Lost & Found – Page 10 – Kent Fackenthall

Ancient Roman Roads Rendered as Modern Subway Maps

From Open Culture:

It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly why these appeal to me so much but in part it’s because:

The graphic designer in me has always loved this style of transit maps and the application of something familiar to something so ancient seems cool.
Order. There must be order, in all things.
I’ve always loved maps. Perhaps for the reason outlined in #2.
There is a large part of me that would love to pack a bike with food and camping gear and disappear on these for an undetermined amount of time.

I realize that according to some of the notes on the maps, many of these roads no longer exist or have been converted to modern roads – but in my mind – they’ll always be cobbled trails and dirt cart paths. Don’t ruin it for me.

We Are Not the Thinkers of Our Thoughts

From a post over on kottke.org, Tiny Private Mind Motions

“Every morning, when I screw the lid onto my steaming thermos of coffee, I think to myself, automatically, the phrase “heat capture.” I have no idea why. I’ve never used that phrase in any other context in my life. And yet I couldn’t stop it if I tried. After years of this, I finally mentioned it to my wife, who revealed a similar habit: Every night, when she shuts the bedroom blinds, she thinks to herself the ridiculous words, “Sleep Chamber: Complete.” She said she kind of hates it because it makes her feel as if she’s living in an episode of “Star Trek,” but she has no choice.”
Sam Anderson, New York Times

I have this kind of stuff happening all the time. Has for years. Glad I’m not the only one completely out of control of what happens to pop into my head at any given moment.

Of course, I can’t think of a specific example right now, even after a few minutes of trying because the Universe has a dark sense of humour.

John Beargrease

Ben Weaver shared this poem via his email newsletter and it struck me such that I wanted to share it. I couldn’t find it anywhere online to link to, so I’m sharing it here. Do visit his website and see what he’s about, and perhaps join his email newsletter as well to have magic like this show up unannounced in your inbox.

John Beargrease – Written for Beargrease 2019

Even in the most remote nights
constellations are inherently
stories of relationships,
connected leaps of
failed domestication
hooking ground into sky.
Some of my ancestors were leaves,
flames, tamarack, and waxwings,
I feel their pull and hear their singing
through a fabric of organized chaos,
placed near the end of the rapids
sending a chorus of birch seed
and agate out on the tail
of each snow mote.
Don’t get thrown off the scent
mistaking simpler times
for lack of sophistication,
complex systems of mutual
dependency and survival
have always been woven
into the chains that bind life to earth.
The poverty of the current time is that
the miraculous leaps
between these links have come to be
considered burdens,
with curiosity and generosity held hostage
by a cultural entitlement to comfort.
When I hear the songs of my lupine
and snowshoe hare ancestors
I am pulled into the thick and pregnant
fog of the land, where I am told stories
that remember,
when news from the outside
world came down the trail
behind a human on a sled
pulled by four dogs moving
at the pace of the land,
it was not a liability
to have an open heart,
it was an act of wildness.