Derik Badman's Journal

A bit of an ice storm caused all the trees to be encased on ice the other day. It was lovely to see on the tree outside the bedroom window.

Totally forgot there's a large section in the middle of Portrait of the Artist that is mostly sermonizing... I had to skim through it, it's just too much and feels so irrelevant anymore.

I'm a few chapters into Ulysses now, reading it without any sort of annotations or notes, which means there's a decent amount of references I just have to pass by. This is much more prevalent (so far) in the early Stephen chapters, and less so as the Bloom chapters start up. Stephen's thoughts are so rife with obscure references to theological and other aspects of his education that it can at times become impenetrable. Bloom on the other hand is much more focused on the personal, on his surroundings, on his past/present/future, that while not everything is always clear, much must be inferred or slowly comprehended over the course of the work, and it doesn't feel as impenetrable because it can be inferred or figured out, without external reference.

Got sucked into replaying Shadow of the Tomb Raider, as I was in need of some mostly mindless entertainment, but was not ready to buy something new. It is too easy to just play play play, kind of like binge watching a tv show. Why is it not so easy to do other things, watch movies (instead of tv), read, etc. Something about the work that goes into it, I guess. Have been slowly reading Jaakko Pallasvuo's Avocado Ibuprofen, collection of comic strips he originally posted on Instagram, and in one of them he talks about not being able to focus on video art even though he can sit and binge watch a tv show.