🌱 Season/Change

Thursday, March 28, 2024

This will be a short one, and the last one until I get the itch to write it again.

Perhaps it seems strange... but I felt the need to shrink my prospects, narrow my horizons, and move on to smaller endeavors.

--Tom Horton in An Island Out Of Time

Last June, Joanna and I moved from Baltimore to Westover, the southeastern corner of Maryland where she and I grew up. We moved for a quieter life and to be closer to our family while we raise our girls. It’s truly been everything we’d hoped. In the coming years, we intend to start some new things and find creative ways to be of service here on the Shore.

I haven’t written an installment of this newsletter in over a year - first because I was in the thick of preparing for the move, but now because I don’t feel particularly motivated to write it. My embodied life is full. The digital world has lost much of its pull.

I began this quarterly as a sort of conscientious objection to social media… I was signing off of social, and this was the way you could “keep up” with me digitally beyond the gates of those attention merchants. I expect that I’ll still share updates here from time to time, when I have something of note to share… but it will no longer be quarterly.

I’ll leave you with this quote by Henri Nouwen:

More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.

Vic’s Picks

Here’s a slice of what I’ve been enjoying this year:

Music

Johnny Costa Plays Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Jazz - "What do you do with the mad that you feel?"

Toxicity by System Of A Down - Here's one thing you can do with the mad that you feel.

Videos

Rapping, Deconstructed: The Best Rappers Of All Time - Why MF Doom is the GOAT.

Between Lines - An animated short film about schoolgirl bullying and the recovery that follows.

Article

What Kind of Mind Does ChatGPT Have? - By an actual computer scientist (who can actually write).

Podcast

The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God - Fascinating well-produced documentary-style series.

Food

Chicken Chesapeake at Fratelli’s in Salisbury - IYKYK. I worked here off and on through high school and college, and it's as good as ever.

Book

Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss - A rollercoaster of a book by a former FBI hostage negotiator.

Websites

This Medieval City Generator and this Fantasy Map Generator.

Word

puckfoisted, adj.

Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈpʌkfɔɪstᵻd/ U.S. /ˈpəkˌfɔɪstəd/

Etymology: Probably < puck n.1 + *foisted* adj. at foist v.1 Derivatives, perhaps punningly after puckfist n. (a boaster, a braggart)

English regional (Gloucestershire). rare

Cheated by a demon, bewitched.

1890   J. D. Robertson Gloss. Words County of Gloucester 119   Puck-foisted, bewitched.

1932   H. J. Massingham Wold without End App. 294   Here are a few of the Elizabethan words that were heard at the Globe more than three hundred years ago and are heard to-day in the inns between Chipping Campden and Stow-on-the-Wold.. ‘puckfoisted’ for bewitched.

For The Record

What I made or helped make this year

Digital

Lots of websites. Starting a new thing in that realm soon.

Physical

Tales of the Chesapeake by George Alfred Townsend - I created a new edition of this 1880 classic. While I was at it, I founded a new hyper-local independent publisher. Got a couple more titles in the queue already.

Am also putting the finishing touches on a chicken tractor.

Thanks for reading! Hit reply and tell me what you’re up to.

Semper idem,

Vic

P. S. You won’t find this Avett Brothers song on streaming services. But it’s one of my favorites.

#Longer