Today was another one of our semi-annual relay runs at my (fully-remote) workplace Automattic. In case you don’t remember from past runs (here, here, and here), here’s how it works: instead of us all meeting and running together (which we can’t because we’re all remote and all over the world), we sign up for time slots over a 24-hour period and try to have at least one person at the company running at any time to “complete” a full relay as the sun goes around the earth, never setting on our race.
My favorite part is seeing all of us start and finish in a Slack channel we share, along with pictures and anecdotes. It definitely feels like we’re together doing something.
Fall is here, YES!!! I’ve been going hard on my spiritual jazz after the fall equinox (Pharoah Sanders, Kamasai Washington, etc) but this has been one of the best months of the year for new music. Here is my list for the month.
Fall is here. It’s the autumnal equinox, and as if on cue, the weather is shifting drastically today.
My run today felt like going through a portal. The leaves on the ground seemed to suddenly appear as if they had just fell overnight.
It seemed fitting to have Pharoah Sanders (Harvest Time) and Alice Coltrane (Journey in Satchidananda) on repeat to soundtrack the transition.
An illustration of Pharoah Sanders I made ages ago
On the equinox, everywhere on earth has (roughly) the same amount of daylight, and then we diverge from there. Northern hemisphere days getting shorter. Southern going the other way. I don’t know that we can really feel it, but we can, can’t we?
I enjoyed reading Tariq (Black Thought) Trotter’s book. He’s easily one of my favorite artists ever, and I’ve listened to his music constantly since junior high. It’s crazy to learn about his life through these stories: his Dad murdered when just an infant, him burning down his home by accident when he was six, his Mom’s struggles with addiction, living with a large tightly knit extended family, growing up on the rough Philly streets, his Mom brutally murdered, the huge influence of graffiti in his life, going to art school, learning to rap using encyclopedias to pick challenging words to rhyme.
Finished reading Trust by Hernan Diaz. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this. A book (historical fiction/mystery) that is actually made up of 4 books written by different fictional characters central to the overall story (each book being roughly a quarter of the overall story). It seems disconnected after the first “book”, and then by the third “book” you see things dovetail together and it gets really good.
Lots of history. Interesting characters. Very well written. Kept me coming back. 👍🏼
We stayed on the Biltmore estate last weekend in Asheville. It was a last-minute choice as a kind of summer farewell long weekend and definitely a bit of a splurge, but well worth it. Spectacular place. I could stay there forever.
The estate (created by George Washington Vanderbilt – of the ultra-wealthy Vanderbilt family) was designed to be self-sustaining, with its own farming, livestock, dairy, winery, tradesmen, and immense size such that everything needed could be grown or produced onsite. It was also designed to be beautiful and restorative to those that visit, with very curated roads and vistas to discover. The property was purchased in 1888 and the house completed in 1895. Fun fact: At its largest, Biltmore encompassed 125,000 acres, an area often compared to 95,000 football fields. Much of this land later became Pisgah National Forest after Edith Vanderbilt sold 87,000 acres to the U.S. Forest Service.
There are a few places to stay on the estate, and you can also stay in Asheville and do a day visit (with a ticket purchase). By staying onsite though, we got trail access each day, and I brought the bikes, which was definitely a highlight just below doing the house tour and night time event (Luminere).
Beautiful spot.
The house is crazy huge!The crazy staircase of the houseThe winter garden insideThe grounds outsideSolo bike ride on the first morningFamily bike rideVivi with the hotel in the background on the hillFam pic at Antler VillageAnother fam picYup, another fam picThe conservatory during the Luminere eventThe crowd on the grass at LuminereNight time view after the Luminere show thing.House on the hill
