{"@attributes":{"version":"2.0"},"channel":{"title":"Posts on Mar\u00eda A. Matienzo","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/posts\/","description":"Recent content in Posts on Mar\u00eda A. Matienzo","generator":"Hugo -- gohugo.io","language":"en-us","lastBuildDate":"Sun, 14 Apr 2024 15:00:00 -0700","item":[{"title":"the not knowing: cage and calvinism","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2024\/not-knowing\/","pubDate":"Sun, 14 Apr 2024 15:00:00 -0700","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2024\/not-knowing\/","description":"

it's been a while since i've been deeply unsettled by the lack of resolution in a film, especially if the film's conceit is overall preposterous. however, having just experienced the disquieting jouissance of such cinematic bombast last night, here i am, with a need to verbalize and process this tormentand whom else would i have to thank for this but my favorite member of the coppola family, nicolas cage, rumplestiltskin of the dramatic arts that he is. what, then, of the film that originated this long-winded introduction of this disquiet from theological and epistemological perspectives? it would be none other than KNOWING<\/em> (2009, dir. alex proyas)<\/a>. spoilers follow, so be forewarned, lest ye find not your salvation.<\/p>"},{"title":"lostalgia","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2023\/lostalgia\/","pubDate":"Sat, 22 Jul 2023 13:01:00 -0700","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2023\/lostalgia\/","description":"for a good part of my life i've had trouble with the past, at least my own. it was uncomfortable to sit with, to remember, to make sense of. however, music has been the notable exception. even therein this feels fraught when i start to think about reunion shows and tours which continue to arise with an alarming frequency as bands and albums i grew up with push their 30th anniversaries (in some cases more). at varying points, i felt like these reunion shows were ridiculous. i didn't full-on object from the standpoint that a band would be \"cashing in\" well after the fact. internally, though, i felt sheepish: was i trying to live in the past yet again? was i refusing to move on? such questions really prevented me from exploring these ways to reconnect to an earlier time and place.\nwhat tipped the scales, however, was the decision to see The Doobie Brothers about a year and a half ago."},{"title":"on jubilee","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2023\/on-jubilee\/","pubDate":"Wed, 11 Jan 2023 21:08:00 -0800","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2023\/on-jubilee\/","description":"a poem inspired by receiving #PSLF"},{"title":"a secret third thing","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2022\/secret-third-thing\/","pubDate":"Sat, 31 Dec 2022 14:40:00 -0800","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2022\/secret-third-thing\/","description":"

this is neither a year in review post nor a resolutions post, but a secret third thing.<\/p>"},{"title":"grief and rage makes us do funny things","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2022\/grief-and-rage-makes-us-do-funny-things\/","pubDate":"Mon, 21 Nov 2022 20:16:34 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2022\/grief-and-rage-makes-us-do-funny-things\/","description":"

or at least makes us deal with abjection in new ways.<\/p>"},{"title":"It's not really leaving if you have somewhere better to be","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2022\/its-not-really-leaving-if-you-have-somewhere-better-to-be\/","pubDate":"Thu, 04 Aug 2022 16:27:30 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2022\/its-not-really-leaving-if-you-have-somewhere-better-to-be\/","description":"

2022 is proving to be a year of many profound changes. There are two big transitions going in my life: one professional, and one personal.<\/p>"},{"title":"On finishing what you started","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2022\/on-finishing-what-you-started\/","pubDate":"Mon, 07 Feb 2022 20:00:00 -0700","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2022\/on-finishing-what-you-started\/","description":"

In the best of times, \"year in review\"-style blog posts can be inspiring and provide an important sense of closure. When it's not the best of times, they can be painful reminder of your own misgivings and missteps. Time has moved differently over the last two years, and the calendar itself no longer feels like a good marker of even the progression of days and months that have intervened. But here I am, wanting for the closure that such a review would provide. It feels dissatisfying not to remember that I have finished many things over the last 13 or 14 months, but the struggle to articulate them all has been incredibly real. While I may not touch on all of them, the goal is to describe some highlights to help me retain some perspective.<\/p>"},{"title":"Cons(train)ed music: a kit for the traveling ambient artist","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2021\/constrained-music\/","pubDate":"Fri, 27 Aug 2021 11:23:01 -0500","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2021\/constrained-music\/","description":"

After an intense year and a half (pandemic, work, other personal stuff) I needed a vacation. I booked a trip on the Amtrak Empire Builder<\/a> to go from Seattle to Milwaukee and Chicago. Because of persistent low-grade burnout, I wanted to use the considerable time I'd have offline to work on creative projects including music and writing. This is a brief writeup inspired by The Setup<\/a> that talks about what I brought with me in an effort to travel relatively light.<\/p>"},{"title":"On Sourcery, or the enclosure(?) of remote access","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2021\/on-sourcery-or-the-enclosure-of-remote-access\/","pubDate":"Thu, 29 Apr 2021 10:43:01 -0700","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2021\/on-sourcery-or-the-enclosure-of-remote-access\/","description":"In this post, I try to unpack some of my concerns around Sourcery<\/a> as raised in my Society of California Archivists keynote, and how they relate to the visibility of archival labor, austerity, and enclosure."},{"title":"IAH Forecast - Disquiet Junto Project 0476","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2021\/iah-forecast-disquiet-junto-project-0476\/","pubDate":"Mon, 15 Feb 2021 21:41:01 -0800","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2021\/iah-forecast-disquiet-junto-project-0476\/","description":"An experiment with recording a new single using VCV Rack and REAPER based on a compositional prompt. I ended up recording two tracks."},{"title":"Perfecting a favorite: oatmeal chocolate chip cookies","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/perfecting-a-favorite\/","pubDate":"Sun, 29 Nov 2020 20:49:53 -0800","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/perfecting-a-favorite\/","description":"

I have a horrible sweet tooth, and I absolutely love oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I tend to bake as a means to cope with stress, and of course, more often then that means making these cookies. After making many iterations, I've settled upon this recipe as the ultimate version to which all compare.<\/p>"},{"title":"In Memoriam and Appreciation of Rob Casson (1974-2020)","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/in-memoriam-robcasson\/","pubDate":"Thu, 01 Oct 2020 09:15:36 -0700","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/in-memoriam-robcasson\/","description":"

The world lost one of its brightest and most charming lights earlier this week, Rob Casson. Many of us knew Rob through the Code4Lib<\/a> community and conferences and his work at Miami University Libraries. We miss his generosity, patience, sense of humor, and genuine kindness. Those of us who got the chance to socialize with him also remember his passion for music, and some of us were even lucky to see live shows in the evenings between conference sessions and other social activities.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, October 4 at 1:30 PM Pacific\/4:30 PM Eastern, those of us who knew him through Code4Lib and the world of libraries are encouraged to gather to share our memories of him and to appreciate his life and work. Please join me and my co-organizers, Mike Giarlo and Declan Fleming on Zoom (registration required)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n \"Robert \n <\/a>
\n

Robert Casson (robcaSSon), 30 Jan 1974 - 29 Sep 2020.\n Photo: Declan Fleming.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>"},{"title":"First SOTA activation","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/first-sota-activation\/","pubDate":"Tue, 29 Sep 2020 04:21:47 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/first-sota-activation\/","description":"

About a month ago, I got my ham radio license, and soon after I got pretty curious about Summits on the Air<\/a> (SOTA), an award scheme focused on safe and low impact portable operation from mountaintops. While I like to hike, I'm arguably a pretty casual hiker, and living in California provides a surprising number of options within 45 minutes driving time for SOTA newbies.<\/p>"},{"title":"Optimizing friction","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/optimizing-friction\/","pubDate":"Mon, 10 Aug 2020 21:21:51 -0700","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/optimizing-friction\/","description":"

Over and in response to the last few months<\/a>, I've been reflecting about intentionality, and how I spend my time creating things. I have tried to improve the indieweb<\/a>biness of my site, and understanding what it means to \"scratch my own itch\"<\/a>. This resonates particularly lately because it's leading me to mull over which parts should be hard and easy. Unsurprisingly, much of that is personal preference, and figuring out how I want to optimize from the perspective of user experience. Friction in UX can be a powerful tool<\/a>, part of what I'm trying to find is where I want to retain friction as it helps me remain intentional.<\/p>"},{"title":"A Hugo shortcode for embedding Mirador","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/mirador-hugo-shortcode\/","pubDate":"Sat, 25 Jul 2020 19:38:46 -0700","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/mirador-hugo-shortcode\/","description":"

I spent a little time over the last day or so trying to bodge together a shortcode for Hugo to embed an instance of Mirador<\/a>. While it's not quite as simple (or full-featured) as I'd like, it's nonetheless a starting point. The shortcode generates a snippet of HTML that gets loaded into Hugo pages, but (unfortunately) most of the heavy lifting is done by a separate static page that gets included as an <iframe\/><\/code> within the page. That page parses URL parameters to pass some of the parameters when Mirador gets instantiated.<\/p>\n

Getting a consistent way to load multiple IIIF manifests, either into comparison view or for populating a resource list also needs some work, which also led me to grapple with thinking through the IIIF Content State API<\/a> spec, which will require some more attention, too.<\/p>"},{"title":"Besieged","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/besieged\/","pubDate":"Fri, 17 Jul 2020 09:20:46 -0700","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/besieged\/","description":"I have spent the last four and a half months feeling like everything is slipping from my grasp \u2013 personally, professionally, and in between. The torpor of life under a pandemic and a world wracked with pain has led me to feel like I am stuck in slowly-drying glue. Planning too far ahead seems nearly pointless. And yet, every day, we are asked to undertake haruspicy, to speculate about how our organizations and ourselves should respond to the remaining uncertainty, ideally with precision. The world keeps turning and we are asked to keep up, while taking care of family members, grieving our losses, or dealing with other challenges amplified by the present circumstances.\nAt the same time, I feel myself slowing down, or at least to continue trying to slow down. I have not read anything more substantial than an article since February, despite getting a stack of books out of the library in preparation for more time at home. The cognitive load of mailing packages can sometimes be too much."},{"title":"Comments on revisions to SAA statement on Diversity and Inclusion","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/comments-on-revisions-to-saa-dei-statement\/","pubDate":"Thu, 27 Feb 2020 09:06:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/comments-on-revisions-to-saa-dei-statement\/","description":"

The SAA<\/abbr> Council has issued a call for comments<\/a> on the SAA Statement on Diversity and Inclusion. As noted in the announcement, the revision includes changes to expand the statement to cover equity as well. Comments are open on the revisions until March 12, 2020, and what follows are the comments that I've submitted<\/a>.<\/p>"},{"title":"Books read, January-February 2020","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/books-read-jan-feb-2020\/","pubDate":"Thu, 13 Feb 2020 19:27:53 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2020\/books-read-jan-feb-2020\/","description":"

I'm trying to do a better job tracking what I've been reading. Here's a start.<\/p>"},{"title":"Solidarity, logistics, and infrastructure on Prime Day","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2019\/solidarity-logistics-infrastructure\/","pubDate":"Mon, 15 Jul 2019 15:00:03 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2019\/solidarity-logistics-infrastructure\/","description":"

July 15 and 16th are \"Prime Day,\" Amazon's attempt to drive up sales and artificial demand around things we don't need at prices they've convinced us that we can afford. Thanks to Mar Hicks<\/a>, many of us heard that workers at a Shakopee, Minnesota fulfillment center are holding a six-hour work stoppage<\/a> on one of the busiest days of the year. Alongside, many have called for a boycott on Amazon and its subsidiaries (Whole Foods, Goodreads, Twitch, etc.), and others have called for a general strike to protest Amazon's collaboration with Palantir in aiding ICE<\/a>. With all of this in mind, I've been reflecting on what larger scale industrial actions could look like when we look at Amazon's simultaneous leveraging of centralization and unreliability of single resources to provide critical infrastructure for the IT sector and its own operations.<\/p>"},{"title":"2018: a year in gratitude","link":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2019\/year-in-gratitude\/","pubDate":"Thu, 03 Jan 2019 14:30:00 +0000","guid":"https:\/\/matienzo.org\/2019\/year-in-gratitude\/","description":"

This year was largely complicated and often felt like a massive garbage fire to myself and my crew. I didn't accomplish a number of my goals and was inconsistent about others<\/a>, so recapping awesome things I did doesn't feel appropriate and also happens to be a soft reminder of either failure or things not going as planned. I also tend to hate \"best of the year\" lists but I find them helpful to remember about where I found joy or the ability to connect to something outside of myself. I suppose this is an attempt to reconcile those things, or perhaps more in line with the end of year spirit, a way to articulate gratitude to the people and things around me that impacted me.<\/p>"}]}}