Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

Samuel Butler

I will often fight drowsiness or boredom or even needing to pee if I’m committed to what I’m doing right now. But if I get a food craving, I cave in immediately. Why does hunger feel more real – and unmanageable – to me than other cravings?

Currently reading: Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey 📚

Over the weekend, I imported 1,902 blog posts written since 2005 in Bloggr, Tumblr, Wordpress, and SquareSpace.

I exported all posts from these platforms and imported them into a temporary Wordpress.com blog; the worst part of that experience was setting up the Wordpress.com blog, actually. However, Wordpress.com’s importing and sorting of all those files worked a treat – there were no hiccups and all posts were sorted in reverse chronological order, no matter their platform of origin. I then exported the combined posts to three XML files that I imported into micro.blog.

I used MarsEdit to then download all the posts into its editor. I now have, for the first time. everything I’ve ever written in one place and easily editable.

As I dip into those old posts, I’m deleting some posts, fixing busted links to others, adding categories to a few more. I decided to keep my categories simple this time around: a Commonplace Book for quotes and images and a Favorite Posts. I will have to rely on search to find anything else of interest.

A lingering tech problem is that my domain, brownstudy.info, needs to be transferred from its current registrar to SquareSpace; from there, I want to point the domain to this site. (I have a second domain registered with SquareSpace that will be the home for my “professional” writing.) I’m quite nervous about doing the transfer since it’s not something I’ve ever done before, but I’m sure it will go well.

As I go back through my old posts, I’m wondering how those old Tumblr pages of captured graphics will fare; a few still look good, others are blank. Also, many images on this blog are still pointing to media loaded into brownstudy.info. I have no idea at this time what to do about those files; I’m still unsteady with the micro.blog platform and where media files live.

So I left non-duality and left Facebook and that left me a good deal of free time. Time does not exist except to people who are waiting for things to be over and then it goes s-l-o-w-l-y.

Source: Vicki Woodyard

Currently reading: Aug 9 - Fog by Kathryn Scanlan 📚

A bookmarklet that always finds its way to all of my browser toolbars is [Alisdair McDiarmid’s Kill sticky headers bookmarklet] (https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/). For web sites that have header or footer elements that obscure part of what I’m trying to read, clicking this bookmarklet instantly clears the page display. And if you ever need those elements back — for a menu item, say — then just refresh the page.

Variety published a wonderful, respectful, and damn interesting obituary on the mystery man of 20th Century Americana music, digging up his real name and enjoying his piquant patois. We spent a pleasant evening tonight listening to the songs he left us and the mood of the mythical time and place he evoked.

Youtube: Shine On, Harvest Moon

Related post: Leon Redbone

I was swimming upstream most of the day, having trouble with all my tech (software, phone) and wondered, “Is Mercury in retrograde?” Must have been just me, I guess.

According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac:

Three times a year, it appears as if Mercury is going backwards. These times in particular were traditionally associated with confusions, delay, and frustration. Think email blunders and frazzled travel plans.

However, this is an excellent time to reflect on the past. It’s said that intuition is high during these periods, and coincidences can be extraordinary.

The New York Times has its own sober explanation, with quotes from two astrologers who advise, “Don’t worry about it.”

An acquaintance asked for recent books or movies I liked. This is what I wrote.

We enjoyed watching an effortlessly charming little BBC comedy called The Detectorists; series 1 and the Christmas special are best, with series 2 and 3 good but not as new and blooming wonderful as series 1. Small people, small ambitions, small stakes, all of the characters leaving no traces in history but trying — very, very hard — to enjoy themselves while they're at it.

I'm reading Tom King's graphic novel Vision: The Complete Series, about the Avengers android moving his synthetic family to the suburbs. Tragedy is seeded in the first issue alongside the whimsy. I sit down each night to read a chapter with anticipation and dread.

Also: The Abominable Mr. Seabrook by Joe Ollmann. The graphic novel bio of forgotten travel writer William Seabrook was overlong but interesting; Seabrook created or popularized the word "zombie" and for a time succeeded as a gonzo adventurer/writer in the early 20th century; he achieved some small fame and notoriety that he could not maintain.

Two good movies: Submarine, a coming-of-age movie (based on a novel) directed by Richard Ayoade (best known as Moss from the brilliant BBC comedy The IT Crowd); a blend of sodden Welsh gloom and dark humor with some quirky storytelling techniques that add to the fun without overshadowing the story.

Also, a great little documentary called Seth's Dominion, about the Canadian cartoonist/artist/book designer Seth. There's a companion book/DVD. Set this portrait of an artist creating his own self-sustaining and fully imagined world against the Seabrook bio and discuss.