Stuff I’m doing.
Stuff I’m thinking about.
Stuff I’ve seen online and feel is worth sharing.
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Point Nemo, the Most Remote Place on Earth
A nice long read about the furthest point from land in the Pacific, and the people obsessed with it. (via)
Tickets for Caption 2025 are on sale.. Back in the 1990s early 2000s Caption was the annual gathering for self published comics and zine weirdos in the UK and a very important part of my life. I’m intrigued by this revival and have bought my ticket. See you there?
Birmingham’s composting project, Compost Connections, revamped their website and I copyedited the manifesto so much they’ve credited it to me, which is nice. Sidebar / scroll down to Changing Culture through Compost. #permaculture #composting
Saw Megalopolis, which I enjoyed mostly for the audacity of the thing. I was really struck by how operatic it was. Coppola’s uncle was a big name in opera and you can see it in the overblown, heightened, theatrical showiness. That early scene on the gantries, and the chorus nature of the crowds.
It’s not a great film, probably not even a good film, and the politics are nonsensical, but I think it holds something interesting together. I suspect I’ll be thinking about it a lot over the years.
You know how when photography freed painting from the need to be representational and it all went a bit batshit crazy? I’m looking at the catalogue for Breakdown Press, an indie comics publisher, and wondering if they same thing will happen / is happening to book publishing.
How to make your phone go darker
For those who read their phone in bed to keep the brain demons quiet - there’s an iPhone accessibility function called Reduce White Point (similar for Android) which makes it properly dark.
Accessibility settings are a goldmine (which is a bit of an indictment…)
How Self-Driving Cars will Destroy Cities
The summary here would be “you don’t hate self-driving cars, you hate capitalism, and self-driving cars.”
Not Just Bikes give a thorough breakdown of what is to come, what the historical precedents are and why it’s not inevitable, in a 1 hour video essay.
Coupla rabbits for ya.
High-pope of the weird Erik Davis wonders where his rejection of bigotry and xenophobia comes from and, as a child of the 70s, identifies the Mos Eisly cantina scene, zooming in on the historical and cultural meanings attached to such places.
The fact that this is a “cantina” and not a saloon also reflects the logic of Westerns, and the fact that Mexico — which, like Spain, is known for its cantinas — functions as the Western’s (and Hollywood’s) own margin of otherness. It’s not-home turf. […] Within the genre of the Western, whose classic form involves the imposition of (white) code on ruffians, pagans, and wilderness, saloons often represent spaces of slippage, moral ambiguity, negotiated comradery, social conflict, and the mingling of classes and, at least in later Westerns, skin colors. They are the most important “third place” of the Western, which means that, for all their violence and hedonistic excess, they are the space of the demos — the anarchic agora of primitive democracy.
A truth too often missed by today’s institutionally managed multiculturalism is that diversity often thrives at the edge of settled law, outside of homogeneous cultures, and proximate to trade and, therefore, to wayward desire and enmity. It is no accident that today’s nationalists and nativists not only oppose immigration but also generally oppose global trade, that Trump wants massive tariffs. Despite the extraordinary flaws of the post-war neoliberal order, whose neocolonialist karma is now coming due, global trade demands a degree of multicultural pluralism which, for all its own hypocrisies and terrible limitations, is, let’s face it, still better than world war.
Whatever the horrors of the economies that drive them, such enclaves are hotbeds of culture.
I recently watched and thoroughly enjoyed Rachel Bloom’s new standup show Death, Let Me Do My Special and naturally went looking for interviews with her about it. This one on Rolling Stone is good and ends on the dissonance of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend being critically acclaimed while also the lowest-rated show on its network.
Is that dissonance difficult? Especially for projects that you’re extremely proud of?
My therapist has a term for it: status dysmorphia. On one hand, you’re like, “This show’s a big deal.” Our live shows are selling out. I have a Golden Globe. Have an Emmy. The movie offers should just be coming in. Oh, they’re not? But when I listen to [old songs], I’m like, “I can’t believe The CW let us do this.” I can’t believe a network that had Riverdale and superhero shows let us do a song called “Man Nap,” just about men taking a nap. It’s so silly.I’m already thinking of my next show after this. I want to go on tour with a brand new song-stand-up show. I want to do more music videos on YouTube and TikTok. I would love to get some money to make those music videos, but if nothing else, I’ll just fucking do it myself. It all goes back to making your own shit
Does it feel cyclical for you to get your start in showbiz on YouTube and now be thinking about a return to social media?
It’s always going to be me. Sometimes on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, even though we were a TV show, it felt like we were backstage hand-making tinfoil hats for the school play. A couple months ago, I did this musical Reefer Madness in L.A. For a couple of days, I played the role of Jesus. Kristen Bell was a producer and I saw her literally carrying rugs around backstage, mailing out the rehearsal schedules. And I was like, “She’s making the tinfoil hats and she’s Kristen fucking Bell.” At the end of the day, it always comes back to, if you want to make something happen, you gotta get the tinfoil.
I do like how the listing for micro.blog on fedidb is for “microdotblog”, presumably because including the dot fucked up the database, but which has all manner of exciting connotations you would not usually associate with an online publishing platform.
Switched to a different slab of scaffolding plank to make the next shelf support which turned out to be a harder wood with more grain (from slower growth). Interesting! And pretty!
Spent a bit longer sanding it as the gashes from my shaping were much more obvious. #woodworking
Working on the shelf itself today. Always a delight how lovely the wood is underneath the rough cut. Hand-shaved the curve and routed the edge, then sanded to 400. Needs a bit more sanding with a finer grain, but getting there.
Next, stains!
Tegan O’Neil on Nemesis the Warlock
How do you review one of the most batshit British newsstand comics? You review it like this. Far too many great lines to quote here.
The Hallucinogeneration Game – Terence McKenna & The Shamen
I’m deep in the McKenna section of Erik Davis’s High Weirdness book and keep thinking how my main reference point to his work is a stupid pop song from 1992. I probably read this NME interview. I wonder what effect it had on me.
Feel strangely calm today, after weeks (months?) of debilitating stress. It’s sort of like, hell, if the simmering volcano is going to finally erupt and destroy everyone and everything I care about, there’s actually very little I can do about it. It’s not a particularly nice calm, but I’ll take it.
I cannot write a witty enough comment to match the astronomical level of joy this video gave me.
WW3 Illustrated is an underground anthology of leftist and radical comics that’s been published since 1979, emerging from the ass-end of 70s counterculture and DIYing through the neoliberal imperium with issue 54 just released.
The Apprentice movie is good! By far the most disturbing thing is how Roy Cohn emerges a sympathetic character. Yes, to draw comparison with Trump, his Frankenstein’s Monster, but I was not prepared to feel sorry for Roy fucking Cohn. Intrigued as to how those unaware of his history felt.
I recently read and was blown away by Burn’s latest book, Final Cut, so this extensive overview of his 40 year career was very welcome (even if I might quibble with some conclusions…).
I plan to treat myself to a copy of this once I scrape the pennies together.
Made a couple more shelf brackets. Nice to see the shape is settling into something aesthetically pleasing. Earliest one is at the back in the photos. #woodworking
I got this copy of Arthur magazine for Alan Moore’s writing and remember the Newsome piece, though I didn’t know who Davis was back then. Nice to revisit it, and a good excuse to listen to Ys again. Amazing album.
I was struck by how Henry Fonda’s performance in Fail Safe (1964) reminded me of David Lynch as Gordon Cole in Twin Peaks, and in searching around found this lovely piece about his struggles with words which I strongly related to. I love words, but they are hard.