Recent content in Posts on María A. Matienzo
it's been a while since i've been deeply unsettled by the lack of resolution in a film, especially if the film's conceit is overall preposterous. however, having just experienced the disquieting jouissance of such cinematic bombast last night, here i am, with a need to verbalize and process this tormentand whom else would i have to thank for this but my favorite member of the coppola family,…
for a good part of my life i've had trouble with the past, at least my own. it was uncomfortable to sit with, to remember, to make sense of. however, music has been the notable exception. even therein this feels fraught when i start to think about reunion shows and tours which continue to arise with an alarming frequency as bands and albums i grew up with push their 30th anniversaries (in some…
a poem inspired by receiving #PSLF
this is neither a year in review post nor a resolutions post, but a secret third thing.
or at least makes us deal with abjection in new ways.
2022 is proving to be a year of many profound changes. There are two big transitions going in my life: one professional, and one personal.
In the best of times, 'year in review'-style blog posts can be inspiring and provide an important sense of closure. When it's not the best of times, they can be painful reminder of your own misgivings and missteps. Time has moved differently over the last two years, and the calendar itself no longer feels like a good marker of even the progression of days and months that have intervened. But here…
After an intense year and a half (pandemic, work, other personal stuff) I needed a vacation. I booked a trip on the Amtrak Empire Builder to go from Seattle to Milwaukee and Chicago. Because of persistent low-grade burnout, I wanted to use the considerable time I'd have offline to work on creative projects including music and writing. This is a brief writeup inspired by The Setup that talks about…
In this post, I try to unpack some of my concerns around Sourcery as raised in my Society of California Archivists keynote, and how they relate to the visibility of archival labor, austerity, and enclosure.
An experiment with recording a new single using VCV Rack and REAPER based on a compositional prompt. I ended up recording two tracks.
I have a horrible sweet tooth, and I absolutely love oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I tend to bake as a means to cope with stress, and of course, more often then that means making these cookies. After making many iterations, I've settled upon this recipe as the ultimate version to which all compare.
The world lost one of its brightest and most charming lights earlier this week, Rob Casson. Many of us knew Rob through the Code4Lib community and conferences and his work at Miami University Libraries. We miss his generosity, patience, sense of humor, and genuine kindness. Those of us who got the chance to socialize with him also remember his passion for music, and some of us were even lucky to…
About a month ago, I got my ham radio license, and soon after I got pretty curious about Summits on the Air (SOTA), an award scheme focused on safe and low impact portable operation from mountaintops. While I like to hike, I'm arguably a pretty casual hiker, and living in California provides a surprising number of options within 45 minutes driving time for SOTA newbies.
Over and in response to the last few months , I've been reflecting about intentionality, and how I spend my time creating things. I have tried to improve the indieweb biness of my site, and understanding what it means to 'scratch my own itch' . This resonates particularly lately because it's leading me to mull over which parts should be hard and easy. Unsurprisingly, much of that is personal…
I spent a little time over the last day or so trying to bodge together a shortcode for Hugo to embed an instance of Mirador . While it's not quite as simple (or full-featured) as I'd like, it's nonetheless a starting point. The shortcode generates a snippet of HTML that gets loaded into Hugo pages, but (unfortunately) most of the heavy lifting is done by a separate static page that gets included…
I have spent the last four and a half months feeling like everything is slipping from my grasp – personally, professionally, and in between. The torpor of life under a pandemic and a world wracked with pain has led me to feel like I am stuck in slowly-drying glue. Planning too far ahead seems nearly pointless. And yet, every day, we are asked to undertake haruspicy, to speculate about how our…
The SAA Council has issued a call for comments on the SAA Statement on Diversity and Inclusion. As noted in the announcement, the revision includes changes to expand the statement to cover equity as well. Comments are open on the revisions until March 12, 2020, and what follows are the comments that I've submitted .
I'm trying to do a better job tracking what I've been reading. Here's a start.
July 15 and 16th are 'Prime Day,' Amazon's attempt to drive up sales and artificial demand around things we don't need at prices they've convinced us that we can afford. Thanks to Mar Hicks , many of us heard that workers at a Shakopee, Minnesota fulfillment center are holding a six-hour work stoppage on one of the busiest days of the year. Alongside, many have called for a boycott on Amazon and…
This year was largely complicated and often felt like a massive garbage fire to myself and my crew. I didn't accomplish a number of my goals and was inconsistent about others , so recapping awesome things I did doesn't feel appropriate and also happens to be a soft reminder of either failure or things not going as planned. I also tend to hate 'best of the year' lists but I find them helpful to…