Weeknotes: 6/28/25-07/04/25

This Week:

• I bought the Slum Village “Fantastic Collection”, which compiles the first two Slum Village albums, a selection of instrumental tracks, and some extra bonus tracks and remixes. Over the past few years I’ve become fascinated with the astonishing creativity of J Dilla, who revolutionized sample-based hip-hop.
• I also ordered “The Deck” by Hallelujah the Hills. Ryan Walsh and HtH have been making delightfully unusual, heartfelt pop music for two decades, and the Deck is their sprawling, ambituous new effort at building a new sonic world, with each of the 52 songs based around each card in a standard deck.
• Dominic and I finished reading “WoW: Traveller”, a pretty competant piece of YA fiction, set in the World of Warcraft Universe, and written by Greg Weisman, creator of Gargoyles.
• We had our first Summer Crafternoons, a fun Museum program where we make art and crafts in the galleries with kids.
• I watched “The Changeling”, a classic cinematic ghost story starring the great George C. Scott which uses space, objects, and sounds to scare the beejeezus out of you.
• True Things:

  • Death to America by John Ganz

  • Canada’s New Nationalism by Stephen Maher.

  • Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which I read in the depths of sorrow and rage at the cruelty of my country.

    I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am not on his pay-roll.

    I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends nor of my enemies either.
    Though he promise me much,
    I will not map him the route to any man’s door.
    Am I a spy in the land of the living,
    that I should deliver men to Death?
    Brother, the password and the plans of our city
    are safe with me; never through me Shall you be overcome.