No. 67 — 🧭 Year in Review 2023

all the worlds, each more beautiful than the last

And the world goes by,
all the worlds, each more beautiful than the last;
- Louise Glück, Winter Recipes from the Collective

A full decade of yearly reviews.

A lot of the work I’m doing right now - writing, researching, family - is not about immediately creating something. This year has been about building capacity and agency. Three-body problem in a whole new setting.

After sticking with the yearly reviews for a decade, it feels feels like there is room for a reshuffle - somehow changing the format so that it would be less about doing this, doing that, and bigger themes would have room to emerge. I’ll see what to do about it next year.

I keep returning to this: I want to go back to working directly with children.

This is the tenth time writing this. Here are 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014.

And here is 2023:

January

• Happy Year of Rabbit! I think of life in Paris as seasons. This is season number four. In it, I know already how our neighbourhood work and my daily life has a routine. I find babysitters, navigate Pajemploi and get two long awaited cards:

  a carte vitale and a carte citoyenne.

• Celebrated Epiphany with Galette des rois and dinner at Le Paul Bert with C. and K. Found friends from the neighbourhood. Marvelled at the beauty of Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle with M. and A. Started keeping a simple weekly log on my iPhone notes of meals cooked. Helped so much to surface ideas.

• Visited south of France to introduce new family members to Les Arcs. I’ve always dreamt of a quirky small town life, and no I found it. Most delightful series of the year was TinyScifi.

• We need more words to describe audio stories. Also, in general, more words. Maybe those are hiding in the latent spaces, amid the matrices of LLMs.

• Tried to wrap my brain around all the advances in generative AI, but somehow everything was so bland and smooth it just bounced off. Waiting for something strange to come out, meanwhile brushing my understanding of matrices.

• Still wrote about generative AI, which was also the most popular post of the year (No. 49 — ChatGPT 🗣️ Like a calculator for math education 🧮 Maria Montessori hated play)

Read

• Malma station by Alex Schulman.

• The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Loved this!

• The White Book by Kang Han

• France: An Adventure History by Graham Robb

• Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

• Vaivan arvoista – esseitä poikkeuskirjallisuudesta (FI) by Ville-Juhani Sutinen.

• The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt. Should read more novellas..I love the description of the series, to “deliver the pleasure one felt as a child reading a marvelous book from cover to cover in an afternoon.”

• On Reading: Provocations, consolations and suggestions for reading more freely by Nick Parker

February

• At times it was freezing cold in our apartment. I remember huddling in the bedroom with jackets on, waiting for the gas technician to visit. Mom came for a week and we got to go to Les 110 Taillevent. (Throughout the year we were supported by so many family members - thank you). Book of the year Hippu, Hipou.

• Had a terrible case of tendinitis in both wrists and after months of postponing, got both hands operated.Bought my first Astier de Vilette and visited La pharmacie des Âme. Hung out with K around the left bank, lovely night. S. and O. visited.

• Weirdest museum of the month: Musee Gustave Moreau. Lovely exhibition at Bourse with Anicka Yi’s whispering kelp pods and a Danh Vo’s primeval Fortnite. Atlas of Landscapes in a Room. Felt like my book was starting to fade into view. Lots of work with Hive and playground. Most delightful urban design innovation: the reverse periscope.

• Returned to Samuel’s New Educational Models list many times. Liked this: “We believed the opposite of hype was not pessimism, which could be its own kind of racket, but specificity. We wanted to pay closer attention to how things work and to the people who made them. Attention is a form of prayer, a philosopher once said.”

• Since I work so much alone, I always love to see documents, worksheets and templates others use to work together. Loved this: technology that is call sheet

Read

• Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Doerr, Anthony. This was travel writing that stuck with me.

• Trust by Hernan Diaz

• Jaettu (FI) by Emilia Suviala

• After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

March

• A month of family engagements: a name giving party and a lovely marriage ceremony, on a regular Tuesday. This essay obviously resonated: Looking for Alice. (“Someone once asked Gertrude Stein if she was a lesbian. Stein answered no, I just like Alice.”)

• My very brief guide to Iceland: Hafnarhús, Hallgrimskirkja, The Golden Circle, Messinn Selfossi, Friðheimar, Gamla Laugin, Harpa, reading Sjön and Magnasson, playing a discography of Björk. Favorite poem of the year.

• A quick trip to Copenhagen that helped me tremendously professionally. A new idea took hold of my imagination and plans.

• Visited two remarkable places: BFN Richeliu and Albet Edefelts Ateljee on 147 Avenue de Villiers. Finally learned the difference between Simone Weil and Simone Veil. Parisians were striking and the trash on the streets became a conversation starter everywhere.

• London for A’s birthday. Visited the David Hockney Lightbox exposition and was positively surprised. Here’s a lovely little video of Hockney on a Breugel mural.

• Wrote about multiplayer modes (No. 48 — Multiplayer mode ⫶ HTTP Verbs ⫶ Oslo Future Library)

Read

• Rusetti (FI) by Anu Kaaja

• About Grace by Anthony Doerr

• Rosa & Björk (FI) by Satu Rämö

• Hävitys: tapauskertomus (FI) by Iida Rauma. Maybe my favorite fiction of the year so far.

• 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeannette Winterson

• Los Angeles -esseet (FI) by Aino Frilander. Loved these essays.

April

• Lots of visitors again this month, M & E in Paris, as were R & E. For my 37th birthday, had an impromptu lovely dinner with friends. Easter was long and leisurely, C and K visited. Applied for a thing, wasn’t chosen.

• Started a weird obsession for the year with medieval tapestries. It might turn into something, or not. Went to Musee Cluny to see Unicorn and the Lady, read Hockney interview, saw the Bayeux tapestry in Bayeux. Also went to the renovated Musee Carnavalet, which was great. Oh, and the opening of Kim Simonsson’s exhibition at Espace Monte-Cristo Paris!

• Basquiat and Warhol at LV Fondation. On my earphones: Mythologies by Thomas Bangalter. Kept thinking about Sean Scully statues.

• Favourite question of the year: Obituary — if you could choose, would you like a law, a doctrine, a conjecture, or a plan named after you? Related: How to get a theorem named after you

• Celebrated spring with a roadtrip to Normandy and Brittany with K and A. Saw Mt Saint Michel, low-tides, and a very authentic road jam with all Parisians heading out. Warmly recommend Le Bistrot de Cancale.

• Wrote about a video project we did a few years ago (No. 50 - Missing Internet ⫶ Hiding in Plain Sight ⫶ Case studies in Computing Ethics) and scale (No. 51 - On Scale ⫶ Our Glacial Perspectives ⫶ Reading synchronously). Found also a cadence of writing again and stuck to the two posts a month rhythm for almost the entire year.

Read

• A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother by Rachel Cusk

• Yö Whistlerin maalauksessa (FI)by Joel Haahtela

• Manuaali (FI) by Klaus Maunuksela

• Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren. Enjoyed this a lot.

• Teoriani perheestä (FI) by Juha Itkonen

• Kehrä (FI) by Saila Susiluoto

• The Details (EN) by Ia Genberg

• Dreamland - A Self-Help manual (EN) by Andri Snaer Magnason

May

• First of the three stomach flus of the year.

• All of a sudden very warm, with a lot of park life. Les ludotheques in Parc Monceau, evening stroll with P & T. Loved The Dante Project at Opera de Paris. Kept admiring how Paris introduces new next to the old: Chagall in the dome, Buren at Palais Royal.

• Helsinki for a few happy spring days. Loved Kustaa Saksi’s exhibition at Design Museum (hoping it travels far!) and Maija Tammi’s show at Valokuvamuseo (I know it will)

• Spent a week in Zurich, marvelling at the playground design and visiting inlaws. Went to visit Computer History museum. Discovered that Faraday and Babbage knew each other!

• Another trip to London, this time with M. along. Mostly spent time with the kids in parks, but caught Isaac Julien at Tate Britain.

• Wrote about translations (No. 52 - On Translation ⫶ The annoying PPP ⫶ Faraday & Babbage) and my visit to Swiss computer museum (No. 53 - Computer museums ⫶ Synthwave boy ⫶ Software Stories)

Read

• Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature by Sarah Hart

• The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

• Skynda att älska (SE) by Alex Schulman

• Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin

• Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta. I had meant to read this for a long time, glad I did.

• Proust on Proust - Matka aikaan, paikkaan ja ihmiseen (FI) by Hannu Mäkelä

June

• Furious week of writing while my parents were in town. Baked madelines for the first time. Rotisserie D’Argent for French fathers day.

• Two favorite museums I’d recommend to anyone in Paris: Musee Bourdelle and Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature. Quick daytrip to Essen. Big changes in online life: moved from Pinboard to Arena!

• Finally had the time to start playing the new Zelda and felt like “a wild forest toddler who has been driven mad by sudden exposure to Nintendo games”. Appreciated the imrovisation, cooking and engineering! Whatever this energy is.

• Adored Don Knuth on AI, especially recognising where one ought to spend time: “ps: Please reply only with respect to binomial coefficients, because I've already spent way too much time on the topic above! The topic is timely, and important enough not to ignore completely, but it's emphatically not for me.”. Kept repeating the last sentence for myself for much of the year.

• OpenStreetMap Haiku was my favorite web project of the year.

• Wrote about running a school (No. 54 - Summer School ⫶ Tiny Awards ⫶ Sofia Coppola) and reading (No. 55 - Summer books ⫶ Endpapers ⫶ Bookalikes)

Read

• Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

• The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

• Den lodande människan. Havet, djupet och nyfikenheten: Essäer (SE) by Patrik Svensson

• English Pastoral: An Inheritance by James Rebanks

• The LEGO Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World's Imagination by Jens Andersen

• The Didomenico Fragment by Amor Towles

July

• Wedding of E and M was the perfect start for the holiday. Followed by now traditional Savonlinna Ooppera - thank you V & A!

• Saw Asteroid City and visited the new museum Chappe. The beekeepers library was a joy. Wes Anderson on his favorite movies in a Parisian videostore is too many keywords in one sentence.

• Spent many days at our country home. Ordered as many Happy Readers as I could find after hearing that the publication is closing down.

• A-ha moment of the month: “There’s such a difference between hope and expectation. At first I believed it was a question of duration, that hope was awaiting something further away. I was wrong. Expectation belongs to the body, whereas hope belongs to the soul. That’s the difference” - John Berger.

• Took a boat to Sweden! Admired the many and marvellous playgrounds of Stockholm. Went to Junibacken.

• Wrote about Jennifer Robert’s work (No. 56 - Printed Circuits ⫶ Papier Machine ⫶ Expressive electronics) and AI coloring books (No. 57 - The First Artificial Intelligence Coloring Book ⫶ Bayesian Forest ⫶ East Coast 24')

Read

• Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee

• The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

• Seksistä ja matematiikasta (FI) by Iida Rauma

• The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings by Geoff Dyer

• Matrescence by Lucy Jones

• Meri ja Tove. Elämää saaristossa by Otto Latva and Maarit Leskelä–Kärki

• Kiina Xi Jinpingin aikakaudella by Ari-Joonas Pitkänen, Matti Puranen and

  Mika-Matti Taskinen

• A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past by Lewis Hyde.

August

• Back in Paris, where everything was closed and it was hot. Favorite salad of the summer. Enjoyed having Alexis Madrigal back with Oakland Garden Club!

• Visited The Gobelins manufactory to learn about modern tapestry making. Loved our little date nights on Thursday evenings. Studied Richter scales - for everything.

• Went to see Oppenheimer alone in the movies, which felt like a luxury. Celebrated the book year at Otava yard party. Another trip to Copenhagen for Naive Yearly. A visit to Sweden. E opened Clayhem, very proud!

• Favorite rabbit hole: Spotify Weirdness Edition. Enjoyed these codebase visualisations.

• Wrote about story as a learning tool (No. 58 - Science syllabuses with fiction ⫶ The Other Oppenheimer ⫶ Maps of Matter)

Read

• Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. One of my favorites.

• Ubi Sunt by Blaise Agüera y Arcas

• Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin

• Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark. This I ended up buying also as a physical copy, very useful.

• Ei mitään rajaa: miksi vanhemmuus väsyttää ja miksi siihen kannattaa silti ryhty (FI) by Anna Munsterhjelm

• Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

• Hard Land by Benedict Wells

• Minä, Armi Maria R. (FI) by Raija Oranen

September

• N & J got married in Rome and the celebration gathered so many friends in the city. Hanging out by the sea was the best cure for hangover.

• Visited Utrecht for work and fell in love with the Nintje. C started at daycare a few hours a week, which opened up whole new time universes. A whirlwind night at the Tove Jansson exhibition and wining at Septime’s La Cave. Neko for life. Prediction: cursor effects will make a come back.

• A hope, a disappointment, and consequences that lasted the entire fall.

• L. came to visit and we got to see Björk in Paris. Finally watched Tar. Pair with The Instrumentalist by Zadie Smith.

• Read three of my favorite books of the year in one month: Elolliset, Iltavahtimestarin kierrokset and The Maniac. Kept thinking most books would benefit from a map and/or index. Maybe this is were generative AI could actually be useful. Went down a memory lane with this reddit thread.

• Wrote about return to fall (No. 59 - La Rentrée ⫶ Grammar of Computers ⫶ Textual knobs and levers) and lineage/legacy of ideas (No. 60 - Le Ballon Rouge ⫶ The Electric State ⫶ A Little Tooth)

Read

• Iltavahtimestarin kierrokset (FI) by Matias Riikonen. Loved this.

• J&B Kohtauksia eräänlaisesta avioliitosta (FI) by Philip Teir

• The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History, a Philosophy, a Warning by Justin E. H. Smith

• Elolliset (FI) by Iida Turpeinen

• Kiertorata (FI) by Matias Riikonen

• My Child, the Algorithm by Hannah Silva

• Katoamisten kirja (FI) by Iida Rauma

• The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut

• Kaksi kertaa kadonnut (FI) by Joel Haahtela

October

• A. and her family visited us and it felt very special to show the city with E. Surprise reconnection with T was lovely. Ran around for an afternoon at the Jardin des Ventes et Dunes with E. and family. The Modigliani exhibition at Orangerie. The new math museum, Maison des Maths was a thrill. Visited Paris+ and it seems “Something is going on. People want to come to Paris now”

• Started a very cool course called Speculative Biophilia, but then life just got in the way. Spent many nights watching the shorts by Wes Anderson. Perfect, perfect.

• A weekend getaway to Chartres to admire the cathedral and catch some fresh air. Later I read Stefan Zweig’s essay about the city. Two deaths that touched me: Louise Gluck and Robert Irwin.

• Construction of the playground started, finally! We also got to share the news of Monstrum partnering with us. Started organising my playground references. Taught in Georgia for three days and then went straight to Les Arcs La Toussant in Arcs.

• Robotic vacuum cleaner was the best purchase of the year! Kept flirting with Merleau-Ponty the entire year. Who would be your dream classic composer to work with Björk?

• Wrote about origami (No. 61 - JWST ⫶ All art starts with a material ⫶ Rabbit Years) and timekeeping (No. 62 - Polish system ⫶ Territory Writing ⫶ Stories over time)

Read

• The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science by

  Michael Strevens

• Jente, 1983 (SWE) by Linn Ullmann

• In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri

• What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

• Ettekö te tiedä kuka minä olen (FI) by Saku Tuominen

• Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis. Loved loved this.

• Molly & Henry : Romaani sotavuosilta (FI) by Kjell Westö

• Foundry by Eliot Peper

• All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley

• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

• Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson. I lived in Brooklyn Heights ten years ago, so this was a fun year.

November

• Felt like the whole family was sick for the entire month, which culminated in a trip to the hospital. Hoping this was the worst of it.. Picasso and Stein with C, breakfasting with new American friends. Made ramen with M. and revisited Cité des Arts.

• Read 1200+ pages in two weeks for Finlandia prizes - and sneaked a Teju Cole quote into the speech. Shook it all off at a Slush party. Constellations throughout ages.

• Ran a lovely workshop in Konsberg and did a lot of talks in the evenings online. Saw a nice small exhibit at Microbiome vernissage. These woodblock prints made me happy.

• Lots of feelings around the big Parc Monceau tree, which I’ve now seen in all the seasons. Built a small tool.

• Wrote about C.S Lewis (No. 63 - Surprised by Joy ⫶ Atomic-sized person ⫶ Trip to Georgia) and asked questions (No. 64 - AMA ⫶ 付喪神 ⫶ Finnish Forest Schools)

Read

• Minne katosi Antti Järvi? (FI) by Antti Järvi. Chose this as the winner.

• Sateentekijät. Eräänlaiset päiväkirjat 1992−2001 by Björn Wahlroos

• Sensuroitu - Raamatun muutosten vaiettu historia by Ville Mäkipelto and

• Pohjoistuulen metsä : Kuvauksia viimeisistä luonnonmetsistä by Kovalainen, Ritva and

• Pirkko Saisio : sopimaton by Heini Junkkaala. Loved this too!

  Junkkaala, Heini

• Aleksi Suomesta by Tuomas Kyrö

• Naisvangit by Sonja Saarikoski

December

• The holiday celebrations started early with family visiting Paris - L, R, K and L brought the warmth of the season. Visited Rothko at LV Fondation and Murmuration, a multiplayer dance performance if anything.

• Saw Boy and the Heron and loved the oddball energy. Chuckled at bureaucracy being France’s secret for success.

• It was snowy and cold in Finland. Our holiday in Finland started with a long-awaited visit to Vinhan kirjakauppa and Serlachius museum where I got to introduce a Schjerfbeck painting I love to my family. A lovely, long evening with olds friends in Savoy.

• Spent several afternoons in Oodi and the National archive and enjoyed the treasure trove of information that is not on Google. It felt like a tiny victory against large language models.

• Wrote about designing activity panels for the playground (No. 65 - Playground abacus ⫶ Stochastic Parrot ⫶ Parallel Computing in the Ancient) and answered some questions (No. 66 - AMA ⫶ Plays & Toys ⫶ Paul Klee sweater)

Read

• The Blue Fox by Sjón

• Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy by Wolfram Eilenberger

• 36 uurnaa : väärässä olemisen historia by Sirpa Kähkönen

• Erään kissan tutkimuksia by Katja Kettu

• Copenhagen by Michael Frayn

• You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

• Alma! by Hanna Weselius