summer 2026

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End of summer.

End of my friend Annie Dillard’s many, many wonderful days. “If this is my last note,” she messaged last spring, “don’t worry. You have work to do.” I didn’t know what she meant.

The photo at the top of the New York Times obituary isn’t her. That’s
a public face. She was always the woman of the second photo there: finding herself in observation—“meta-Ann,” she joked. (Her given name was Meta Ann.)

where are we?

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To have been “sidetracked by new ideas” (Aug. 7 below, “summer 2026”) was not about leaving a central path for exploring marginal woods. Rather, the departure was away from intended presentation here (August 1: “I’ve completed my prospective archetexture for the upcoming year-or-more…”) back to conceptual prospecting which fundamentally appeals to me—and ultimately coheres—though that’s
not obvious.

By analogy, consider prospecting something ultimately appealing as
a highland of Inner Humanity which each of us unwittingly expresses; and a lowland of Outer Humanity which is easily shared, from near-and-dear lives (extended family, friends, neighbors, etc.) to news cycles feeding Our shared sense of The Times.

I live an ambitiously pragmatic midland.

pluralism of a garden party

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This playfully entitles a set of seven sober discussions which go my own way, implicitly anticipating upcoming work to be done and shared.

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spring 2026

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I’ve been immersed in supporting the campaign of Xavier Becerra for Governor of California; working with lots of new project note; and sorry I’m not ready to put new discussion online. But soon!—by next Saturday, I expect. I’m working many hours per day to not have my update date be a disappointment, while keeping fidelity to what I want to do.

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