Dear Friday,
We haven't had an episode of Your Girl Friday in a mustelid's lifespan! Your Girl, for this Friday, is Jenny Odell. She will gently rustle you off of your somnambulistic treadmill and into awareness. Unless you don't read the book and in that case, well, you are taking your chances, that's sure! Check out her conceptual and very interesting artwork on her website; click on the 'projects' button. And, I think, if you were a very lucky one, you might have taken a class from her at Stanford (I applied there, for grad school, but along with 11 other places, I was rejected. Let's say I almost got to go, shall we?).
You can be almost as lucky as her students, just by reading her great book, How to Do Nothing! Inside this wonderful book, we are invited to "...inhabit somewhat fuzzier of blobbier ideas: of maintenance as productivity, or the importance of nonverbal communication, and of the mere experience of life as the highest goal."
I love blobbier ideas, and I love this book. Ms Odell cites interesting examples from philosophy (Epicurious), art (David Hockney, Barnett Newman, Henri Rousseau), and scores of fascinating writers (Donna J. Haraway, Rebecca Solnit, Ursula K. Leguin, Emily Dickenson); plus, there is birdwatching as a practice towards observation, awareness, and belonging: and then, "Eventually, to behold is to become beholden to."
PS Yes, the racoon is not a mustelid, but a procyonid. Your mustelid can be a badger, a skunk, a weasel, or even an otter. So, I have skunked you with my misuse of mustelid, and I weasel out of it, here on the PS, and I am badgering you to read Jenny Odell's book How to Do Nothing, because you otter!
PPS Oh, yeah, and there is this; your song for today!
