Process Pending 16
Climate Crisis Zine, File Taxonomy, Grand Old Boars
Progress Report
May was been full of: deadlines, family, my partner's PhD graduation, Dave’s and my engagement.
Eyyy! I published a zine with Amelia Greenhall of Anemone. It's gorgeous and weird, and includes > 100 book recommendations for reading about/of/around the climate crisis. To make it: we both brainstormed a list of books, Amelia designed, hand-lettered, and printed it, and I did much of the writing. Get your copy today!
Wrapping up Shannon Mattern's Redesigning the Academy course, I published a first/incomplete draft of a Climate Science | Climate Fiction course. The goal is to make the course a bit like a botanic garden or a walk in the woods: no set path, ideas like to other ideas, serendipitous connection. Each topic is/will be paired with a piece of fiction (defined broadly as literature, art, corporate reports, music, etc) and an activity linking the fictional work with a bit of climate-related science. For examples, see the Left Hand of Darkness and Cloud Writing. And if you know any web ux designers/programmers who'd want to work with me on turning this into something prettier and real-er, please connect us!
Science-wise, I've (more or less) figured out how to install a couple of packages I need to generate Digital Elevation Models from past satellite/aerial imagery of the Tetons. I'll use these DEMs to track ice volume change across Teton glaciers from ~1950-2021.
Healthwise, got diagnosed with another kidney infection, I kid-ney you not. I didn't have any normal UTI symptoms prior. Just gnawing pain in my right flank, mild nausea, insomnia. Listen to your body! Drink water folks!
Process Report
For many reasons -- the transition from spring to summer, seeing my partner crunch his thesis (please send all the well wishes to Dave), my inflamed kidney, procrastination -- I've spent the last couple of weeks reorganizing my file system. I'm hoping to a) lose fewer files, b) repeat less work, and c) reduce friction in my source --> project workflow. I'm not alone in this, it seems -Â Ida Yazaldeh wrote this week about her approach.
I've dabbled in many systems (e.g. zettelkasten), theories (e.g. folderless/tag-forward), and tools (e.g. TextEdit, Notion, Obsidian). Obsidian and Zotero have stuck around, and I know I like organizing with folders because they provide a visual path to data (though wish it was more space-based, e.g. using your desktop). Because of all this, I've settled on a pseudo-Johnny Decimal system, basically: create large --> small categories, numbered for ease of search & so that you can label things in emails, books etc. A personal taxonomy.
The numbering goes something like: 100s --> 10s --> 1s --> 0.01s. Individual files go in the .01s... more or less.
This system was created for managing a single project, so I made some adjustments to make it work for my whole file system. I don't adhere strictly to the 3-level folder-maximum or the suggested numbering scheme: some sections, like code attached to projects, needs to descend beyond the three levels. Some files/sections, like taxes and daily notes, make more sense to date. I'm trying to not to go too ham with exceptions right away though.
So far it's been great? Everything has somewhere to land - or if it doesn't, it is pretty obvious how and where to create that place. Files are super easy to find by number in spotlight or the command line, and the numbers I access the most I remember pretty easily. My main sticking points are: notes on papers/books --> relevant projects/ideas/ or general preservation; saving interesting links; and manually moving files so that they're in the correct place. Up next is tweaking Obsidian with some plug-ins so that new files are auto-filed into their correct places and streamlining my Zotero --> Obsidian workflow.
Speaking of which, Zotero got a MASSIVE upgrade with version 6. Would 110% unequivocally recommend it as your literature manager if you’re an academic. You can now natively, in-app make notes/annotations on a pdf. And it syncs seamlessly with my iPad.
Listening To
Nico's These Days, while trying to figure out how to write song lyrics with Anna
Currently Reading
Among many climate-related listens/reads, my month of May was weirdly filled with monks and nuns. Read Lauren Groff's The Matrix(finally, on Hawkins' recommendation) -- reading it felt like gulping water; stumbled upon this article in the Guardian about a monk who single-handedly built a cathedral in Spain; and now onto Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose (um, does anyone know Latin?).
In May, mostly thanks to some wild insomnia, I read:
All Over Creation - Ruth Ozeki
The Book of Form and Emptiness - Ruth Ozeki
The Matrix - Lauren Groff
The Peripheral (audio) - William Gisbon
The Water Knife (audio) - Paolo Bacigalupi
Black Sun (audio) - Rebecca Roanhorse
The two Ozeki's were fine, good on their own, but lacked the emotional punch of A Tale for the Time Being. The three audiobooks (sci-fi, cli-fi, and fantasy, respectively) were all fun & engaging listens, good for road trips, walking the dog at night. I gave up on The Love Songs of W.E.B. Dubois after ~200 pages.
Tap That Sap
Creativity, like sap, needs the right environmental conditions before being tapped, and enough sap tapped before distillation – lots of ideas distill down into that sweet syrup of imagination. This section highlights something that inspired creativity or shares something that I recently created.
Along with some copies of our zine, Amelia shipped me some of the studio-process zines (one, two) she's published. I've really loved reading through them. She beautifully integrates: her needs, her emotions, her work, her aspirations, lots of sketches. I'm starting a riso class at the School for Visual Arts tomorrow -- might copy this mode from her and turn Process Pending into a zine once or twice this summer.
Finally: some great recommendations for where to find creative-commons imagery; more poetry from water districts, please; motion to adopt boar titles.
May you live to be a grand old boar,
Elizabeth