Tag: field notes
Friday Field Notes: The Architecture of Rationalization
Marginalia on the internet turning bad, platform extraction, and existential restlessness.
On the drive down to Bristol this morning, …
On the drive down to Bristol this morning, I was listening to a 90's mix. Two tunes caught my attention, One Headlight by The Wallflowers and Public Enemy's He Got Game featuring Stephen Stills. I'll deal with He Got Game in another post. Here's the Wallflower line that poked me in the eye: “Man, I...
The Big Shrink
For a region that has spent decades planning for more people, more homes, more students, and more growth, schools may be the first reminder that the next few decades could require a very different set of skills.
I think I just clocked the true nature …
I think I just clocked the true nature of gratitude. The thought came to me on the drive into Leamington Spa while I was listening to Conversations with God. I was thinking about prayer, and about the strange contradiction buried inside supplication. When I pray for something, there is often another sentence hiding beneath the...
I started reading Thee Psychick Bible this morning. …
I started reading Thee Psychick Bible this morning. It is a strange beast. The book gathers the writings of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, the experimental network known as TOPY. It moves between occult manual, countercultural manifesto, memoir and the paper trail left by a community trying to find out whether...
Celebrating in Kauai
A milestone birthday, a hurricane.
This morning I am sitting in Bonnie, our …
This morning I am sitting in Bonnie, our caravan, with a cup of coffee and Dorothy Wordsworth’s The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals open in front of me. We are in a field near Ashbourne on our first trip away in her. Dorothy is writing about walks, weather, meals, visitors, William, and the small movements of...
Idiot Hill
Roger Tofte thought Enchanted Forest would take two years to build. It took seven. His coworkers called it Idiot Hill. Fifty-five years later, I took my children there and found myself wondering not just how it was built, but whether a place like it could ever be built again.
I picked up an old book this morning: …
I picked up an old book this morning: Perceiving Ordinary Magic: Science and Intuitive Wisdom by Jeremy Hayward. The cover is a blue corridor of repeating geometry, the kind of image that used to promise either a difficult physics lecture or a trip through somebody else’s consciousness. Somewhere in its opening territory, Hayward pointed me...
Portland Obon Festival
We took the kids to the Obon Festival in SE Portland at the Oregon Buddhist Temple. We enjoyed the food, dancing, sumo, and traditional Japanese dress.
I keep seeing headlines about the new rules …
I keep seeing headlines about the new rules of attention, usually written by somebody who wants to sell a better way of getting hold of it. The old rules were blunt enough. Interrupt people. Startle them. Keep them scrolling. Learn which colours, fears, desires and half-conscious wounds make a thumb hesitate for a second longer....
Yesterday, on a Wisdom Walk, I realised I …
Yesterday, on a Wisdom Walk, I realised I had been spending my attention in three directions at once. Part of me had gone backwards, picking over old choices and wishing I had chosen differently. Part had gone forwards, trying to get ahead of outcomes I cannot know. The rest kept looking for a side door...
The Horizon
I'm standing in a field looking towards the horizon. It occurs to me that I've spent a lifetime doing this. Different fields. Different coastlines. Different countries. Different versions of myself, always finding a line where earth gives itself over to sky. The horizon is a peculiar thing. It promises distance while refusing arrival. However far...
This morning I had one of those spells …
This morning I had one of those spells where there were so many possible things to do that I couldn’t bring myself to choose any of them. Nothing dramatic. Just the little wheel-spin of a mind faced with too many open tabs and too many worthy directions. Then I decided to walk into town for...
I’m sunning myself like a shameless lizard on …
I'm sunning myself like a shameless lizard on a warm rock. Our camp is set up. I've cracked open the first Punk IPA of our extended weekend. Aerosmith's Amazing is playing in the background, blending in with the goats. A couple of chickens came by earlier to greet us. My first chicken welcoming committee. They...
Went to look at a caravan this evening. …
Went to look at a caravan this evening. It was older than it looked in the photos. The couple selling it lived on a farm. They said they had never actually camped in it. They had been using it as a spare room for their son while they renovated his bedroom. If I were more...
Once upon a time, I was a news …
Once upon a time, I was a news junkie. Devouring multiple newspapers and magazines. I wanted to know what was happening in the world. Partly because of my job — I was an infantry officer — and partly because I just liked knowing what was going on in the world. Then something changed. The business...
I like this Kurt Vonnegut quote: “We are …
I like this Kurt Vonnegut quote: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." Who are you pretending to be? That's an honest question. Approach the answer with brutal honesty and you'll be surprised by what you discover. And let me tell you, it's a...
5am on a Saturday morning. I see this …
5am on a Saturday morning. I see this view every day, but today the cloud formation caught my attention. Prospects of a new day.
Falling in Love with Pittsburgh
A friend and I took a long weekend and visited one of America's great cities.
Weekend in Packwood, Washington
We spent a weekend in Packwood, Washington, meeting one of my wife’s longtime friends from Asheville and finally bringing our families together after years of living across the country from each other. The whole trip was anchored by a magical short-term rental tucked near the mountains.
John Day Fossil Beds, Painted Hills
We took advantage of the long weekend and did something we’ve been wanting to do since moving to Oregon over a decade ago: visit the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument . First, a little bit of background from the NPS website: John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is comprised of more than 14,000 acres within three separate units located in eastern Oregon: Sheep Rock , Painted Hills, and Clarno . The three units of the monument hold some of the best fossil bearing locations within the lar
Special Days: Apr 23 double-header (Birthday + World Book Day)
It’s my birthday (and World Book Day, and Shakespeare’s birthday too). I grew up loving books in the most literal way: in libraries, with a librarian mom. I also worked at Barnes & Noble for about two and a half years in total, and I even did story time there sometimes, which feels extremely on-brand in retrospect. Apr 23 is also Shakespeare’s birthday (and death date), which feels aggressively writer-coded. There are enough epitaphs about him, so I will say this: I want my flowers while I’m ali...
Field Notes: Do I get the MacBook Neo?
I want to be honest about what this is: part practical upgrade, part new era temptation. The dream is an orange desktop setup (or that orange iMac), but my real-life needs a laptop I can carry to libraries and cafes, so the Citrus Neo became my next best whimsy compromise. Instead of impulse buying, I am writing the decision out in public. Here is the fork in the road. It is not just Neo or no Neo. It is whether the Neo is exactly enough at a reasonable price, or whether I should wait and pay mo...
Welcome to The Studio
Studio is my Notion home base. It holds my week (priorities, trackers, and the links I always need) and gives me a starting line when my week feels slippery. In this post, I’m giving you the tour — what the dashboard looks like, why it’s built this way, and how I use it to turn Notion work into posts on https://atilacore.pckt.blog. When I open the Studio page, I can see my week, my priorities, and what I’m doing next.
Start Here
Hey, I’m Atila. I’m a writer and creator. I’m Black, femme, queer, from New York, and now live in Philly. Most days, that looks like writing with too many tabs open, a Notion scratch page that will get the business, and a comfort show like Star Trek or The Twilight Zone on in the background.
Learning to Ski on Mt. Hood
I finally went skiing on Mt. Hood after living in Oregon for over a decade! In the worst year for snow in a generation! I switched from snowboarding to skiing to same if I'd enjoy it more and I'm glad I did. It was much easier on my body. We rented a place near Rhododendron, a nice little cabin with a fireplace and hot tub. Staying with friends and their kids was an experience I'm not sure we were ready for, but overall it was a good experience. I'm hoping I can make it back at least one more t
The Fiftieth State: Alaska
A short but memorable trip to Alaska. This has been a bucket list item I’ve been picking off for 25+ years of road trips and other domestic travel. Following this, I’ve officially visited all 50 states.
A Long Weekend at Wallowa Lake
My Great-Grandmother’s House in San Francisco
Returning to the Dolomites
This is a retrospective and one of a series of journal entries recapping our trip to Italy in 2024. We continued our journey from Venice to the Cadore region where my great grandparents emigrated from, and eventually returned to live out the remainder of their lives.
Seeing Venice as an Italian Citizen
In 2020, I was officially recognized as an Italian citizen, a moment that felt like unlocking a part of myself I had only known through stories and photographs. Four years later, I set out to see it for myself.
Spring at Shasta Lake
A Day at Frederik Meijer Gardens
Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park