R.I.P. Steve Albini
Fuck.
(The Quietus)
Pete Ashton's Notes & Links
A daily posting on living with chronic fatigue, thinking about stuff and finding interesting things on the internet.
more info
A daily posting on living with chronic fatigue, thinking about stuff and finding interesting things on the internet.
more info
A fantastically detailed breakdown of the batshit economic reality of the book publishing trade (English language, at least) using testimony from the monopolies trial when Penguin Random House tried to buy Simon & Schuster.
I think I can sum up what I’ve learned like this: The Big Five publishing houses spend most of their money on book advances for big celebrities like Britney Spears and franchise authors like James Patterson and this is the bulk of their business. They also sell a lot of Bibles, repeat best sellers like Lord of the Rings, and children’s books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the publishing industry and even fund their vanity project: publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we think about book publishing (which make no money at all and typically sell less than 1,000 copies).
The best thing is, most of this was true in the 1990s when I was in bookselling and was probably always the case, though there’s a load of new post-Amazon stuff of course.
I’m fairly convinced the book trade is an example of collective magic, where we’ve willed something into existence that really shouldn’t survive so that people can write books that no-one will read.
(The Elysian)
Filed under “stuff I never knew I never knew”.
Floriography (language of flowers) is a means of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers. […] Specific floral arrangements were used to send a coded message to the recipient, allowing the sender to express feelings of romance and courtship which could not be spoken aloud in Victorian society. Armed with floral dictionaries, Victorians often exchanged small “talking bouquets” or “word poesy” which could be worn or carried as a fashion accessory.
(Wikipedia)
Lovely bunch of interviews with and photos of people on an allotment down the road from mine.
(Guardian)
One of the key figures in western comics, from the feminist counterculture underground to the modern day, Trina was the GOAT and no mistake. Her story is at times remarkable and she was also pretty fucking cool. Fantagraphics published her autobiography a few years back with THE most awesome cover.
This is probably the most important 1980s British comics anthology (for me, anyway). I have most of the physical issues and was pondering scanning them for posterity, and now I don’t have to. Yay!
The story of German scientific forestry transmits a timeless truth: When we simplify complex systems, we destroy them, and the devastating consequences sometimes aren’t obvious until it’s too late.
My monthly-ish composting newsletter went out this morning.
Wang Preston’s subversive reworking of Friedrich proposes a different relationship with the land. In her version of the image, the figure (the artist herself) is naked – buttocks exposed to the freezing temperatures of the South Pennines, where the photograph was made. Wang Preston stood there for as long as she could handle (10 minutes).
Part portrait, part witness to this solitary durational performance (which will be repeated, with other people, throughout the rest of the year) the raw discomfort Wang Preston felt in standing naked in snow, she has said, is akin to what she experiences as a Chinese woman encountering the exoticised female nudes in canonical western paintings. Rather than the promise of domination, Wang Preston’s nude wanderer offers endurance and symbiosis with the land. Following the trajectory of ecofeminists, Wang Preston frames her “exotic” body in the landscape to point to the way both have been degraded and dominated by the male gaze.
The thing is: none of this is gone. Nothing about the web has changed that prevents us from going back. If anything, it’s become a lot easier. We can return. Better, yet: we can restore the things we loved about the old web while incorporating the wonderful things that have emerged since, developing even better things as we go forward, and leaving behind some things from the early web days we all too often forget when we put on our rose-colored glasses.
When I left the Apple store, I realized that perhaps I had been thinking about the company’s history of big product launches too narrowly. Apple doesn’t just build products, but contexts for its products. The iPod had iTunes, the iPhone has the App Store. Each device ushered with it a marketplace where every offering must adhere to Apple’s rigorous standards for inclusion.
It’s a trick question - the answer is 30kph / 20mph, and here’s 20 minutes of reasons why. We’ve had 20mph limits around us for a few years now and the resistance to them from some drivers is utterly bemusing.
Streaming Follows a Trail Paved by Thieves and Pirates (Pixel Envy)
Paid streaming services are not the product of record industry brilliance. In fact, the most clear lineage can be traced back to websites that were repeatedly accused of destroying the possibility of artists making a living. Ironically, the world’s greatest libraries of digital music were created by loose groups of thieves and pirates. And it all started with a pig-themed website.
The 1918 Flu Pandemic Killed Millions. So Why Does Its Cultural Memory Feel So Faint? (Slate)
According to scholar Elizabeth Outka, the tragedy haunts modernist literature between the lines.
Efficiency Is Biting Back (The Atlantic)
Efficiency, in fact, can be hazardous to our well-being, and a strategic amount of inefficiency is crucial in keeping society healthy.
Toiletpaperfullerenes and Charmin Nanotubes (Observable)
Toilet paper tubes have the curious property that you can flatten them, cut out loops, and link the loops together without fasteners.
The most important technology critic in the world was tired of knowledge based on clicks. So he built an antidote. (The Correspondent)
Evgeny Morozov was a critic of Big Tech long before it became fashionable. Then he built The Syllabus, an online system that breaks the laws of the attention economy. At a time when misinformation about Covid-19 can spread faster than the virus itself, his system is even more important. I was with him when he first shared it with the world.
Hail the maintainers (Aeon)
Capitalism excels at innovation but is failing at maintenance, and for most lives it is maintenance that matters more
‘Allostatic Load’ is the Psychological Reason for Our Pandemic Brain Fog (Vice)
I’m doing so much less than I’m used to, and I’m so tired.
Coronavirus Is Making a Lot of People Anxious and Depressed. But Some Sufferers Actually Feel Better Now. (Daily Beast)
Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting (Medium)
Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again.
We Are Living in a Failed State (The Atlantic)
The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.
Reusable DIY Cloth Mask with Disposable Middle Layer Filter.
Cloth Mask + Kitchen Towel Paper = N70
Coronavirus has robbed us of life’s markers and left us like prisoners crossing off the days until we can live freely again
Painting the shed roof today.
