Curfew of music

The Future Is Like Pie #24

Author

Lisa Maria Marquis
October 01, 2021

and soon the summer is ending, already
the leaves turning, always the sick trees
going first, the dying turning
brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform
their curfew of music.

—from “Matins,” Louise Glück

We went to sleep on Sunday night when it was summer, and we woke up on Monday morning when it was autumn. A hard, bright line. Most season changes are gradual: more hesitant, more muddied, more missable. Autumn, in particular, often feels like it never really happens; August simply keeps swelling until December and the snows arrive. New England—and this particularly lovely last week of cool, true, textbook September—is a mystery.

In professional news, I—and my wonderful co-author, Katel LeDû—have made some exciting progress on our upcoming book. It’s called You Should Write a Book, because, frankly, you should. We are terrified delighted to realize that it is actually the next book coming out from A Book Apart, in early 2022. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, my first book, Everyday Information Architecture, is back in stock! It was sold out for a while there. If you’ve been waiting for a print copy, or you’re trying to use up your professional development budget before the end of the year, give it a go! May I suggest starting a book club with your coworkers?

My friends Corey Vilhauer and Deane Barker recently released an amazing resource for folks who want to understand everything that goes on before, during, and after a website project. Go get The Web Project Guide now! Earlier this year, another friend, Margot Bloomstein, published Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap, so get that too!

Two articles I liked recently—

Kate Wagner on the petty tyranny of landlords and apartment design:

Suddenly, we were in a prison of design.This was a place for performing living, and we, as normal people, simply wanted to live—wanted to leave clothes in front of the washer as we pleased, wanted to bake cakes that got flour everywhere, wanted to just collapse somewhere and go to sleep, wanted to have a private life not dominated by the curation and fussiness and pressures of taste that govern careers like mine. […] It angered me, really, as an architecture critic, that this apartment, which had so very much been made to be ogled and looked at and oohed and ahhed over by people of taste was absolutely, for a lack of a better word, bullshit.
 

It’s our job as facilitators to “remove barriers to full and broad participation.” One way to accomplish that is to design meetings where extroverted and introverted people have equitable ways to participate, where speaking out loud and writing down your thoughts are equally visible and valued. Another way is to make sure participation isn’t unintentionally limited because of class and financial barriers. […] The ability to be involved cannot be dependent on whether you have access to caregiving support or time off from work.
 

Now’s a great time (it’s always a great time) to send some money to the National Network of Abortion Funds, because everyone should have access to safe and affordable medical procedures, and everyone should be in control of their own reproduction.

P.S. Go get your COVID boosters. <3