It’s monday october 31, 2022. The height of spooky season, and the dawn of the days of remembrance in Mexico. I wonder when christendom selected it as the days for all saints and all souls. was it perhaps during the 1500s?
The Mexican dia de muertos has a relationship with the Monarch Butterfly migration. It is also said to be a day when the veil between this life, this reality, and the next is thinnest. It is a day to celebrate with one’s ancestors and to affirm that they are — and will be — remembered.
I have not been one to celebrate this, but its logic has started to appeal to me. It is also coincident with the passing of my father on the 24th of october, 2020. So, ancestor reverence will increase for me.
Thinking ahead to the future, I finished filling out my ballot for this year’s state, county, and municipal elections this morning. I went to my municipal building, Englewood city hall, and dropped off my ballot. I have voted.
Other activity from the weekend. I decided to revisit the type and layout for the essay by Fuguet called “Magical Neoliberalism.” I’ve typeset it in the half-letter-vertical format in a typeface designed in Uruguay, with subheads in a typeface from Argentina. Fuguet is Chilean, and his essay is about latin-american literature, cinema, and culture. It is about attempting to escape the shadow of a particular literary ancestry.
[I think I wrote about this in the previous post]
On saturday morning I raked leaves and pruned prairie grass.
On saturday afternoon I contributed to an Add-A-Thon to the People’s Graphic Design Archive. I added the book by Dicken Castro, Forma Viva. I set up lights and shot with my phone. They were all too warm. I uploaded them anyway.
On sunday morning I opened the photos in Snapseed on my phone and saw that the raw images that I shot with my Pro Camera app could receive a white-balance that was pre-defined for Tungsten lighting. This white balance correction fixed the hue of my photos!
I had a long lunch with Brian DL who had to be scarce for his house which is now on the market.
We talked about some of the things he’s doing in his game cultures gen-ed class. He mentioned Crosser & La Migra to his students but didn’t know that they remain playable. I promised to send him a link.
I remembered reading on sunday morning that the person who attacked Paul Pelosi while seeking to attack Speaker of the House, and third in line of Federal Government succession, Nancy Pelosi was one who had been weaponized by Steve Bannon’s use of Gamergate.
I had my ballot half-filled, sitting on a side table in my studio.
At lunch Brian mentioned that he is not optimistic for the ongoing existence of democracy in the USA. He gave a date ten years hence. I mentioned that I thought it might be done with this November’s election day, and that Karin and I had felt we had joined what the world has called third world nations in November of 2016.
The Autumn of the Patriarch and the text of “Magical Neoliberalism” and of “Decommisioned: An obituary [for the Arecibo radio telescope] keep echoing in my head.
In the evening Karin and I were watching the election results in Brazil go back and forth. I have to read the papers this morning to see if it’s true that Lula won. I have a bunch of folks on Twitter who would confirm my biases and fulfill my wishes that this is so.
With my morning coffee I sat down and read the ballot issues and marked my choices. I sealed my ballot and drove. I was worried that I might see some of the mule-spotting tail gaters. Fortunately none. I was able to park within 50 feet of the secure ballot drop box. I walked up and slid it into the slot and came home.
Now to get to work.