Book Review: Exit Party

From Exit Party, by Emily St. John Mandel

Amazon

"In the first spring after the collapse of the United States, the blossoming of the jacaranda trees felt to Ari like grace. The trees bloomed in the same week that international peacekeeping troops withdrew from Los Angeles, and the convergence of flowers with the absence of foreign soldiers brought a delirious kind of hope. Everyone in the spring of 2031 knew the city was one terrorist attack away from disaster, but that peril made the season more vivid, not less."

Council Recap: Affordable Housing Through HFCs

Source: ChatGPT

On October 19, 2026, the Richardson City Council discussed ways to address housing needs identified in the City's 2025 housing study. The discussion focused on only two closely related methods, HFCs and PFCs. HFC (Housing Finance Corporation) and PFC (Public Facility Corporation) are public instrumentalities in Texas used to partner with private developers for affordable housing through property tax exemptions. Other approaches that are promised to be on future agendas include Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), Opportunity Zones, and zoning changes to foster missing middle housing. But for this meeting, it's all about HFCs and PFCs.

Lanterns (TV 2026)

Rotten Tomatoes

Lanterns (TV 2026): Retelling of the handoff of the ring from Hal Jordan to John Stewart. It's a superhero movie, but it's a human story. It could be a character study of any retiring veteran and the intern replacing him. A-

HBO Max

Disclosure Day (2026)

Rotten Tomatoes

Disclosure Day (2026): Extraterrestrials exist (sci-fi). A TV anchor can communicate with them telepathically (mystery). The government conspires to keep their existence secret (thriller). A scientist races to leak the truth (action). Disclosure Day is Steven Spielberg's genre junk drawer. Worse, the movie ends just where it should begin: with the disclosure. C+

Peacock

POTD: Walkable Salamanca

From 2026 01 02 Salamanca, Spain

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Salamanca, Spain. The photo shows the heart of the Old City. It's medieval. It's beautiful. It's walkable. It's been walkable for a thousand years. The historic Via de la Plata, a branch of the Camino de Santiago, passes through Salamanca. For centuries, it's carried Christian pilgrims for hundreds of kilometers from Seville to Santiago de Compostela.

Bonus photo after the jump.

POTD: Salamanca's Plaza Mayor

From 2026 01 02 Salamanca, Spain

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Salamanca, Spain. Our river cruise ship docked on the border between Portugal and Spain where we transferred to coaches for a day trip to Salamanca. Settlement in Salamanca dates to the Iron Age. The ancient Romans founded a city there. The Christian Kingdom of Leon took hold in the 11th century. So, yeah, Salamanca is old. It's also beautiful and off the beaten track.

Bonus photo after the jump.

Council Recap: 4 Wins for Public Outreach

Source: City of Richardson

On October 12, 2026, the Richardson City Council discussed three public engagement strategies and the venue for its annual State of the City presentation. I've already covered one of the outreach proposals, coordinating town hall meetings, in "Council Recap: City to Coordinate Town Halls". Today, I'll cover two other proposals (monthly video updates on Council meetings and Facebook livestreaming of meetings) as well as the decision to move the State of the City presentation to a larger venue. All told, the Council reached agreement on four public outreach improvements, though some members raised doubts along the way. That's four wins for public outreach in one Council meeting. I call that a good night's work.

Council Recap: City to Coordinate Town Halls

Source: City of Richardson

On October 12, 2026, the Richardson City Council agreed to have the City coordinate scheduling for a series of town hall meetings at which council members would answer questions from the public.

Mayor Amir Omar initiated quarterly town halls, rotating among four areas of the City. He has held six such town halls in total. The format is straightforward: members of the public submit questions; all attendees vote for questions they are most interested in; the Mayor answers the questions that receive the most votes. In the first six such town halls, he managed to answer *every* question. A ChatGPT-generated summary of the Q&A from the Mayor's most recent town hall held on August 5, 2026 can be found here: Mayor Amir Omar Town Hall Reference Book.

Book Review: First Person Singular: A Novel

From First Person Singular, by Haruki Murakami:

Amazon

"I was in New York on business and, with time on my hands, took a walk near my hotel and ducked inside a small used-record store I came across on East Fourteenth Street. And in the section of Charlie Parker records I found, of all things, a record titled Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova. It looked like a bootleg, a privately pressed recording."

Margo's Got Money Troubles (TV 2026)

Rotten Tomatoes

Margo's Got Money Troubles (TV 2026): Elle Fanning plays a college student who gets pregnant, drops out, and creates an OnlyFans account to pay the bills. Her parents are a former Hooter's waitress and a former pro wrestler. Not quite as absurd as you might think. Not as satiric as you might hope. C+

AppleTV+