tue/20220913

in

59ºF, clouds: convinced that part of my Switch love is how much it reminds me of Sega's Game Gear, as close to a perfect portable system as one can get. Current game lineup is CUPHEAD, HADES, and UNTITLED GOOSE GAME in addition to the MARIO KART boot camp: I think I'm unraveling some of my niece's launch trickery. Victory will be mine.

Staring at the screen that's both filled and blank, a recognition emergent that not only do I not know what to write – both in the bird-by-bird and the broad sense – but I’m unsure of how to write it; suspect that it will take both what/how to solve said quandary, or a third (why?) or the right balance of the HW/Obs/Muse nexus but: can't decide if Muse is contributing to the solution or to the problem – or if it's showing me the problem which will, in theory/dreams, lead to the solution? Either way, might be time to let MainFictionThing percolate for a week and return to other MainFictionThing(s).

That said, something's sounding right though I don't know what. Alas.

RIP Godard; I had already planned a rewatch of ALPHAVILLE. Might have to push that up.

mon/20220912

in

63ºF, clouds: Slept through my alarm (only by twenty minutes; must've turned the thing off. Morning blood sugar check reminder alert FTW) and the world didnt end, at least for now.

Returned to working with Muse – NOT as an Obsidian replacement, but as a compliment – this morning: recognized that since MainFictionThing will be released only in physical form (Press (A) 02, hopefully) it needed the spatial thinking Muse does so well for me to approximate page turns and that the more rote, line by line nature of Obsidian wasn't working: I need to see it, manipulate it.

Attempting Muse again with one eye open: flashbacks / PTSD remain from the vanishing text issues that led me to abandon Muse late last year but I'm hopeful that the Mac-iPad sync will at least absolve some of them. Nonetheless, my stance that it's a brilliant concept remains firm: I wish only that my confidence in it wasn't so bendy.

Current method/solution: Obsidian on the Mac (since the Stream Deck works only on Mac), Muse on the iPad. Type things, do full on-writing in Obsidian, add, via Universal Control, to Muse board for manipulation on iPad, return, repeat. More handwriting? Hopeful ameleoration of vanishing text issues. Live back-up, etc etc.

The Switch is a delight.

sun/20220911

in

Issue 0086 of MacroParentheticals – this time in the guise of a 2900-word behemoth (sorry, everyone) that I spent twenty years living, three days thinking about, and two days turning into whatever it was that met the deadline and reached the readers, has been delivered to 50 inboxes. As such, my brain is in a typical NewsletterSunday state of emptiness which is where I want it to be anyhow so, just a few items of housecleaning to end week 37 and begin week 38 (the newsletter being the end, today's posting here being the beginning).

Finished THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER and, as seems to be the way for me with (nearly) every Marvel project since WINTER SOLDIER (still the best – though I do love the ANT-MAN movies), I came away tepid and moderately moved. Had some elements that worked: everyone was great in it – especially Bale, Portman, and Thompson; Hemsworth, at this point, could do the part in his sleep… which is pretty much where the film left me. But I did like the screaming goats.

Note: continuing my assembly of favorite pieces from recent MCU efforts into one project: MST3K Wongersynn with Thor's two screaming goats and Captain Carter and Yelena being Captain Carter and Yelena.

OK that's all I've got. Back to fiction tomorrow morning.

punching sand to improve my capacity to outrun myself

in

The heavy bag is assembled in my former office after finding that the bag / stand was not too wide but rather too tall (after assembly, of course) for the current office in the paintshop; much hilarity ensued. Learning the basics of boxing and incorporating it as my fourth daily solo exercise alongside yoga, HIIT, 5k run, and, I suppose, drumming into my daily exertions has long been a goal. Similar to the previous three / four, I've no interest in competition against anyone but myself, my exertions being simply another means of outrunning the shithead in my brain.

Intriguing to recognize the similarities between a boxing practice and my efforts to re-learn – and improve – upon my previous drummer-iteration: both are hand-led disciplines of metronomic timing, coordinated limb independence, relaxation, rhythm, and movement – foundational jab/cross/hook/whatever are to the bag what foundational paradiddles/flams/flam accents/rolls/open/closed/etc/etc are to the drums. Also explains why I'm getting the hang of boxing quicker than I expected: still, have to learn to slow it down and break each movement down as I would each rudiment on the drumset; either way, a fascinating experiment in fortuitous timing, right/left/right right/left – related: 10-foot-long headphone cable arriving today so I can play the TD-1K without getting my sticks and myself tangled up.

Newsletter writing flurry: a piece that I had intended to be a humorous and somewhat snarky look back has metamorphosed into something else, something different. Such is the way: every time I tell myself I'm going to write something quick and short and entertaining I transform/terraform it into some soul-searching meandering. Either way, it arrives tomorrow morning in subscribers' inboxes.

Treetrimmer invasion update: a growing number of trees in The AC look either like pieces of broccoli or middle finger amputees waving proud in the air but, on the bright side, my grandfather's lawnmower is no longer stuck in the mud – though treetrimmers had fuckall to do with that: self + Amish passerby riding lawnmower lift FTW.

Madisynn and Wong need their own MST3K-inspired MCU show. Wongersynn.

electric treepeople crashing

in

The reign of the Treepeople with chainsaws continues in and and around The AC and I'm keeping one eye on The Work, one eye on the electricity, waiting for that to fall under the weight of a crashing tree, a tree trimmed to prevent, irony of ironies, trees falling on power lines.

Part of efforts on MainFictionThing right now are figuring out how to think of it: remembering something Nick Sousanis said in our TSR interview, that his UNFLATTENING sequel started making sense once he figured out he needed to move... conceiving of something for print-only, at least for me, is something akin writing a pictureless comic: have to think of page turns – or of some kind of hybrid something or other; one of those "I'll know it when I see it, probably" things.

maybe/perhaps/quizas/quizas/quizas…