sat/20220319

in

Came up with a little side comics project I wanted to try and found that I had already started a file for it six months, give or take, ago, a development that I take to be either a good sign or one of similar lack of forward motion on the MainFictionThing six months in the past. Regardless, put a feeler out into the socials because I'm tired of my failure to get a comics thing into the world being a source of two and a half decades of heartbreak. Maybe it'll become something maybe it won't but fuck it at this point: I'm going for it.

Second episode of PICARD much better than the first and reinforced that all I want out of this series is a Raffi / Seven spinoff... started playing TITANFALL 2 last night – first impression: effective blend of BATTLEFIELD, PACIFIC RIM, HALO, and RED FACTION that will (most likely) sate me while I decide whether or not to dedicate the next chunk of my life to ELDEN RING – probably will, but need a breather from open-world vastness... I am beyond intrigued by the Issa López / Barry Jenkins TRUE DETECTIVE.

MacroParentheticals0073 tomorrow morning; you can sign up here if so inclined.

fri/20220318

in

(in the sanctum) / 42ºF under sunny skies; high of 70ºF, apparently, by midafternoon. Sirens this morning... something seems to be going on. Probably another new tenant in the cemetery by midweek.

Today's lesson: there are few connectivity problems that can't be solved with a hundred feet of ethernet cable. The music, she skips no more; updates, they take place; the dogchildren livestream from living room to Sanctum is streaming live. Connectedly speaking, then all is well; most everything else, too, I suppose – we still have refrigeration, the first edit of my TSR chat with Buttondown's Justin Duke is complete and on target for a release next Weds, and this space is inching closer and closer to what I want it to be (multiple posts, fewer pictures – these posts don't need images unless they do – and fewer textual explanations that feel as though I'm writing for someone other than myself) – which means that my perpetually open eye is open even wider, CLOCKWORK ORANGE-style, watching that next shoe dangling over my head like that tree did back in December.

Started both THE GREAT ROBBERY OF BRAZIL'S CENTRAL BANK on Netflix – wonder how much of MONEY HEIST was inspired by it? – and Pornshak Picheshote's INFIDEL, his comics debut, after falling head over heels for THE GOOD ASIAN: so far, so very, very good. Pulled Fraction and Charretier's NOVEMBER VOL. 1 from the shelves for reference and have rectified my egregious error of having missed the three subsequent volumes that have arrived since I read and loved Vol. 1.

thu/20220317

in

46ºF, currently, and sunny. High of 71ºF forecast and I am, apparently, older than 64% of the world's population and have 43 years left to live. Go me.

At some point within the next week of those remaining 43 years my car will be in the shop: I don't necessarily consider its visit to the car vet to be among the legion of appliances (WE STILL HAVE REFRIGERATION!) replaced over the last six weeks as it, my car, has been a constant nickel-and-dimer since I arrived back in Ohio from my east-coast decade+/- a decade+ ago which reminds me I need to give the wing mirrors their spring duct tape reattachment.

Finished YAKUZA 4 last night and I'm struggling to decide if it was, indeed, my least favorite of the series (I've been playing them in order from 0 for the last year or so) – or if my months in between gameplay (thanks, HALO INFINITE and FAR CRY 6 - totally worth it, though) made me forget everything I had barely remembered in the first place – like the fighting style and rhythm of each of the four protagonists - and rendered any plot impact inert. IDK. Taking a break from the series to try something else – maybe ELDEN RING or HITMAN 3 – and then will resume my mad dash through the series with YAKUZA 5 which apparently has even more protagonists so I can forget five fighting styles instead of four. Still, YAKUZA remains one of my favorite series: Kamurochō is nothing if not an endlessy intriguing place to call videogame home.

At some point I'd like to get around to assembling and recording intros and outros for the two TSR interviews I have to assemble over the next two weeks, prep for the third, get this abysmal Sanctum internet situation worked out (far more difficult to deal with now that I'm back to a desktop computer, my beloved M1 Mac Mini) and fix the backyard fencing before spring really kicks into gear and I'm beholden to the lawncare needs of the in-oldze for next eight months of the 43 years I have left but hey WE STILL HAVE REFRIGERATION AND IT IS WONDERFUL.

wed/20220316

in

Sweet, sweet refrigeration: little did I know how much I could love the sight of condensation on a clear plastic shelf: what a beautiful thing to behold... returned to MONEY HEIST last night, welcome welcome. Continuing efforts to try new things with this space: vowed to myself that I'd let it become what it was going to become and I suppose it's becoming what it wants to become for now – whatever that is… until it isn’t.

Fantastic conversation last night with Justin Duke, creator of Buttondown, for next week’s SOCIALIZED RECLUSE episode.

tue/20220315

in

... though refrigeration returns, allegedly, between 0930 and 1330 today: in the event that they tell me – as they did with either the washer or the dryer or the washer and the dryer – that it won't fit through the door, I will break out the chainsaw and make it fit: such is my determination to bring this latest episode in our season of broken appliances (in the last six weeks: furnace, hot water heater (in the same day), vacuum, and fridge with a d) to a moderately satisfying conclusion.

Also: I look forward to a freezer that doesn't require yogic contortions and stretches for me to be able to reach the keto ice cream in the standup freezer without having to ask my wife who is much taller than I to reach in and get it; I almost fell in last night attempting to grab hold of my beloved eight-carb chocolate peanut butter. And that salted caramel. So good.

New TSR conversation tonight: same one that spent a month in my spam folder because I was too used to things working to look there for three and a half weeks. Noteworthy, here, that my pervasive worries of heading into said interview lacking in capacity to carry on a conversation about the subject matter was, unsurprisingly, unfounded: 90 minutes this morning and I'm good to go. Looking very forward.

Digging the hell out of Universal Control - not sure it will become as invaluable for my day to day as it seems for some, but I'm willing to give it an honest go. Two things I've noticed so far: bigtime battery drain on the M1 iPad Pro (which has been a thing since at least 15.2); and I would like to be able to enable a hot key to jump from monitor to iPad as I tend to leap over there when I mean only to open another document from the Obsdian sidebar.

mon/20220314

in

Expecting a lot of ring-throughs today: "silence unknown callers" is turned off for the delivery crew to schedule a fridge with a d delivery time for tomorrow. There will be refrigerated goods in the fridge again but not today only tomorrow maybe. Room temperature = blech.

In the meantime: the new work / access info.

RIP William Hurt. One of my favorites: DARK CITY, MR BROOKS, GOLIATH, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN…

newsletter sunday 0072 / and if you listen you might hear

in

Brain in newsletter mode. Releasing: Module0004/and if you listen you might hear – as well as an unintended "epic epic of epic epicness" from my past employ – for free to subscribers: Module0004 is available for $1.99 to non-subscribers; epic epic of epic epicness remains NL-only because it will probably make me more unemployable than I already am. Arriving shortly; back to Macro-land.

adventures in broken appliances part eleventeen, or, the warmth of refrigerators sans "d"

in

Bit of a rush: normal block for writing this was overtaken by trip to (INSERT LARGE HOME APPLIANCE STORE HERE) to buy a new fridge and a minifreezer to keep the frozen stuff frozen while we wait on the new fridge. Related: I loathe that "refrigerator" lacks a D and "fridge" requires one lest it be frige which looks like some type of half-assembled IKEA furniture without it; fuck american english.

Rewriting words that were written but are able to be rewritten with the benefit of an essential distance while installing said mini-freezer and more weekend fun. Fuck appliances too.

But at least I like words.

Started CLEO FROM FIVE TO SEVEN yesterday – my first Varda film, another cinematic crime in the wasteland of my personal microculture that I'm making efforts to rectify; I was hooked from the first scene. Will hopefully finish before fridge with a d delivery on Tuesday.

Sunday afternoon explained.

Newsletter and new Module, IF YOU LISTEN YOU MIGHT HEAR tomorrow morning. Free for newsletter subs, $1.99 for everyone else.

of VAMPYR and the perambulations of ass-kicking giants

in

Impromptu horn-honking parade down the potholed state highway last evening for the local girls' high school basketball team which made me think they won their state semis but it turns out they lost, an occurrence which sums up this area all too well but – unlike when OSU wins, loses, or draws – there were no overturned cars set ablaze: firetrucks were out wailing their sirens alofng the impromptu well-you-tried / go team / maybe next time parade so it wouldn't have mattered anyhow; the sidewalks are lined with the remnants of vicarious-living-through-the-efforts-of-others team spirit.

My VAMPYR "thinking of without actually rewatching though I'll get around to it I promise" consideration continues: this, from Mark Le Fanu's (a relative of "Carmilla" – the story upon which VAMPYR is at least partially based – author Sheridan Le Fanu) opening essay to the Criterion edition, "Vampyr's Ghosts and Demons," strikes an inspirational chord as it pertains to director Carl Theodor Dreyer's tastes:

"Notoriously, VAMPYR, his next work and first sound film, would fail to find an audience too, and, even more disasterously than JOAN OF ARC did, so it is worth emphasizing that this strange, hermetic, and experimental film was originally conceived of as, if not exactly a 'potboiler' (the concept is impossible in Dreyer's case), then at least something possessing – he hoped – healthy moneymaking possibilities."

Clearly, it did not: but that VAMPYR approach and my own complete inability to produce anything that could be construed as even remotely "popular" in spite of my love of genre rings so very true: elements/evidence of this in both MainFiction– and AnotherFiction– Projects, though AnotherFiction is most definitely an effort to write more straightahead, accessible (in keeping with my MAKING THE CUT runway and accessible look methodology – but only within the parameters of what I consider "accessible").

Finished REACHER's first season last night: solid (and my favorite Amazon show in awhile) – though I worry that, given the standard first season "getting used-to-it-ness" growing pains of the cast forming their bonds with the written material and with one another of which REACHER, like nearly every other show, was not immune, the "different book / location brought together only by a perambulatory, ass-kicking giant" per season will result less in increased cohesion and simply more first season "getting used-to-it-ness”: a shame to leave behind Finlay and Roscoe – though hopefully Neagley figures into the show’s future, somehow — though who knows, maybe there's a different plan for the series than strict adherence to the structure if not the contents of Childs's novels. All that said, well worth a watch.

Were one to construct a wordcloud of the three most oft-heard phrases in this house, they would be "Kirby, stop," "JesusFuckingChrist," and "What are you eating now?": this is the way / and so it is and so it goes.

notetaking moderation upon an alphabetized menagerie of influence and/or inspiration

in

Updated Access page; Module0004, arriving Sunday (free for NL subscribers, $1.99 for non-), now has a title – until it doesn't.

Started a fresh notebook (Volume 28) this morning (Baron Fig Confidant – I like that they plant a tree for every notebook purchased; comforting to know that my inane scribbles at least do SOME good for the world) and abandoned much of the Bullet Journal methodology, at least within the NB. My index is my zettelkasten / card system (might write a fuller thing about that at some point – including what I use and what I throw out in the method); efforts underway to make my notetaking as much for later reference as it is for brain exorcism/processing via ink (see: inane scribbles, above).

Thinking here of something Sertillanges said in THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE re: notetaking:

"Keep notes made after thinking, and with moderation. In order to avoid some first minute suprises, the effect of some passing preoccupation, or the enthusiasm sometimes aroused by a brilliant form of words, do not definitely include the passage in your notes without letting some time elapse. Quietly, at the right distance, you will judge of the value of your harvest and store up only the good grain in your barns."

But: my method involves using the notebooks as a space to think and using the zettelkasten/index card system as the guide and storehouse for those thoughts and notions potentially useful beyond their brain-clearing/process-of-processing capacities. Todo, then: make handwriting neater (ever ongoing); create defined processing times throughout the day (two or three, probably); consider a different organization of index cards – in addition to indexing the notebooks, they are also where I index bracketed and marked-up books – more in line with how it best works for me (still figuring that part out) / balance, balance, balance.

VAMPYR Blu has arrived and supplants my coffee-stained DVD edition which now lives in The Sanctum for some purpose TBD. Thinking: my current writing style can best be described as somewhere between VAMPYR and THE LIGHTHOUSE, whatever that means or spells for form or for material. Related, perhaps: my fantasy shelf space is to have a Sanctum that won't flood and is possessed of enough shelving to include BluRays and DVDs and Vinyls alongside the hallowed books: all of my disparate influences and inspirations unfolding in an alphabetized menagerie of good shit. Dreamdream / related, in reiteration/broken record: TSR dreamchat is and remains talking VAMPYR and NOSFERATU with Guillermo Del Toro. Someday maybe.

One of my favorite recent discoveries, Ukrainian artist 58918012, is back with a new album, NEEDLE TIP: this is challenging, brutal stuff (made even more so by the context and time in which it is released) and an absolute a must-listen (and support):