Studio Linda Liukas
Letter

No. 47 — 🧭 Year in Review 2022

My name is Linda. I write a bi-weekly newsletter about computer science, childhood, and culture - and 9 665 of you are listening. If you enjoy this issue, please share it with anyone who may find it helpful.

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

―Zora Neale Hurston

A year split in two. Bosh. This half of the year and this half.

Thinking about John Berger and his neighbor's strawberry jelly and baklava. "They are commas of care," he says.

On my work-in-progresses:

Discovered I like structures and balancing things on them. After much flailing around, I tried writing for grownups. It was beautiful as it gave a framework for everything I read. The playground project moves ahead. It's an infrastructure imagination engine that allows me to think new thoughts.

I didn't make my 100 books goal. I barely ran.

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

And here is 2022:

January

  • Paris was gorgeous with its winter haze from an impressionist painting, sunrise at 8:24, and a new ramen place to test for every lunch. Congolese Rumba from the Classic Period played every morning as we woke up in our freezing cold apartment. Still, all in all, a bleak and sad January. I had a lot of trouble finding my place in Paris and was tired of living in two-week intervals.

  • Emptied my old office with mixed feelings. Had a lot of best (wo)man meetings throughout January. A lovely night at OMA's with L and coffee with K. I went to yoga for the first time since the pandemic started. Ran a lot. One of the more memorable runs was to Pere-Lachaise with B. to see Proust's grave and later visited the Proust exhibition at Musee Carnavalet. Channeling Jane Birkin: "My mother was right: When you've got nothing left, all you can do is get into silk underwear and start reading Proust."

  • Read John Berger's Portraits, savoring every essay and the beautiful writing. A month of museums: I loved the Julie Manet exhibition at Marmottan-Monet and visited Rodin and Jacquemart Andre, where I would return many times throughout the year. Luckily no one asked my opinion on Web3. Mushroom color atlas. 

  • Work gave me a lot of joy: the playground project moved on steadily, and I started working on my next book. Wrote about Klara von Neumann (No. 34 — Next up: Klári 🔎 The Case of the Slow Websites 🥐 Activités en français) and dreamed of starting a bookclub (No. 35 — Archaeological algorithms 🏺 Book club 🍄 Mushroom atlas), which however went immediately on a hiatus.

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February

  • Hopeful news to start the month. H. and S. helped us move to a new home with a lovely view over the rooftops of 17th. Bought mimosas and went for a birthday dinner at Arpege. Looked for signs of spring and explored Bois de Boulogne almost every day. Made my own mozzarella and enjoyed the fingerspitzengefühl. L and R came for a weekend visit. Had lovely brunches and a warm extended family encounter in Antony.

  • While the news from Ukraine arrived, I was on my way to London. It felt like something in the Europe I had known shattered. For the rest of the spring, I read books by Eeva Kilpi, recounting her childhood wartime experiences growing up in Finland in the 30s. The Helsinki defense shelters took on a new light. Many of my peers rediscovered a generational, geographic fear.

  • In London with H. and B. - I saw Beatrix Potter at V&A and Francis Bacon, but mostly just enjoyed the city, home cooking with H. and T., and exploring Queens Park. Still spoke with M. every week, which helped with all the fears.

  • Did a small podcast appearance with Hello World. Research on institutions focusing on the long term: museums, libraries, and archives. Kept thinking about Pure Consciousness by Kawara, a traveling installation of seven gray paintings that have been traveling the world since 1998, exhibited in kindergarten classrooms across the globe and which adults are not allowed to explain. Bach Box was suitably weird. 

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March

  • Worked on an audio version of the collected Hello Ruby books. It was challenging and rewarding. Probably four people have listened to it. Still worth it.

  • My godson and his family came to Paris. We did several Michelin restaurants, wandered around the city, and felt the spring approaching. Ballerina weather! Proud Finnish moments as Gallen-Kallela was exhibited at Jacquemart Andre and Edelfelt at Petit Palais. Got really good at visiting a boulangerie and fruit vendors on Saturdays. I was nervous the entire month.

  • Went to Abu Dhabi to the WED Movement opening and was very impressed with the energy and attendees. Got to visit Dubai Expo at the very last moment with R. and snuck in some family time too. Thought about spaces and science funding. One evening the Sahara sand turned Paris dusty yellow.

  • COVID was starting to wane, and larger gatherings were happening. Visited Finland and did professional development for teachers in Kuopio (tried sorting algorithms with licorice!) and workshops for kids on the playground. Both made me want to go back to working directly with children. Meanwhile, Today in kindergarten helps.

  • Had a memorable night with B., K. & P., which almost cost one pair of eyebrows.

  • Bachelorette party for V. I Welcomed two new friends to my life, V. and T. Still felt tiny, but at least a little bit useful.

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April

  • First snow in Paris on the first of April.

  • Worked furiously on a book proposal and outline. Felt good about seeing how much progress I had made. Fell in love with 50 Watts Books. 

  • S. visited us on a cold April evening. Showing A. and J. around Paris. Philharmonics and St. Matthew Passion. Went back to Les Arcs for an easter celebration with both B.’s and my family. It was unseasonably warm, and we felt light and joyous sharing news. Went to Barcelona for a bachelor party I’ll never forget. Celebrated at Savoy with dear friends. Walk with E. on La Coulée Verte. Met with Moira, the dog. The resilience of decades-old computing software (1, 2, 3) kept me entertained.

  • The Helsinki city Urban Environment Committee visited Paris, and I got to talk about the playground project. Put also together thoughts on how Paris has managed child-friendly city design. Found non-scandivanian city dwellers.

  • Judged the children’s book category for Storytel and felt good about how diverse my work nowadays is. Broke my writing hiatus with No. 36 — Play/Pause ⏯️ My phone stuck its tongue out 😝 Wingspan

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May

  • Spent the first two weeks of the month on the road: from Dusseldorf to Copenhagen to Aarhus to Odense to Oulu. Managed to say hi to M., and to folks at Monstrum, to visit ARoS, the Olafur Eliasson skywalk, and the newly opened Hans Christian Andersen House. A quick stop to Galicia for work. Promised myself to one day return for the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. Everywhere there was energy in people getting together.

  • Celebrated dear friends getting married in Italy for a few fairytale days. Then went back to Finland and had a moving lunch with my godmother I hadn’t seen since the pandemic started. These paper ships make me think of Wes Anderson.

  • Suddenly it was tomato season, cherry season, and apricot season. And football season - saw Parc de Princes, PSG’s final match, and Mbappé’s hat trick. Rewatched Moving Castle and was reminded how much I like it. Lifespan of concepts could be a curriculum.

  • Visited New York and did all the usuals: ate at Vanessa’s Dumplings and sneaked into my old courtyard, saw Little Island, Whitney Biennal, saw Life of a Neuron, and hung out with J. Then took a train to Winchester (Penn Station had upgraded it’s look!) for a few life-affirming teaching days. Algae-powered computing. 

  • Wrote a bit about the process for turning a picture book into audio (No. 37 — Writing for ears👂 Listening before reading 🦷 Bluetooth and vikings)

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June

  • Got good news at the beginning of the month from doctors. Took a train to Giverny. H. visited us and we got to show our city. Fun dinner with R., M., and friends - finally! I took a non-fiction writing class where everyone was 10+ years younger than me.

  • I was stressed about the French bureaucracy and my inability to move ahead. The canicule, the first of the many heatwaves, was exhausting, and Paris felt suffocating. Waited for a summer vacation in Finland, which started with significant health problems in the family, changing the tone of the summer completely. Midsummers at V & M’s, the house was full of kids.

  • I wrote about my experience in Winchester (No. 38 — All the Light 🕸️ Trees are Family 🌳 Educators, hi). Fell in love with James Bridle’s Server Farm. Reading one RFC a day. 

  • This was the first year in forever that June wasn’t packed with deadlines. It felt weirdly light, knowing I wouldn’t return to the same rhythm after the summer.

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July

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August

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September

  • La Rentree!

  • Visited Beaune for a memorable weekend of great Burgundy wine, bicycling, and food with B, L & R. Lots of friends in Paris: H. and M. visited us for a weekend that made us feel like we were visiting another Paris. N. & I. were here for a memorable two days.

  • Printed out the entire manuscript for the book to work on, but/and would next open it in late November. Spoke about the playground project in public and wrote about two books I liked (No. 41 — Umwelt 👀 Robot readable world 🍄 Sonic Symbolism). Dropped a lot of balls at work, but somehow afterward, everything turned out for the better. Combinatory logic, but with birds. (I later realized I’m a bird.)

  • Played Bach almost every day, but unlike in 2018, this year was out of joy. Peter Gregson’s recomposition of Bach’s cello suites was a highlight of the year. I also spent so much time obsessing over Björk’s new album (“Mahler via Public Enemy,” “Mushroom album,” “Biological techno”).

  • “The Italians have a word for the store of poems you have in your head: a gazofilacio […] in its original language, it actually means a treasure chamber of the mind. The poems I remember are the milestones marking the journey of my life. And unlike paintings, sculptures or passages of great music, they do not outstrip the scope of memory, but are the actual thing, incarnate.” — Clive James.

  • Two weeks I’ll never forget. “So this is it,” I kept thinking. Slow, rainy days. Long, fractured nights.

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October

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November

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December

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