Another assignment for the holiday weekend, from Don’t Call It Art: “Get offline as much as possible. There’s so much input to be found in the real world outside of the internet. Go old school. Listen to radio shows. Browse the recently returned stacks at your local library. Buy weird old books at thrift shops. Visit a museum you’ve never been to. Find a good record store and chat up the clerks. Interact with real people in meatspace.”
That’s great homework (or rather outside-the-home work) for any weekend, not just holiday weekends.
Your smart phone is making you dumber. The apps are engineered to hook you in and drag you deeper down the well (or cesspool).
Get out. Tune in to what the real world has to offer. Rewire your brain. Find something different, something funky, something fun. And then, as Austin so eloquently puts it “interact with real people in meatspace.”
For the uninitiated:
Make the meatspace a meet space too. Do “social” instead of social media. Your life will feel so much richer for it.
The pixels and data centers and ones and zeros will get along just fine without you. And vice-versa.
If you’re in the Cincinnati area, here’s a reco for your assignment. On Tuesday I went to the inaugural “Lunch Club” at the Mercantile Library downtown.
I had no idea it was the first gathering until I got there and the host mentioned it. To be honest, I’m 50/50 on reading the Mercantile Library’s weekly emails (due to time constraints, not due to disinterest). But I happened to read the one promoting this event and signed up, despite my loner tendencies. That was mostly thanks to Austin Kleon’s encouragement. I met four fine folks, we had lively conversations, and I headed back to work energized.
That’s some pretty good meatspace activity, especially for a vegetarian.
Many moons ago, Nora Guthrie, the daughter of legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, found a shoebox full of her dad’s lyrics. British punk-folk musician Billy Bragg and the alt-country/Americana band Wilco agreed to put them to music, and an album called Mermaid Avenue was released in 1998 to much critical acclaim.
A couple of weekends ago, Billy Bragg and Wilco finally performed those songs live for the first time ever. You can check out the concert audio here — but note that it will only be available to stream until Thursday.
But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for the forgotten genius of that era of the band Wilco. His name was Jay Bennett.
As is often the case with bands, there was an acrimonious split. Wilco founder Jeff Tweedy fired Jay.
Which is a shame, because Jay had so much to do with shaping and expanding Wilco’s sound during that era, as a multi-instrumentalist, and engineer, and producer.
According to friends and former band members (Wilco would not comment for this story), Bennett’s contributions helped transition the group from its ragged folk and country roots to the multidimensional pop that gave them critical and commercial flight. — From this 2009 Chicago Magazine article by Mark Guarino
He was part of three Wilco albums: Being There, Summerteeth, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. In my humble opinion, that was the best version of the band. And Jay doesn’t get enough credit. Quite to the contrary, he was portrayed as a bit of a villain in the Wilco-authorized movie I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.
It got ugly. Jay eventually sued Jeff for breach of contract. This was in May of 2009. Per Wikipedia: The suit came less than two weeks after Bennett publicly revealed that he needed hip replacement surgery which he could not afford due to his health insurance considering the situation a “pre-existing condition.
And then it just got sad. On May 24, 2009, Bennett died unexpectedly in his sleep… The Champaign County coroner reported about one month later that Bennett’s death was accidental, and was the result of an overdose of the prescription painkillerFentanyl.[12][13] He was wearing a Duragesic patch on his back when his body was found, said Champaign County Coroner Duane Northrup.
Jay needed something for the hip pain. It’s the same way Tom Petty – who did his last tour with a broken hip – died.
28 years after Mermaid Avenue, Jeff Tweedy gave a lovely shout-out to Jay from the stage.
“Jay Bennett was a huge part of all these songs… these songs wouldn’t be here without Jay… He was a big champion of this project… Continue to think about him and continue to remember him, please…”
It’s funny how life paths diverge. Jeff Tweedy has had sustained success for decades with Wilco. Jay Bennett died waiting for a surgery he couldn’t afford. I’m sure both Jeff and Jay wished things had ended differently, if not professionally then at least personally. But I’m glad Jeff paid tribute to Jay at the show. Giving credit where credit was due.
Woody Guthrie’s lyrics were lost for a long time, but finally came to life thanks in a large part to Jay. It’d be a shame if his contribution were lost to the mists of time.
“The great thing about the work that he did is that it’s there for others to hear forever.”
Ken Coomer, Wilco’s former drummer
If you really want to dig deeper, check out this Medium post and the Jay Bennett documentary below.
My wife’s cousin Kelly recently retired from teaching.
(That’s Kelly on the left, when she and Mrs. Dubbatrubba had a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off-style adventure recently.)
She spent 30+ years at Catholic grade schools in the D.C. area.
Over those three-plus decades, thousands of kids crossed paths with her. In the classroom. In the lunchroom. In the hallways. At the school plays, and the sporting events. At Sunday Mass too.
The lessons those kids learned from her didn’t always come from a textbook.
She taught them kindness, by showing up with a smile on her face, even on the tough days.
With her sense of humor, she taught them that learning can be fun.
By being attentive, she let them know they mattered.
By demanding their best effort, she inspired them.
Those lessons don’t stop when the kids move on. They carry them with them, wherever they go, for the rest of their lives.
Kelly’s out of the classroom, but her lessons are still going strong. What an amazing legacy!
We’re a year and a half into the second term of the Cheeto in Chief. How’s it going for you? Grocery prices? Gas prices? Affordable housing? Peace?
Donnie’s dumped more than $100 billion down the gold-plated toilet for an unwinnable war, which also shut down a key shipping route. It’s wreaked havoc across the world. And here were are in 2026, worse off than when the Obama agreement was put in place more than a decade ago.
And some costs can’t be measured in dollars and cents, because they’re senseless.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Deranged Donnie has “fixed” the Reflecting Pool. Or “pond” as he keeps calling it. It seems more like a fetid swamp at the moment. Why? Because he had a “pool guy… the best!” and awarded a no-bid contract. And he picked “American Flag Blue” as the new paint color, and a darker color creates a better environment for algae growth. And then the “fix” (dump hydrogen peroxide into the water) will kill some algae, but it also peels paint.
Pure genius, Mr. Perfect Score on the Cognitive Tests that they keep giving you. No notes.
It’s not an aberration, it’s a pattern. It’s his M.O.
Jeff Tiedrich summed it up quite nicely in his Substack post from June 22:
He’ll never learn. So it’s up to us.
“Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.” — Harry Emerson Fosdick
And if you voted for DJT, please take some time for a bit of reflecting. Uh, you’ll have to find a different pool.
Earlier this month, Mrs. Dubbatrubba, our son Peter and I went out west, along with some friends.
Five of the six folks in the photo above had run the Grand Teton half-marathon the day prior to this hike. Three of the people in the photo went on to run the Yellowstone half-marathon a week later. I’ll give you three guesses as to which of folks above was the sluggard who did neither race.
(And yes, I know the background of the picture looks like an Olan Mills studio backdrop – but it’s legit!)
Grand Teton National Park for three days.
A day trip to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve…
… including a hike through a cave.
Shoshone Falls.
Mesa Falls.
Three days in Yellowstone National Park.
We hiked all over God’s green earth out there (and God’s scorched earth too!) and it was glorious! I’d never been to that area of the country before, and loved every bit of it. (It helped that it was warm – don’t know that I’d love the snow.)
Ken Burns has a documentary called The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. And he’s right. Thank goodness that back in the day, the powers that be decided to preserve these gorgeous areas and make them “for the people” in perpetuity. (Nowadays the powers that be would probably try to put up hotels and golf courses.)
It’s such a treat to be out in nature.
Nature does quiet the mind. And it’s a salve for the soul too!
Hola! I’ve been using Duolingo to learn Spanish. Or at least to try to learn Spanish.
I’ve been at it for a bit. Or a bit longer than a bit.
Am I anywhere close to fluent? No. (Or, as we say in Spanish… “no.”)
But am I a lot better than I was before I started? Si!
And am I a lot better off spending time on the Duolingo app instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media? Without a doubt! I’ve probably never spent more than 20 minutes on Duolingo on any given day. Most days it’s more like 5-10 minutes. Not enough to make me bilingual. But enough to make a dent.
I’m up to 97 on my Duolingo score. Here’s what that means:
It didn’t happen overnight. I happened over 2112 days. (And yes, I chose that screenshot because I’m a Rush fan.)
Kevin Sullivan on The full-brain workout: “Yep, keep writing .. in your voice. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/opinion/artificial-intelligence-ai-writing.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4VA.JFCf.Lr_UK5tlpBRR&smid=url-share” Aug 10, 10:57
Damian on The Future is forever: “It was a magical time for sure! Just don’t get any paint on that 97X sweatshirt, it’ll bring down the…” Jul 4, 20:44
Andrea J McKiernan on The Future is forever: “I still wear my 97X sweatshirt when I’m painting. I have some amazing memories of those times!” Jul 4, 14:46
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