Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

I'm currently reading the May 2025 issue of Artforum and wanted to share with you some of the things I learned and, in the process, demonstrate how my mind connects things. One of the current exhibitions reviewed in this issue is of paintings by Alex Israel at Gagosian Beverly Hills, which was accompanied by a reproduction of Israel's 2024 painting "Gas Station."

Upon learning that this gas station actually exists, my thoughts immediately went to William Gibson's short story "The Gernsback Continuum" (published in Burning Chrome).

I then returned to the review, where the final paragraph begins with this sentence: "The works' very status as paintings—as art in a gallery—aligns them, moreover, with the long tradition of veduta painting, that of architectural scenes that don't necessarily demand forensic accuracy, edging sometimes into outright fantasy." Having never heard of veduta painting, I immediately looked it up (link here), and discovered I was familiar with this style of painting (the name comes from the Italian for "view"), just not with the word. From that page, I followed the link to capriccio, which is a form of architectural fantasy art and, again, something I was familiar with but hadn't known the name of. As it happened, one of the images illustrating the Wikipedia entry for "capriccio" was a piece by Giovanni Battista Piranesi called "Le Carceri d'Invenzione (The Prisons of Invention)."

This picture immediately caught my eye, because it reminded me of M.C. Escher's works, particularly "Relativity" and "House of Stairs".

This sort of connection-making, going from Alex Israel to William Gibson to Giovanni Battista Piranesi to M.C. Escher, bouncing back and forth over several centuries, is very much how my mind works. I'm constantly feeding in new bits of knowledge, which then bounce off of each other, make connections, and enable me to produce new things.

When I was a kid, the library summer reading program was one of my favorite events of the year. First of all, there were the events at the library, which were not only a lot of fun but also ensured that I got taken to the library at least once a week. Secondly, being encouraged to read lots of books and keep a list of the books that I read was a great thing for a hyperlexic kid. I'm like "Yes! Please reward me for something I want to do anyway!"

I've seen a number of people on social media talking about they wished there were things like the library summer reading program and the Scholastic book fair for grown-ups, and now there is! The American Historical Association is holding a Summer Reading Challenge!

The challenge is to complete at least three tasks from this list between June 1 and Labor Day:

1. Read a history of an event with a major anniversary in 2025.
2. Read a history of a resistance movement.
3. Read a history that uses material culture.
4. Read an edited collection, journal forum, or other multi-author work.
5. Read a history that's been sitting on your shelf too long.
6. Read a piece of historical fiction (novel, story, poem, play)

Right now I'm mentally taking task 5 off the table, because unless I go out and buy a new book for the challenge (which I don't anticipate doing), all of the books I read will be histories that have been sitting on my shelf too long.

I got started today, starting to read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, with a goal to finish it by the end of June.

You can read more about the AHA's 2025 Summer Reading Challenge here, and if you see the hashtag "#AHAReads" around your social media, now you know what it is.