His books, especially House and Mountains Beyond Mountains (and to a lesser degree, The Soul of a New Machine) enthralled me.
My first job downstairs is to open the back door and get a big breath of fresh air - rain or shine, winter or summer - I just copy the cats and dog, that’s what they do - that’s how the ‘read’ the day, nose up, what’s in the air? What smells different? Clear out the night-lungs. Start again. Meanwhile the kettle is boiling. I grind the beans. That smell of fresh ground beans. Oh wow! Then I am at the back door again, or in the yard, in my pyjamas and wellies, just with a little time to align myself with myself - and to align myself with this different, new day. It’s a little bit of Tao. –Jeanette Winterson: Mind Over Matter (Substack) - “Spring Equinox”. Hat tip to Austin Kleon.
First step in spring cleaning: shave off beard.
This “almost” phase [of machine autonomy] isn’t a brief transition. It’s the product—one that will be with us for years, maybe decades. So it’s important to notice the patterns. When an AI system never admits uncertainty, or when a car’s marketing says “self-driving” but the fine print says “driver responsible,” that’s a warning sign. When you realize that you haven’t really been paying attention for the past 10 miles, or the past 10 auto-composed emails, that’s the trap.
Things don’t have to be this way, but they won’t change unless consumers see the situation clearly and refuse to accept it. We should reject the deal we’ve been handed—the one where the terms of service become a shield for companies and a sword against users. We should demand that companies share the risk they’re enticing us into taking. If they design for complacency, they should get some of the blame when their product fails. – “My Tesla Was Driving Itself Perfectly—Until It Crashed” by Raffi Krikorian, The Atlantic, April 2026
This, when someone says AI-governed stuff (cars, research, whatever) is more reliable than humans. Even if that’s true, when AI fails, the AI merchants should bear responsibility for the resulting damage.
Superbloom wildflowers Carrizo Plain National Monument, photographed by Elliot McGucken! More information on superblooms in Death Valley here.
The clearing rests in song and shade.
It is a creature made
By old light held in soil and leaf,
By human joy and grief,
By human work,
Fidelity of sight and stroke,
By rain, by water on
The parent stone.We join our work to Heaven’s gift,
Our hope to what is left,
That field and woods at last agree
In an economy
Of widest worth.
High Heaven’s Kingdom come on earth.
Imagine Paradise.
O Dust, arise!
(I love this one.)
Happy Birthday, Ry Cooder.
I immensely enjoyed this 2017 article about Tanya Amyx Berry and her life in Kentucky with Wendell Berry and their family and community.