newsletter weekend
Never ceases to amaze me how my concern and worry over the two weeks as to whether I can put something together out of nothing is proven to be unfounded in a single morning and now I'm pondering shifting NL (back) to shorter and weekly again (sign up here, if so yadda yadda yadda) because if not now when (or why) but now I'm hungry so here's an attendance card. Macro0091 out tomorrow AM.
"blind bones"
Latest effort at Lynda Barry's exercises in MAKING COMICS didn't unstick me from my stuckness in The Work (though it did provide a direction for the Etudes – more when I fully flesh out the notion) but it was a fun bit of something different. The rules for "Blind Bones":
And my results:
Definitely a useful way to distract myself from the day's work – and hopefully, perhaps, new and different ways to see what's in front of me – or behind closed eyes.
birdfall / upgrade
Watching Twitter die in such public indignity (I shudder to imagine what's going behind the badge-disabled "hard core" halls and offices is painful, one system shutting down, one after the other after the other, waiting for that last rattle to come as the good times and the bad flood back in collision and in concert. Sounds familiar.
But I'm happy with where I am, socially, now: this space, the newsletter, Mastodon. Still trying to strike the balance between all three, but that will come – probably when I stop thinking of it (I've found over the past several weeks that a purposeful attitude of indifference to result (AKA "fuck it") has been a boon creatively and diabetically): whatever the path forward it's an opportunity to use social media as I would use it were I to start today and not almost twenty years ago: usage in forties will be far different than in twenties.
Or at least it had better be.
Speaking of new from ashes of old: my beloved iPhone XR bit the big one yesterday and I spent much of the afternoon chatting toys and games with a cool kid at Best Buy (neither of us are digging DEATHLOOP) while we set up my iPhone 14 Pro. Haven't really explored it much yet, but I do know that the camera captures dogpictures even better than the XR so that's nice. Plus the screen doesn't have a massive crack and pixlation and black blobs all throughout. Upgrade.
Got stuck in The Work this morning (what does it want to be what am i not hearing what am i not seeing etc etc) so I did a new Lynda Barry / MAKING COMICS exercise. Will post later this morning.
implements/20221117
Thought I might make this a regular feature here, my own version of “Uses This” / “Cool Tools.”
on screen :: primary writing app / second brain is a combination of Obsidian (for generating, storing, and linking) and Muse (for drawing scribbles all over texts and arranging it all across a 34-inch widescreen monitor).
in hand :: Lamy Studio LX black with fine point nib (same nib I've used on all of my Lamy pens: I always take the one that came with the pen off and replace it with that first nib, been there since my first Safari) flowing with black Pilot Iroshizuki Take-Sumi ink upon Baron Fig Confidant notebooks held in a Cold Creek Leather A5 journal cover..
on person :: Rite in the Rain's (appropriately titled) On-the-Go mini notebooks for being on-the-go in Rite-In-The-Rain Wallet (which is pretty useless as a wallet but is an excellent running/daily-wear-n-tear holder) with mini-pen; first thing that goes in my pocket in the morning and stays with me all day long…. Gerber Lockdown-Pry Mutlitool: I never realized how much I would use a small exacto knife until I used it all the time. The rest of the components are great too. I was using a Leatherman Skeletool but I need scissors far more often than I need pliers on a daily basis…. Any one of two “tough solar” Casio G-Shock watches in the current rotation: a GAB2100-1A or a GAB2100C-9A. Simple, no-frills. Love them both.
in orbit :: CW&T's Superlocal: my relationship my daily ritual has been forever altered. A work of functional art… House of Marley Stir It Up turntable: oh, how I love this thing – and how I love the ritual of vinyl. Will probably upgrade speakers though – I prefer more bass than the HOM speakers allow…. Donner Practice Pad + Vic Firth American Classic 2B sticks (wood tip) + George Lawrence Stone's STICK CONTROL: a perfect combo for drumming while thinking. STICK CONTROL is a warhorse, published in 1935, still the go-to-text. Repeat each exercise 20 times. A meditative way revisit a previous iteration when stuck in the current – and keep my increasingly arthritic hands moving.
illuminations
A full return to inverse proportionality?
I am far more excited by the magnetic motion light I've installed above the keyboard tray of the standing desk converter than I should be but I don't care: as brilliant as the UpLift converter is, it makes for a dark keyboard area, especially since I can't move the tray. Fix: magnetic, AAA battery motion LED light so that now, every time I move my hands to the keyboard I can see what I'm typing and it's brilliant and I'm excited and I make no apologies.
Also exciting me WRT light: discovered yesterday that I can tell Siri to turn of the lights after a certain amount of time which makes a perfect timer. My 90 are up, I'm in the dark – save for my little keyboard motion lights, of course...
Current implements post coming later today. Making it a regular thing.
Translation of sketchy hieroglyphics: DOG UNDER BLANKET.
(that other place) notes, expanded
Expanding, from Mastodon post:
As someone who attempted to run the day to day of a company financed by a rich asshole who thought they knew everything by virtue of being a rich asshole – though this particular rich asshole was much more hands off than Twitter's resident rich asshole (except when he had an idea that just had to happen which required me to spend most of my tenure fighting back and getting him to open the wallet to basic site functionality that needed fixing and enhancement – I mean, who would have thought that a digital archive of more than a million pages of scanned historical documents should have a robust and user-friendly search engine?) – I have nothing but sympathy for those trying to keep it afloat: You're staying with a sinking ship whose iceberg decided they should be the captain.
At this rate, I'll be stunned if Twitter's still up and running by the end of the week.