own.
(I saw this years ago in the Boston Globe. Infographic by Javier Zarracina.)
Here’s a box I keep of random knick knacks from bulletin boards and desk drawers that I keep on the top shelf of my studio.
The box somehow didn’t make it into today’s newsletter about nostalgia, which begins:
Last weekend I spent a day at my mom’s house sifting through my childhood. Among the artifacts I saved or discarded from the first two decades of my life: a hundred pounds of notebooks and binders from high school, random junk like chem lab aprons I never returned, letters from former girlfriends, bank statements, rental agreements, brochures, ticket stubs, wristbands, notes, old sketchbooks, a stack of song lyrics and guitar tablature several inches thick, tuition statements, computer manuals, hint books, baseball cards, floppy disks, and best of all, toys. A glorious batch of toys from my youth, including He-Man, Ghostbusters, Robo Cop, G.I. Joes, and even one lone Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
You can read the rest here.
Today’s newsletter is a list of 10 ways to “unschool” yourself over the summer:
In our house we believe that summer is a time for unschooling — a time for living and learning outside of the classroom, a time for self-guided education, for slow learning, and also a time for plain old rest and relaxation and play.
Read them all here.
In today’s newsletter, my summer reading assignment for y’all:
- Visit your local library and apply for a library card. (Or pay your fines and renew.)
- Ask a librarian for a tour of the library building, the online catalog, and the digital holdings. Ask the librarian to show you how to put materials on hold, how to request materials for purchase, and how to use interlibrary loan.
- Check out at least one item. (So you have to return.)
Read the rest here.
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