Galla Placidia's Stars

Once upon a time when I went to Ravenna, I did not take a camera. I was lent binoculars and told to not be embarrassed about sitting on the church floors to take time to look at the mosaics. That looking has remained with me in a far more vivid way than anything I have ever photographed. The couple who lent me the binoculars also gave me an old Baedeker, and among other things taught me to be aware of the space around people, the constellation they inhabit - all we bring with us through our being in the world. Are we brittle, soft? Do we seek growth?
People.
I think of people I have known who are near or far, or not on earth at all any more, and realise what a miracle of good will it is for there to be understanding. To shine as a person, this would mean being the ear for someone else, taking the best from them and nurturing it.
Letting go of the rest, remembering it only for potential reference.

B/LOGROLLING

America Has Two Economies And They're Diverging Fast (brookings) article with infographs

YETI makes very good video content (about cowboys, people spending time in the outdoors - always with a thought worth mulling on further, excellently shot and produced), including funny spoofs like this with the memorable line:  "Scooters are the vaping of public transportation."

7 ways to de-escalate office tension (99u) : "The ultimate goal of mediation, after all, isn’t agreement. It’s understanding."

The Death of the Neutral Public Sphere (American Interest):
"The metaphor of a 'marketplace of ideas,' where some sort of rational choice theory means the eventual selection of the best quality information, looks naive in an environment where junk news driven by bots and trolls and other forms of non-transparent amplification floods the web, spreading faster than any byte of truth. (...)
A new approach to social media would need to be able to ignore such immediate financial demands. It would need to work with another set of metrics: Does a piece of content improve trust, and does it generate a constructive conversation? Indeed, how can one move beyond mere content production into a more hybrid approach to foster sustained online and offline engagement?"

On the Slow Build-Up to the American Revolution (lithub):
"As the histories of many modern nations reveal, a people who are terrified, who are continuously anxious about their own security, often demonize their enemies and enter­tain actions that they later come to regret."

Music
More about electronic music this week. Four decades after Jean-Michel Jarre's synthesiser (?! can it be? - also worth noting his fusion of being a performer as much as if not more than being a musician) I think its potential is starting to be discovered. Interesting works seem to be coming from musicians who happen to be classically trained. To wit:
Lena Raine (One Knowing; Celeste: Farewell). I discovered her through Bandcamp explorations and find it fascinating that her music usually accompanies video games (as in the second example). Does that not underline the hunger for experience, some kind of immersive and emotive experience, that people seem to be seeking today?
The DJ and singer "Alison Wonderland" whose show at Red Rocks included live musicians playing over some of her tracks (second half of this podcast).

Blogger I would like to have over to a dinner party (not on my standalone page):  Will Knight, MIT Technology Review's senior editor for AI (link goes to his articles).