Finished reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 📚
I loved this short, spare novella. In 109 pages, Keegan puts you squarely in the mind and body of its protagonist, Furlong. You feel the pangs of long-ago childhood angst, the chill of an Irish cold spell, the ugliness of small town bigotry, the warmth of a coal stove, the despair over the human cruelty. The Irish dialogue felt more like music or birdsong, making me wish my own language wasn’t so ordinary and flat. I felt sad to leave Furlong’s side after so short a visit, but the tale and ending was told in just the right way, with just the right words. ★★★★★
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 5: Serene
Toba Inlet, British Columbia, aboard MV Indiscretion.
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 4: Foliage
Currently reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 📚
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 3: Card
A Father’s Day card from my son Connor in 2020 before he left home for college. He died in a motorcycle accident two years later. I usually toss cards, but I kept this one, and I treasure it. Hug your kids tonight.
📷 April 2024 Micro.Blog photo challenge, Day 2: Flowers
📷 Day01 : toy (@pcora)
Currently reading: Slow Horses by Mick Herron 📚
Lamb’s laugh wasn’t a genuine surrender to amusement; more of a temporary derangement. Not a laugh you’d want to hear from anyone holding a stick.
I enjoyed the TV series, but the book is even better.
Finished reading: The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry 📚★★★★★
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.
Currently reading: Sibley’s Birding Basics by David Allen Sibley 📚
There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are answers worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book.📚
Charlie Munger
Camped along the Colorado River here at Davis Camp on the Arizona-Nevada border. Smaller rigs can nose right up to the edge of the river. This is my kind of camping.
Currently reading: Dune by Frank Herbert 📚
Rereading ahead of seeing the movie. I had forgotten how much I loved this book.
Finished reading: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh 📚 ★★★☆☆
A lifetime of buying books leads to an uncomfortable realization. Blog post: The End of Private Libraries.
After three good years with Craft, I’ve moved my reading notes and PKM to Bear. I really love Bear’s simplicity and hidden power on both Mac and iOS. No futzing, just my words. Blog post: Bear 2 for Writing and Thinking.
Currently reading: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh 📚
Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 📚
This was a good book. I liked the characters and the storyline. The reasons Sam and Sadie found to be mad at the other were a little frustrating, but I think that’s ultimately the lesson they each needed to learn. The portrayal of grief and loss was really well done. ★★★★☆
Thank you @Annie for the recommendation!
Mac-only Apps
I’ve been evaluating Bear 2 to replace Craft for my reading notes and quasi-Zettelkasten for the past few weeks. I’ve used Craft for over three years, but that tool has morphed into a team note-taking and document-sharing platform that doesn’t mesh well with my needs anymore.
My initial impressions of Bear have been quite positive. Here is an app with a calming, minimalist design, yet in many ways, has more power and capabilities than Craft. And best of all, it intuitively works like you’d expect. Like a Mac app.
When Craft first launched, it was only available on Mac, iPad, and iPhone. The developers went on to create Craft for the Web and Windows to reach a larger audience. Somewhere in the process, more features piled up, basic functions became difficult to figure out, and the app lost some of its Mac whimsy and delight.
Before Bear, I tried Obsidian. Here’s an app that has incredible power and can do practically anything with its endless variety of plug-ins. I tried hard to make it work, but I couldn’t accept its interface and design. I kept tinkering with it to try and make it feel like a Mac app. I realized, eventually, that Obsidian was never going to work for me.
When I think about the apps I use and love the most — Day One, Things, Ulysses, and now possibly Bear — they are only available on Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
What is it about Mac-only apps that appeal to me so much? Perhaps they use Macs themselves and have a laser-like focus on how to make the most of the platform. Maybe it’s because the developers who refuse to expand beyond the Mac all share an opinionated sense of aesthetics and whimsy. It’s hard to pin down the particulars, but you know it when you see it.
Take, for example, the icon that Bear automatically assigned to my “Drafts” tag in the app sidebar. Who but a Mac developer would write this into their software?
I tip my hat to those Mac developers out there, the crazy ones who continue to think different.
