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The House, Part I (S3E1)
December 7, 2020
Hello and welcome to season 3 of Applied Dilettantery. As you’ve probably noticed, the newsletters have been getting shorter and shorter — to be frank, I’m...
Rewriting Everything in the Rough Draft (AD S2E11)
November 23, 2020
Every time I start writing a newsletter I feel I have nothing to talk about — I’ve veered away from planning like it’s a deer that just leapt onto the road —...
Getting Sidetracked Building A Detailed Universe (AD S2E10)
November 9, 2020
As the days get shorter, so do the newsletters. A stray comment from Sherry had me thinking: why do I write this newsletter, anyway? I think the two main...
Isn’t That Just New Years’ Resolutions? (AD S2E9)
October 26, 2020
Rough draft completed, with a total of 51,434 words. However, it is very, very rough — I will take November to basically completely rewrite it. And then,...
Surprising, and Maybe Even Unfair (AD S2E8)
October 12, 2020
48,000 words. Just 2,000 left to go before the rough draft is done! Two essays this week, no miscellanea (didn’t you have enough miscellanea the last two...
An Anthology of Obsessions (S2E7)
September 28, 2020
Wait, it’s newsletter day again? That can’t be correct — let me check the calendar. Ah, I see it is in fact newsletter day again. I’m sad to report that, for...
A Form of Transcendent Mysticism (S2E6)
September 14, 2020
Apologies, this will once again be a short issue—pages don’t write themselves, and seeing as how we’re halfway through my (self-declared) NaSepWriMo, I just...
We Now Disrupt This Broadcast (S2E5)
August 31, 2020
Hello all! This will be a short missive (isn’t “missive” a great word?) because, to be completely frank, I forgot that it was newsletter week until just now....
This Email Has No Content (AD S2E4)
August 17, 2020
Hello again and welcome back to half-baked essay land. This is a long one (sorry!) but hopefully it’s of some interest. I’ve been working on a SwiftUI...
Simultaneously Praising Restraint and Forgiveness While Also Drenching Audiences in Gallons of Stage Blood (AD S2E3)
August 2, 2020
Another two weeks of work and pandemic boredom. All images this week are stills from Tokyo Story, which you’ll read about below. That which is spontaneously...
Suffused with a Deep Sense of Nostalgia for the Past (AD S2E2)
July 20, 2020
You ever had one of those weeks that was just… rough. Not even bad, mind, but just rough. Well, these past two weeks were some of those weeks—I can’t even...
Misplaced Institutional Incentives (AD S2E1)
July 6, 2020
Hello one and all to this new season of Applied Dilettantery (neé Adventures in Dilettantery)1, two weeks early. As mentioned in the last few issues, I’ve...
Running Out of Steam (AiD S1E26)
June 22, 2020
It’s been a bit of a long two weeks, so this issue is rather short, if you discount the (very) short story I’ve attached to the end 🙂 So, without further...
An Imitation of the Eternal Forms (AiD S1E25)
June 8, 2020
Buddha Amitabha with Two Attending Bodhisattvas, 1200s Boy, what a year, huh? What I’m Thinking About Black lives matter. I’ve done the bare minimum...
The Clockwork Precision of Storytelling (AiD #24)
May 25, 2020
Hello, one and all, from the latter half of a delightful four day weekend (that nevertheless feels just a little too short to be entirely satisfying). I...
A Long-Term Target for Reading (AiD #23)
May 10, 2020
Hello all! It’s that Sunday again—another weekend, another adventure in dilettantery. I do apologize for the length of the newsletter, this week and every...
Hopefully A Nice Chance for Rest and Relaxation (AiD #22)
April 27, 2020
Hello all and hopefully you’re all staying safe and sane. Personally, I (and, it seems, most of my coworkers) am finally feeling the strain of work-from-...
Convicted Unanimously by a Jury of His Peers
April 13, 2020
Happy Easter one and all! It’s not actually a holiday here in California, but oh well. Short edition this week, since I already wrote a 2,000-word newsletter...
Surprise Stories (AiD #20)
April 6, 2020
Russell here with some surprise flash fiction, inspired by Sherry (and Magic Realism Bot). These aren’t particularly polished (honestly, I don’t think...
Mindbending Escheresque Puzzle World Works of Art
March 30, 2020
Yes, it’s me, Russell, back with another exciting issue of “what have you done in the past two weeks”, which (it will surprise nobody) mostly consists of...
... And Another Thing
March 16, 2020
Right after going to press, I saw this video about Italians singing from the rooftop to survive quarantine and Chinese sending videos of support to Italy,...
This Story Is Bonkers and Has No Chill
March 16, 2020
rwblickhan 5 likes Mirrors show us not what is seen, but only what is unseen Feb. 29, 2020, 7:52 a.m. Hello all from a world that looks considerably scarier...
Nothing!
March 2, 2020
rwblickhan 6 likes And then one day, their shadows grew longer Feb. 24, 2020, 2:51 a.m. I don’t have much in the way of “deep thoughts” this time (do I...
Hello from New York
February 17, 2020
Hello from New York, or technically, Union City, New Jersey, but given the trip is around/about New York, I think it's fair to say hello from New York....
A Really Useful Interpretive Lens
February 3, 2020
Sherry’s new artwork on our wall. What I’m Reading I finally finished The Secret of Our Success, Joseph Henrich’s explanation of his theory about, well, the...
Whoops I Got A Dog
January 20, 2020
Short this week because, as the title implies, I got a dog. What I’m Reading Continuing with my book-a-week-for-2020 pledge, I read two books in the past two...
All Quiet on the Non-Fiction Front
January 6, 2020
Happy New Year, one and all! I’ve had a nice two weeks off (exactly coinciding, I am now realizing, with these newsletters) and I’m not preparing to head...
An Intentional Work of Literature
December 23, 2019
This is quite long! I apologize! Just think of it as an early Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Chunjie/insert-other-winter-holidays-here present. What I’m Watching...
Jangly Psychedelic Indie Pop
December 9, 2019
Short one this week because I’m lazy, sorry. What I'm Watching We finished up American Horror Story: Cult, which was reasonably entertaining if not...
An Early Thanksgiving Feast
November 25, 2019
It's almost American Thanksgiving! Which is a profoundly problematic holiday in some ways (although thank god it's not Columbus Day, which has been very...
Is This A Crossover? (It's Not)
November 11, 2019
The Buttondown image uploader seems to be down at the moment, so apologies that this doesn't include any pretty photos. What I'm Watching Having caught up on...
Laser Targeted At My Teenaged Self
October 28, 2019
frostyshadows 28 likes Inktober day 21 - treasure . . . #inktober #inktober2019 #inktober2019day21 #art #sketchbook Oct. 22, 2019, 6:05 a.m. Busy week—guests...
Migraines, and Other Mellifluous Melodies
October 14, 2019
frostyshadows 35 likes Inktober day 8 - frail Went with the idea that the earth is not invincible to humans . . . #inktober #inktober2019 #inktober2019day8...
An Exciting Week of Nothing Much Happening
September 30, 2019
This week I messed things up. A bit, not too much. But I guess that’s life, right? We pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and get back to work. What I’m...
It's A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood
September 16, 2019
What I’m Watching I was finally cajoled into watch not just IT Chapter One but indeed also IT Chapter Two. They’re… fine? Pretty typical Hollywood...
I Don't Know, What's The Content?
September 2, 2019
I made a small tweet a few weeks ago (before the last newsletter, actually, I think) that I want to revisit, where I said that it would be interesting to...
No Musings This Week™️
August 19, 2019
No musings his (bi)week. I (perhaps sadly) haven't been up to much in the past couple weeks, aside from my day job, of course 🙃 What I’m Reading Going...
Soma; Or, Moving to San Francisco and Living to Tell
August 5, 2019
So, I've gone and done it—I’ve moved to San Francisco. I guess in a way this is the culmination of a long-term dream—when I first visited the Bay Area, ten...
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