beyondthecitylights

[beyondthecitylights]

19 June 2025

“Blackwood Farm”

This book made me proud to be Louisianan. I empathized with the disconnect and loneliness Quinn described. I imagined what my life would be like if I, too, were able to quit school, hire a private tutor, and go gallivanting around the world learning history and geography first hand.

The book showed me that there were people out there much like myself and there would be cliques of like-minded people whom I would find to surround myself with one day.

And it made Louisiana feel like a fortress - when in those days I’d always viewed it as a prison.

what's a book you read as a teenager that was so magical and personally profound to you it literally changed your life, doesnt matter if the book was actually well written or not. mine's probably the catcher in the rye

[beyondthecitylights]

16 June 2025

What on earth happened to this site since my last log in? I’ve already deleted this post once because I was afraid it had too many flagged terms in it. Long story short, is certain *coughalt coughright* political content being blazed on this site just because it’s June or something?

Anyone else’s “For You” page definitely looking like it’s “For Someone Else” all of a sudden?

Yikes.

[beyondthecitylights]

31 May 2025

So my little hometown got its first professional footballsoccer team this year. It’s minor league, but it’s still a big deal in the eyes of we locals.

Anyway, tonight was their third game ever. It was an away game, and I drove two hours (my first time attending a game) to give them a little boost from the away side cheer squad.

Y’all, they had their asses handed to them. It was tragic. And as a matter of fact they have lost every game so far.

But I mean, come on, they’re a brand new team. Let’s give them some grace.

A fun time was had by all though.

Except the players. Their emotions were high. There were several fights. It was almost as good as a hockey match. “Are you not entertained?!” Yes. Yes I was.

And I will be at the next home game with my whole squad.

[beyondthecitylights]

6 May 2025

My indisputable and unimpeachable observation of the day: Glasgow, Scotland is the Chicago, Illinois of the U.K.

[beyondthecitylights]

30 April 2025

I miss the days when you could easily just find embedded audio posts of songs on this website. I would have located one for you.

But anyway, if you feel like you might be in the mood today for some snappy, big-band French music from 1978, I highly recommend “Dans Les Yeux D’Émilie” by Joe Dassin.

It’s been my big music vibe of the day.

PS: and if any of you have other fun 70s-80s French bangers, do share. I’ve got a nice little collection going, but always room for more. Merci mille fois.

[beyondthecitylights]

29 April 2025

I don’t even drive a little blue truck; I drive a little blue hatchback. However I am obsessed with my Google Maps vehicle icon. It makes me smile every time I look at it. Just vrooming around like a little dude-bro dune buggy.

[beyondthecitylights]

24 April 2025

I have a flight coming up in the next couple of weeks around the same time Real•ID goes into effect in the U.S.

I’m looking forward to witnessing it with so much schadenfreude. These people have had twenty years to get it. The law was literally passed in 2005. I got mine years ago and have transferred it to three different states in that time. It’s hilarious that there are still people who have “refused.”

Honest to god, I cannot wait to watch them argue with TSA like they didn’t know. I’ll be getting to the airport extra early with my popcorn.

[beyondthecitylights]

23 April 2025

Maybe I’ve just spent too much time in my echo chamber, but each and every time I see one of those “Men used to go to war, but now…” posts it makes me so [im not even sure what the apt emotion here is …rage-sad?].

The people making making these posts, men and women who have never been in a war, are romanticizing a time when 18 year old boys were made to line up and slaughter each other, and arguing that that was better than, what, men having long hair? Paternity leave? God forbid. What a world.

I’m aware that *most of these posts are only meant as a joke, but the butt of the joke is the concept that men should have any quality of softness. My uncle who once made fun of me as a teen for wearing sunscreen because “real men don’t wear that shit. A burn ain’t gon kill ya.” would be really into this genre.

[beyondthecitylights]

11 April 2025

Deliberately denying cities pedestrian infrastructure is, in my opinion, a form a cruelty.

That’s a harsh statement, but I still believe it. For reasons, I recently moved back to my childhood hometown in the Deep South. This town is your quintessential car-dependent smallish town. You will struggle to find a neighborhood with a walk score above 10/100. In fact you will struggle to find a neighborhood, even newly built ones, with sidewalks.

Why? Inhibiting mobility is the point. It’s 100° outside, who’s walking??? Answer: “those” people. People who may not can afford a vehicle. People who’ve fallen on hard times. People without purchasing power. If they can’t spend their money here, we don’t want ‘em here.

And so neighborhoods and business districts are built every day along 4-lane, immaculately paved highways with nary a crosswalk in sight.

But people are still expected to staff those locations. And so what happens? Every single day I see people walking along a worn out footpath in the grass alongside the road, or just inside the driving lane itself, putting themselves in the path of every Ken and Karen in his or her oversized suburbitank.

The need for pedestrian infrastructure is there. The demand for it is there. The urbanists among us are speaking out. Affluent suburbanites even *want* to be able to bike to Main Street.

But cites keeping building more and more, with less and less access to get anywhere by foot.

After living in major cities for the better part of the last decade - cities with excellent pedestrian infrastructure and public transport (my neighborhood in Philly had a walk score of 99/100) - seeing this enrages me.

In the year of our lord 2025 city planners know better. They’ve seen the studies. They’ve heard the town halls. They’ve taken the vacations to Amsterdam. They just don’t care.

[beyondthecitylights]

05 April 2025

They’re making a new Tron!

I am the only person I know who is into Tron, so I really have no one in real life to share my excitement with. But I love the Tron universe. I love the films (except for Jeff Bridges). I love the neon colors, the digitization, the lore. I love the music. I really hope they bring Daft Punk back together to score the next one.

And this one will have Jared Leto and Gillian Anderson. And the programs will enter the Real World.

The excitement is real.

Tron: Ares, don’t let me down.

[beyondthecitylights]

17 March 2025

Not me, ‘bout to watch the last episode of White Lotus on my iPad on this flight, praying there isn’t going to be any bare ass or full frontal nudity.

*lowers brightness*

[beyondthecitylights]

30 January 2025

One thing about January 2025 is that, musically, my Belinda Carlisle mood and my Rammstein mood are the same. I can have them both in the same playlist and it’s just a continuous vibe at this point.

Normal isn’t real anymore. My psyche is just picking up on that.

[beyondthecitylights]

27 January 2025

My mother found a vintage teddy bear in an antique store and bought it for my 3 year old niece’s upcoming birthday. She was so excited about her find.

We were having dinner in a restaurant and she was telling me all about and kept saying “I’m just so excited about my new teddy!”

I had to ask her to please start referring to it (in public at least) as a teddy bear. Because when I hear a grown woman going on about a new teddy, a stuffed animal isn’t what comes to mind.

Now she’s salty about and keeps saying it’s her teddy BEEEEAR.

*facepalm*

[beyondthecitylights]

16 December 2024

I ordered a German language copy of The Hobbit (“Der kleine Hobbit”) which was shipped to me all the way from Germany. I wanted to practice my comprehension with a book I basically know by heart.

It arrived late, and I was out of town for a few days - unsurprisingly by the time I got back it had been stolen.

I just want to say to the thief - if you just happen to be a German-speaking Up-To-No-Gooder, then by all means you mother would be disappointed but enjoy my book. If, in the far more likely scenario, you are an any other language speaker, and this book isn’t going to be of any use to you at all, just bring it back. Why not? Can’t really sell it around here, not much of a market for it. I’ll let this one slide.

This reminds me actually of a time when I was in law school in New Orleans and I ordered my legal texts online. My books arrived in a large box, which was promptly stolen. However before I even had a chance to report them stolen or order new copies the thief had opened the box, realized he or she had no need of a hardbound copy of the Uniform Commercial Code, and brought the opened box back to my door with the books still inside. What a considerate thief.

[beyondthecitylights]

26 October 2024

These old Chicago buildings, man.

I live several floors up in a very old Chicago building with thick walls designed for trapping and containing heat through frigid Chicago winters.

And boy does it work well. It’s 47°F and my windows are open to let this heat out. Between the insulation and the physics of heat rising, it’s a thing. During the summer it was misery.

My building was designed with interior transoms, but those have been sealed over the years. I hope it pays off in January during the next polar vortex.

[beyondthecitylights]

23 September 2024

When you grew up in a hyper-religious rural community, every year you see some variation of this on Facebook.

2024 - “I’m raising money to go on a ‘mission trip’ to Greece next summer. Donations are appreciated!”

2023 - “I’m raising money to go on a ‘mission trip’ to Vienna this autumn. Donations are appreciated!”

That second one sure had a lot of mission inside Viennese palaces and baroque concert halls.

I’m just so jaded at this point.

At least when I was young, missions were to sub-Saharan Africa or underserved Central American republics, and time was spent in bush villages and hospitals.

[beyondthecitylights]

07 September 2024

Those “Back in Chicago” vibes.