Issue 2 - Cadence
Producing anything on a regular schedule is a unique experience. I'm already feeling the overlaps between planning this newsletter and the old processes I followed when I had a weekly show, Eclectic Kettle with my friend Ben Ward, on SF community station BFF.fm.
The show ran for five years. In the early days, I'd plan meticulously (down to writing outline "scripts" for voice breaks); as time went on and my confidence grew, the whole process became much more ad-hoc. (Here's my complete, very sparse notes for a December 2017 edition).
Some weeks were full of energy, so much exciting new music bursting onto the scene that planning the week's playlists was a satisfying puzzle. Other weeks were more of a struggle, barely enough time to plan anything; barely enough energy to engage. And yet, with very few exceptions (until I began to spend longer periods in Florida), it happened, week in and week out. People told us they enjoyed it. I'm proud of it.
There's a special sort of presence which starts to develop when you commit yourself to broadcasting in regular, structured ways. A constant consideration of the things you find day-to-day -- is this worth sharing?
And not in the hyper-now social media way, where the dominant form (particularly on twitter) is to post immediately, often without consideration, in service of being "current".
As a result, the things which most succeed (or, perhaps just which satisfy me the most) are those which:
- Are relevant (or delightful or absurd or whatever) beyond the immediate moment
- Either reflect who I am as a person, or trigger some response in me which (I believe) is unique enough to share.
Project Updates
In which I attempt to keep myself honest by talking about things I'm thinking of making, or have half-made. Or perhaps, have put successfully out into the world.
My DJ mixer and decks were in storage for a while, and I didn't finally get them set up until -- quite literally -- Christmas Eve. So, I've been itching to mix something together for a while.
We have a running joke in our family -- whenever the question "what should we listen to?" comes up, both Amy and her sister Kari almost always answer "something chill but upbeat". Not two moods which are completely contradictory, but not quite natural bedfellows either.
Anyway, with that mission in mind, I spent a couple of hours crate-digging and 90 minutes recording yesterday and this set, Winterspring is what fell out. There's also a bit of a trance-y quality running through it, if that's the sort of thing which helps you to work, or exercise, or whatever.
(This cover art links to the actual set, in case that wasn't obvious)
A Thing of Beauty
This is a small example of the intricate embroidery produced by the Shipibo-Conibo people of Peru. The geometric patterns which are integral to the style (and can also be found in Shipibo-Conibo pottery) trace a direct line to ayahuasca shamanism, both reflecting the motifs and visuals which often appear to participants during ayahuasca ceremonies, and as a reflection of the icaros (healing songs) sung by shamans.
There are some more good examples attached to this article if you're curious.
Ephemera
In trying to write a lead in for this week's Ephemera, I stumbled across Fitch's paradox of knowability. It doesn't quite fit the common thread here this week, but it's adjacent.
Basically, this is a tribute to the sort of folks who end up winning Ig Nobel prizes; people who, even though an itch would require quite a bit of fiddly, detailed work to scratch, go on right ahead and scratch it anyway. I, for one, am thankful that such people exist.
People like Tom Forth, who spent the past five years investigating the relative distribution of Pret a Manger sandwich shops and Greggs bakeries across the UK (an endeavor which is tied to weird British layers of class; themselves attached to north/south geographic location). For the record, a breakfast of Greggs sausage rolls followed by a Pret sandwich for lunch sounds like a perfect day to me, so I'm not picking any sides here.
Or how about Fredrick R. Brennan, who was so irritated by the obvious glyph-repeats in a font used to create "typewritten documents" in last year's Joker movie that he painstakingly build the TT2020 font, which takes advantage of advanced OpenType features in order to simulate randomness.
It's a cornucopia of cleverness, obsession, and the end result is both useful, and beautiful for the sheer nerdy effort contained within. It's also amazing to me that, in an age of hundred-million-plus movie budgets, prop-handlers wouldn't just buy a typewriter to produce "typewritten" documents with.
Finally, mysterious github user wh0 (who I'm secretly hoping is connected to mysterious UK house music producers wh0) found the time to determine whether you could actually use (or even close) the scissors, as they're drawn in each major flavor of emoji. A truly stupendous, life-affirming waste of everyone's time.
And a final bonus link for this week's surprisingly UK-heavy edition - the Royal Mail is releasing my childhood as a set of stamps. A single glimpse of the below image was enough to set off the Populous 'earthquake' sound-effect in my head, even though I haven't actually heard it in over 25 years.
I was planning to send this newsletter at 3pm EST, but I got sucked into an hour-plus rabbit-hole playing Populous via browser-based emulator, as is the fashion of our times. It holds up surprisingly well as a game, for what it's worth.
Endnote
I'm really enjoying doing this, so far. If you're enjoying reading it, feel free to let me know by replying to this email. Even better, tell your friends to sign up!