Mere Being 005 - September - Aiat!

Hey folks. I'm Nat Bennett. If you're reading this, you probably signed up for Mere Being, a monthly-ish update on where I'm at and what I'm up to. Usually also covers something about movies or video games– We have fun here.

Aiat!

We've been playing a lot of Destiny 2 in the Mere Being household. Now you might reasonably ask, Nat, does that mean that I am going to have to know anything about Destiny in order to understand this story? And I assure you, it does not. All you need to know about Destiny is that some of the bad guys are evil shrimps running a pyramid scheme, (literally a pyramid scheme, like– and I am not making this up– a big swarm of pyramids shows up after you start fucking with it) and they're trying to make a phone call to their dad/pyramid scheme boss, and you have to stop them.

Anyway. The aliens henceforth known as Those Bad Shrimps have this complicated philosophy that explains why it's good, actually, that they are part of a galactic, civilization-murdering pyramid scheme, and a big part of it is this concept of Aiat! Which, roughly translated, means, "Things are the way they are because they got that way." But as, like, a war cry.

And this struck the Mere Being household as very funny. These alien shrimps running around quoting Jerry Weinberg.

So we've been trying it out. One of us will be complaining about some dumb computer thing and the other one will sigh aiat... – or – exclaim Aiat! depending on how much we feel like waking up the brain cells in that moment.

It's just basically a good philosophy, you know? Things are. Aiat!

September

New job continues to new job. I'm hoping to be able to officially announce what I've been working on soon – maybe in the next few months. What I can say is that if you're working at a remote company and you care a lot about your company culture you should probably e-mail me so I can give you a demo.

I have made this gazpacho recipe twice in the past two weeks and have plans to make at least once more before the end of Tomato Season. If you have access to a good Spanish restaurant homemade gazpacho + takeout Spanish tortilla makes an extremely acceptable dinner party.

Take care: The recipe assumes you are using a Vitamix, or at least a blender of about that size and power.

Would you read more about food & parties?

I usually dread the end of summer and the return of the cold dark times but this year I'm actually kind of... looking forward to it? Over the past few years I've started building up a repertoire of food and party patterns that are seasonally specific and I'm looking forward to cracking open the cold-weather ones – hot punch, baking, stews, hot pot, cozy movie nights, that kind of thing.

I've been toying for a few years with the idea of writing a newsletter called Feasts. The basic idea is that I'd hold a lot of small, informal dinner parties on a regular date – say, every other Friday night – and write down all the prep and recipes I used for them. Maybe include some photographs. Partly this would be a way to give myself some structure and reason to be having people over regularly, partly this would be a way to write more about food and fellowship, and partly this would be a way to build up a guide to hosting for other poorly-organized nerds.

If that sounds at all interesting leave a comment or send me an e-mail. I make no promises but I am generally much more likely to write when I have an audience.

I'm also starting to think about my next walking/photo pop up newsletter. This will probably happen first quarter of next year. Two main candidates for that right now: "Seven by Seven," a project where I spend 7 days walking 7 miles in San Francisco, and "The French Laundry," a project where I walk from San Francisco to the French Laundry. I might also just schedule a shorter weekend trip to go back to Point Lobos, if it turns out a full week of walking just isn't in the cards for this winter.