Definitely a rest day. Slept right through to 1pm with very little mental disturbance, then Fi came home with great-neph M for an hour before taking him home after which I went back to sleep for a couple more hours. Feeling OK for it though. Sometimes excess sleep can be a problem but not today.
It’s properly damp outside now. The excess dryness of the drought has gone from our garden and everything has that autumnal vibe. It’s quite remarkable how quickly everything changes — the grass is pretty much a vibrant green already. It’s still warm though, which is pleasant.
Another for the “trying to digital detox” pile but noteworthy for relaying an observation by Jenny Odell: “She describes digital habits as grooves formed geologically over time, which is why cold-turkey attempts fail. Social pressure and muscle memory pull us back."
This rings true, and also works both ways. I’ve been off the Instagram app long enough now that I find it instantly repelling to the very core of my soul. I cannot conceive of how my friends, who are decent and intelligent people, can stand to be on it. I haven’t formed those grooves and so it slides right off me.
There are other things that I slot right into, to the point where I probably don’t notice if they’re good or bad for me. Certain YouTube channels might be a candidate here.
I guess the test is whether you find a commercial environment that is designed to extract value from you, be it an app, a shopping mall or a television format, comforting and safe. If so you need to fix that. Be smooth.
If Books Could Kill: Surrounded By Idiots
It’s probably unfair to expect a podcast about one thing to go off on a complete tangent to another thing, but I was a little disappointed that the Peter and Michael didn’t dig deeper into William Moulton Marston when they name checked him as the originator of the DISC assessment, a debunked pseudo-scientific personalty test still beloved by corporate managers looking to excuse their incompetence.
They mentioned that he created Wonder Woman but I wish they’d gone further as he was a fascinating character. Wonder Woman was based on William’s wife Elizabeth, their lover Olive and their lover Marjorie. Along with the polyamory they were very much into BDSM which also informed the Wonder Woman mythos with early issues explicitly promoting the spiritual and social benefits of domination.
That this was happening in the 1940s makes for a fascinating story about underground queer and bondage communities, emergent psychology and social liberation, before the moral majority crushed all dissent in the reactionary 50s. (Oh look, it’s Roy Cohn again.) There’s a biopic, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, which while not perfect I can definitely recommend.
Oh, and DISC stands for dominance, inducement, submission and compliance, in case anyone was unsure where Marston was coming from. Kinda weird that it’s embraced across the business world.
Linky links
- 🎶 Shed your Skin by Unfuture — Always a bit trepidatious when a friend who is not a friend for any musical reasons announces they’ve recorded an album of music in their garden shed and you listen to it hoping against hope that it’s not cringe. Happy to say Matt’s album is pretty good! Phew!
- Why copyright doesn’t do shit for real-life artists who aren’t already fucking rich — Copyright law is not your friend, has never been your friend and will not save you. (Unless you have an army of expensive lawyers.)