Issue 15 - Bread
I love this spontaneous quarantine baking trend! I love being a part of it. I love what it says about us as a people—the comfort inherent in fresh bread, the satisfaction when a loaf comes together.
That satisfaction is especially deep because bread-baking inevitably involves a sequence of drawn-out, multi-hour stages, any of which can turn your loaf from fluffy deliciousness to yeasty rock.
As far as my baking journey has gone, I’ve been focussing on consistency and volume, over anything fancy. For a while now I’ve wanted to replicate the white sandwich loaf they use at Trouble Coffee in San Francisco, to make their other-worldly cinnamon toast.
And finally, over the past two months, I think I’ve got it. Or, at least, I’ve got a loaf which has exactly the right texture, and which I can turn out at a consistent quality, from start to finish, in around two hours.
It’s like performing magic; which, I guess, all cooking is to different degrees. But something about the aliveness of fermentation-driven baking; something about the smells, the memories, the colors… it’s extra-magical.
Here’s a couple of loaves I baked recently:
And, in the spirit of sharing, here’s the recipe I started from. I haven’t tweaked much of anything at all, beyond dialling in my own climate and oven’s abilities, proving and baking-wise. Here’s the dirty secret—as long as you have a stand mixer, this bread is the easiest you’ll ever make. Far easier than finding an appropriate 12-hour window in which to prove no-knead bread.
(If you want more baking ruminations, Zoe Williams wrote a good piece for the Guardian).
Project Updates
I DJ'd a live event last weekend! That, plus birthday celebrations, meant that this newsletter didn't happen.
But as a possible consolation, here's the hour of fun house music which resulted:
A Thing of Beauty
I can't remember if I've mentioned it in this venue before, but I'm a strong believer that modern technology has divided the book world into two mostly-separate realms. First is the textual -- fiction and non-fiction where the words are paramount, and (if you have a device you're comfortable reading from) the physical paper form of a book becomes more of an impediment than anything.
But there is still a realm of physicality within books -- those which are beautiful objects in their own right, particularly when they contain pictorial content which doesn't particularly work on a screen.
The book above is the latest from the Standards Manual imprint; they do sterling work collecting old graphics standards into painstakingly-produced volumes. This one is a collection of maps and other documents from the US National Parks system over the past century.
You can see more, or pick up a copy, here.
Ephemera
Coronaphemera
Worth knowing in case you need it -- it seems that lying Covid-19 patients on their stomachs increases their likelihood of survival.
I get elements of why people miss going to an office -- the variety of surroundings, the human contact... but honestly, I see things like this office noise simulator, and it makes me lament how conditioned we all become to the prisons others erect around us for their own financial gain.
I remain astonished at how clearly slowing us all down for a few weeks has improved air quality more or less everywhere. Surely, please, as restrictions become less necessary, we won't forget this?
If we do forget it, it'll probably be because we're gaslit into believing that our past "normal" was flawlessly wonderful. This piece was all over the place a week or so ago, but it's worth making sure as many people as possible have read it.
Contact-tracing is an essential part of getting us to the point where we're gaslit out of valuing clean air again. This post by Kottke was originally just a link to a useful webcomic explainer, but has become deeper and more informative as public discussion about the topic has grown.
Watchlist
A selection of videographic delights for your amusement!
It's 36 minutes long, but this timelapse of the build-out of Star Trek: Discovery's main bridge set is worth the time, even if (like me) you're not crazy-keen on the show.
Proud Parent bot, 16:33 - the latest build from the always-entertaining Simone Giertz.
Seinfeld: The Game About Nothing, 1:02 - incredible pixel-art here; these guys seem to be semi-serious about making this 90s-style point-and-click game, if they can get the licensing sorted out. I would play it, especially if there's a Switch release.
The 8-bit arcade font, deconstructed, 8:11 - gettin' pretty nerdy here, but the story of early arcade fonts are generally the story of human ingenuity when working within constraints (limited pixels, in this case). And besides, when Vox's Estelle Caswell is explaining a topic, it's never not fascinating.
And in case you hadn't heard, Radiohead have committed to releasing a concert video per week on Youtube until the pandemic is past. I hope they do their 2003 Glastonbury performace at some point -- likely still the best live show (of many hundreds) I've ever seen.
Fantasy Computers
I had no idea this was a thing until Andy Baio linked to several examples, but there's a thriving culture out there producing "Fantasy Consoles" -- low-powered, usually 8-bit virtual machines which you can run on your modern computer, and develop/play old-school-style software.
Note, these aren't emulators (similar programs which "pretend" to be an old system or console of yore), but deliberately fantasy systems, which have never existed, and never will, outside of software.
Here, for example, is Pico-8:
And here's a remade Mario clone, running on the TIC-80:
This whole world is such a weird mix of nostalgia, old-school nerdery, and imaginative creativity. If you're getting bored indoors, you could do worse than spend an afternoon digging into it.
Everything else
If you've run out of other home projects and aren't into alternative-universe consoles, why not try making cyanotype prints of your photos?
And if you've run out of jigsaw puzzles to complete, maybe pass a few minutes reading about the jigsaw industry.
I can't remember now where I found this NASA Acronym Dictionary, but, hey, it's a NASA Acronym Dictionary!
Look! A mutant bacterial enzyme which can break down plastics in hours, accelerating recycling processes!
Weird Al has endured through multiple waves of pop culture. The NYTimes has a really engaging profile.
We spent the last few days watching Devs, an unsettling, weird, and surprisingly satisfying SciFi miniseries. It stars Nick Offerman, and goes pretty deep into questions around the nature of existence. Worth a few hours of your time.
Endnote
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