New TSR: Christina Rice on THE GODFATHER

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In which author and archivist Christina Rice becomes TSR's first return guest for a fantastic and SPOILER-FILLED (READ: DO NOT LISTEN IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILMS OR READ THE ORIGINAL NOVEL) conversation (a year in the making) in which we wax ecstatic on our shared love of THE GODFATHER: rewatching, the overrated, the underrated, the "goddamn charming" Santino Corleone (and the brilliance of James Caan), my first read of Puzo's original novel (and accompanying public service announcement), Carlo's pasta sauces, my defense of PART III, Grogu shrines, STAR TREK, and more. Check out the episode – BUT ONLY IF YOU'VE SEEN THE FILMS AND READ THE ORIGINAL NOVEL – here.

zettel/obsidian process updates

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Wanted to provide an update on my current writing / Zettelkasten workflow (Obsidian + Analogue) list as it currently stands in this, the era of the Mac Mini; maybe you'll find something useful in it.

Zettel

...  or at least my ANALOG (I do not use Obsidian as a zettelkasten system – though I do transfer cards to Obsidian on a project basis – for the purposes I'm about to lay out) version of it: In our six months together, I've come to think of the ZK as less a repository for all notes and more of an index of the notebooks/journals and books that populate my library (appropriate, given that it rests inside an antique library card catlog). While I use tags, I rarely link notes up – but I am an inveterate highlighter, with each type of note – from my notebooks, from a book – fiction and non- – and "used" highlighted with a corresponding color in both index card and in book/notebook. Also, I rarely include a full note on a card: it's mostly a direction to a particular page in a particular notebook (Volume 27, currently) or a duly marked and bracketed book.

While the copious notecard-taking has dwindled, it's still useful, and, while I don't often reference it, the creation of handwritten cards, both from notebooks and from books, is the best retention tool I've come up with. Exceedingly useful though still – I will reiterate here as I have done in the past – not for everyone.

Obsidian

I've fallen more in love with it since switching over to the Mini: SO NICE to write in and work with. Dig the hell out of foldable headings: huge help with focus, especially as my drafts are documents assembled from different pieces (fragments and shards).

Started using their Daily Notes feature as a process of processing workhour notebook scribbles, as a reference for the next chunk of work, and as a record of music I've listened to for returning EarBliss features here. While I'm trying to stick with writing in the notebook first and following my therapist's method of scribbling during a session then pausing every 15 minutes by saying "let's type this up," I do find the frictionless capture exceedingly useful (especially when paired with my "New Zettelkasten note" hotkey which sends fragments and shards right to my inbox); handwritten notes more for processing than capture? Starting to lean that way.

Oh, right: the ability to create templates and easily insert them is spectacular. I have one for interviews, for all sorts of things - and they've become absolutely essential. Still a lot of work in migration, but I know it will be worth it.

Both the ZK and Obsidian are, nonhyperpolically, transformative. (If you've got any questions, shoot me an email.)

defragmentations

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Returning, I think, to a once-daily (with exceptions made for new work or announcements) posting regimen here: I like the slowness (slower processing, slower thinking, slower process) of it – and the feeling of breath not being wasted (or, rather, of breath wasted in something of a semi-conscious way that lends itself to craft improvement / processing of processing) though I can't discount the possibility that I'm in another of those "burn down everything and rebuild again" modes without actually burning down anything but with plenty of rebuilding – a controlled dis-assembly, perhaps, like when Amish neighbors tear down an old house, plank by plank, to build a newer version of the same house behind it, an occurrence which never ceases to fascinate.

This is my new house. Same as the old house. But a different house.

Maybe I'm considering this because I don't want to be online as much, don't want to be scavenging so much. All I do know is that a change is needed... especially as I get busier and more cognizant of my diminishing time in what probably should count as a midlife crisis, in a way (as they say in the crosswords). All that midlife not-knowing aside, there's some form of unsettling and I'm taking every step I can think of to defragment my brain so I can think of more stuff.

(Also, I want to bring back EarBliss and Newsletter Sunday as journal features; publishing these via the Mac Mini is the best way to do it.)

I also want – in spite of an insane week ahead – to spread out my workday: I'm tired of jamming everything I want to do into four hours in the morning and feeling like shit for the rest of the day as I stare down an inability to do anything but adhere to the designs and whims of duties and people real and imagined: for me, the only way through these feelings of inadequacy is to do the work, to make efforts to push things forward – even if that forward is into the ether of indifference (career advice: be prepared to practice much dentistry, often without novocaine, in "raising awareness" of your work).

So here we are: if the newsletter is the sum of the week, let these daily convenings be the terminus of the morning and the sum of the day previous, a public collision of thoughts and scraps collected in handwritten privacy over the course of a day in the life. And so it is and so it goes.

links/20220220

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