The only thing I know to do
by Anton Zuiker on September 9, 2024
Schoolkids Records is closing its Chapel Hill store soon. I’ve been in there a few times in the last year—I bought Chronicles of a Diamond, by the Black Pumas, and maybe a Peter Gabriel album. I stopped in recently to see what was left in the stacks, and only took out I Am Easy to Find by the National.
Then, in the other room, I noticed the used CDs, so I flipped through a few rows looking for any that I might not already have in the crowded bin out in the garage. I took U2’s The Unforgettable Fire, and Josh Ritter’s The Animal Years. Our eight-year-old van has a CD player, and I’ve been playing both on my drive to and from work, some days listening only to U2’s Bad and Ritter’s Girl in the War, then finishing the commute in silence.
Ritter: Peter and Paul, Laurel and Hardy, ‘pretend the dove from above is a dragon, and your feet are on fire.’
Mesmerizing storytelling and deep meaning, though I haven’t looked hard. I just feel soothed, anointed, challenged.
Some days, I hit repeat and listen again.
No rest
by Anton Zuiker on September 8, 2024
I did it again, spent the full Sunday going without a stop—played soccer this morning (scored a goal, blocked a lot of shots with my body, made a few good passes, messed up and missed, too), went with Sid back to Rougemont to pick up the wood that Avery at Wild Edge Woodcraft had dried and flattened (one step closer to the return of the Long Table initiative, with a longer post about Wild Edge soon), cooked another batch of homemade hot sauce (I used the new Duxtop induction cooktop in the garage for a quicker, cleaner process), and cleaned the kitchen, twice.
My goodness, I am tired.
Today was a perfect fall day, sunny and cool and still and peaceful. A perfect day to have rested.
Dodge ball
by Anton Zuiker on September 7, 2024
Erin, Oliver, and I were invited to a dinner party today with a promise of dodge ball and an Indian meal. We didn’t have plans so we said yes, and the night was an unexpected load of fun—adults and kids played five rounds of dodge ball in the back yard, then went inside for a delicious meal, lots of conversation, and word games.
We just got home. As we we pulled up to the house, Erin spotted a grey fox near our garage. A rabid red fox was caught in nearby Carrboro earlier this week, but the foxes we’ve seen on our property this week seem healthy and appropriately cautious of us. We’ll dodge them nonetheless.
See Lola Run
by Anton Zuiker on September 6, 2024
The NYTimes asked readers about the best movies of 1999. Erin and I were in Vanuatu so didn’t get to see any of them in the theater—except one. We took a break from our volunteer work on Paama to visit New Zealand, and during our first few days in Auckland, we went to see Run Lola Run.. I loved it.
Over the next couple of years, we watched many of the other hits from 1999, mostly on VHS in our apartments but maybe a few in Cleveland theatres.
Of course, the movie from that year that I’ve seen the most is The Matrix. Love that one, too.
Red fox
by Anton Zuiker on September 5, 2024
On my way out to Cat’s Cradle tonight, to catch the young band Happy Landing on the opening night of their tour, I saw a red fox dart across the gravel drive. It stopped in the woods just beyond the truck’s headlights, turned and watched me.
Recently, I prepared a two-page vivid vision (inspired by this) to guide my health, family and friends, finances, work, and writing over the next five years. In this plan, to answer “What is my state of mind” on my sixtieth birthday, I have this goal:
I find awe, beauty, and wonder from nature (hiking, camping, touring) and from people (music, arts, culture). I spend 5 full days outside and I attend 12 concerts, shows, plays, and other live entertainment each year.
I’ve already caught a couple of concerts in the last weeks (Cannons, The Heavy Heavy), with more tickets in hand for shows ahead. I join Uncle John later this month for the final year of the World of Bluegrass in Raleigh, then the one-day Carrboro Music Festival follows, and later my brother Nick will be here and we’ll be back at Cat’s Cradle for Melt and The Dear Hunter.. Culture is the easy goal.
The reach goal in my vivid vision is book related.
To focus on a topic of my one-day novel or memoir, I plan to mine my 25 years of blogging. For a long time and to have a hard copy archive of my writing, I’ve converted the blog posts from the Zuiker Chronicles and mistersugar.com into a single document, three columns of 9-point type to a page. It runs to more than 400 pages. Last month, I started to add posts that I have written on other, secondary blogs (Yumi Stap Storian, Wan Smol Blog, Coconut Wireless, and a blog I wrote with Dave Winer’s Fargo outliner). I have a bit of trepidation about feeding this archive into an AI engine, though I’m eager to learn what I can about all that I’ve chronicled and documented, so I’ll proceed cautiously and most likely use a local LLM. Someday.
At the moment, I’d just like a better way to search my archive. For example, with Malia now in Madrid for the semester, I’ve been thinking about the couple of years after I graduated college. I would purchase copies of El Pais and read that newspaper from Spain in my apartment in Honolulu, and later in Shaker Heights, as a way to practice my Spanish comprehension. But I’m not sure I mentioned that in two and a half decades of blogging. (The New Yorker happens to have a current article about El Pais in the U.S.)
I do know that I’ve blogged about a lot of wildlife—turtles and owls and ospreys and foxes and too many roaches and one dugong. All along, I have found awe, beauty, and wonder in nature. More to come.