Bird Mail 021
Stuck - Laguna Beach, CA
I’m Bruce Layman and this is Bird Mail, a collection of internet ephemera picked for you and delivered to your inbox every other Tuesday. If you’re new here, welcome! If you’re wondering why you got this email and don’t want to read any further, that’s okay, you can unsubscribe at the bottom of the page with one click.
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I cannot write a better description of this article than the headline it was given, so, here’s 14 Hours Inside the Relentless, Often-Shirtless World of Diplo. If you’re not familiar with Diplo’s oeuvre, I recommend starting with this slightly ridiculous dive into the making of a hit, Where are U Now from the New York Times. You can largely ignore Beeb’s babbling, this video is mostly about the fantastic visualizations NYT created to show the different layers of the song.
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One of my favorite newsletters of 2019 was Robin Sloan’s Year of the Meteor. It was unlike any newsletter I’ve come across before, and it did not continue into the new year, but I believe he will be starting something new soon. I struggle to describe exactly what this newsletter is; it’s almost like a Zine in newsletter form. The Sleep Consultant is a bizarre short story included in one of the issues and, despite only half-way wrapping my head around it, I’ve re-read it twice since.
Dreams are irrelevant to the sleep consultant. This isn’t to say she is not interested in them. When you sleep deeply, dreams can run long, like novels or netflixen or small hells.
Sloan has a fresh newsletter for 2020 called The Society of the Double Dagger that he kicked off February 11th. I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops this year. He has a recent, wonderful, blog post framing learning to code like learning to cook. I’ve been thinking about ideas like this under the umbrella of humane technology (more on this later), but this story is quite touching and I like the way he is choosing to make technology work for him.
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An excellent reminder that irritated is a choice.
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Bird Mail Endorsement: This newsletter, and likely all future newsletters, will be typed for you—after being drafted by hand in a Field Notes—on a wonderful, clicky keyboard. If you don’t have noise-averse office compatriots, I highly recommend the Cherry MX Blue switches. They provide amazing feedback and the most satisfying of clicks.
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Why is it that all movie posters look the same now? They certainly didn’t always follow the same few templates. That said, there are plenty of movies out right now worth seeing, though some might be better viewed in an altered state.
Your friend,
Bruce
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