WE’RE HITTING A RHYTHM these swampy, swamped summer weeks.
Sarah is aggressively organizing neighbors against the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, which lobbied to tear down the perfectly functional public housing project in our backyard (one of the country’s oldest) and sell it to private developers. Her alliance of tenants and homeowners is winning for the moment. Though now MPHA is like, “Okay, YOU find a solution for long-term maintenance” and none of us know what that looks like. Sarah is two-for-two in preventing local government from demolishing community assets (glad she’s on my team). Meanwhile, I’m flogging grain-free bread, debt-free business financing and stereotype-free teacher training. It’s the kind of variety and volume I thrive on (leaving me too busy to wonder what the hell it all means). I’m dotting i’s and crossing t’s right up ’til 5pm today, when we drop everything and head for Iceland, Holland and Germany for 21 days.
Having signed my own Will this week, I feel ready for anything.
WATCHING
Love & Mercy (a story of two lovable, troubled Brian Wilsons)
Page One: Inside the New York Times (featuring David Carr, “that most human of humans”)
What Happened, Miss Simone? (come for the music, stay for her dancing)
Dinkytown Uprising (Not yet released, but Lucas got a copy from the filmmaker — about the 1969 local protest movement to prevent a corporate burger chain from opening on 4th Street. It was shot mostly by the documentary filmmaker himself, now in his 90s; we enjoyed it at double speed, Chipmunks-style.)
Mad Max: Fury Road (At Jenney’s urging, I caught this in a suburban theater in a recliner with a cocktail; the best-most-boneheaded thing I never knew I needed)
READING
Ta-Nehisi Coates — The Case for Reparations (Atlantic)
Paul Ford — What Is Code? (Bloomberg News)
LISTENING
The Raincoats — No One’s Little Girl
Beach Boys – I’m Waiting for the Day
Pavement – Give It A Day
Camper Van Beethoven — Jack Ruby
Dusty Springfield – Warten and Hoffen
Wir sehen uns im nächsten Monat!