The Weekly Wrap: June 25, 2023

On Friday, I am giving a webinar on personal archiving. It's free and open to anyone. (You can register here.) Even if you can't attend live, you should watch the recording once it's ready.

This webinar sprung out of a workshop a professor asked me to teach this past spring semester. Her course focused on global archives but she wanted her students to take away the lesson that they are the archivists of their own lives. That's where I came in.

I talked about the nitty gritty of what to save, why to save it, and how to save it. I also talked about things of particular interest to our specific group of students. The workshop ended with a ton of great questions and I knew this was something that I needed to share outside of that one classroom.

Thus, the webinar was born. I tweaked it based on the questions I received. There is so much advanced content I want to cover that I am considering making a second part to get to it all. (Who wants to dive into metadata with me?)

But you should all come to the first one! (Or at least watch the webinar.) Things don't get saved in libraries or museums unless individuals save the material first. Your history does not have to be famous to be important. Family recipes are worth saving. Family stories are you worth saving. Kids drawings are worth saving. Yearbooks are worth saving. Letters are worth saving. Your Instagram presence is worth saving! The webinar is going to cover it all - the physical and the digital. Plus, I'll share ways you can do it on the cheap.

If you take nothing else away from this, I just want you all to remember to BACKUP ALL YOUR PICTURES THAT ARE ON YOUR PHONE!

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• Long Read: The FBI and DOJ's slow building of the January 6th case. [WaPo - gift link]
• I support content warnings but they probably don't work. [Parenting Translator]
• Where is Apple going with this? [PetaPixel]
• How age data explains our current politics. [WaPo - gift link]

• Pigment, power, and history. [Atlas Obscura]
• The scramble to stay employed when laid off on an H1B visa. [Planet Money]
• Pride and Prejudice is a book about finding a house. [Hot and Bothered]
• We need to harvest the power of poop. [Gastropod]
• The glorification of motherhood, welfare, and racism - it all goes together. [Throughline]
• The boogeymen of affordable housing. [Science Vs]
• Who knew fossil hunters were so cut throat? [Atlas Obscura]

• We now have access to Disney+. We may have gotten it for the kiddo but I am, 100%, going to use it to binge watch animated Disney movies for my own nostalgic feels. This week, I put on the newer movie Moana. This film has gorgeous animation - particularly where the ocean is concerned. Plus, I adore the music. Lin-Manuel Miranda hit it out of the park. [Disney+]
• I'm not big on superhero/Marvel universe movies but, when the husband wanted to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, I was fine with it. To me, it was just a blockbuster flick and nothing more. I just don't get much out of this genre. That said, some scenes were very pretty to look at. And, I can readily admit, that I am always impressed by the makeup and costuming in these movies. [Disney+]
• Who knew there were still movies we hadn't seen in the "Liam Neeson punches things" genre. This time, it was Run All Night. It follows Neeson, a former mobbish hitman, trying to protect his son who is being set up for murders he did not commit. The unknown (to me) co-lead, Joel Kinnaman, plays really well against Neeson. This movie feels gritty and lived in. It's one of the better entries in this field. Plus, Ed Harris plays a bad guy and I love that. [Max]

• For my lunch meal prep this week, I wanted to use up the extra brussels sprouts we had in our fridge. That led me to make Italian chopped brussels sprouts salad. So. much. chopping. I think it took me nearly an hour to prep all of this. It was good but not great. I should have amped up the flavors in the dressing. Despite the touch of bland, I looked forward to enjoying this every day. [Ambitious Kitchen]
• Now that we have our farm share, I'm selecting recipes that best use our produce haul. This week, I went with sausage and kale stew. Friends of ours affectionately call this "pizza stew" because it has the flavor of pizza without the crust. It was a delicious way to use our kale and the beet greens we had in our crisper drawer. [Budget Bytes]