Newsletter.017 - Oct 2021
What you will not find here
- Anything resembling useful advice
- Nothing but undying respect for the craft that is standup comedy. These people are gods among men. To even vaguely consider doing standup the first step is be an amazing writer. And then you have to be an amazing performer. And then you basically can’t make a living from it. Pure art….
- …which you will not find in this newsletter
You, the Hundred
I have 100 readers. This used to be discouraging, deflating every time I go and try and make another one of these. I’m not that bright and way more self-obsessed than I like to admit. 100. Sure it’s a nice round number, but these other clowns who aren’t nearly as clever and funny as I like to delude myself into thinking I am have tens of thousands. Oh woe-es me.
The fact is, that 100 is amazing. Before I started a year and some ago I had zero readers. I’ve 100x’d! Take that hockey stick and put it you know where Mr. Growth Hacker.
Rainbows in the Dark
I’ve written a fair amount of things in the blog, all of which were basically put online all at once, rather than the drip-feed method that keeps you doomscrolling in bed. This is actual internet publishing suicide, all of which I am doing for you, emaciating any paltry views I get. All for you. Read them damnit.
Given-Up
“Congratulations on having the courage to give up and settle down like the rest of humanity. You are among the bravest to walk this sad earth.”
This is what the sign would say as you went on the website for the charity for middle aged people who never had the courage to try to chase their dreams. This is the charity I want to start. But as it is a dream to chase, I’m sitting down and typing instead.
Project updates
The Pizza Complex is back and this time physically at the Cleveland Museum of Broken Dreams. Here’s an excerpt:
The messenger had with him for myself a pizza box, or at least what I understand is a pizza box if one were so crude. In it was a fresh, steaming pizza. From whence it came, one did not know, but it was fresh, of stone hearth fired origin clearly and for me, me, me. On its upper side was the text introducing the project I’ve been reading about, The Pizza Complex which would now be showing in an exclusive private view in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Exclusive was an understatement. Having Giovanni inquire as to the provenance of the piece, we quickly found out the preeminent collector Nigel Woods Buttersworth VI esq. was the man behind this delectable experience and this was not to be missed. The Pizza Complex of course anyone who is anyone in art knows and the box gave appropriately curt and cursory text to the project and the installation, outlining the descent into madness, Lacanian truth and groundswell catharsis that is the Pizza Complex. This has finally, due to the tireless work of Buttersworth, been expressed in spatial terms in the Museum of Broken Dreams, the discriminative, brand new work of Sébastien Laboissonnière, a true palace of the common man’s discontent, housed in a derelict fabrik in a derelict part of a derelict town somewhere, nowhere really, in America. It was a scrumptious peon to other’s suffering, a veritable pieta of disillusionment and mortal, unending want, and Giovanni and I positively needed to be there for the private view.
Dinner DAO is a Thing
Finally, someone figured out a practical and real life use for DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) that a normal person can sort of understand, and weirdly and beautifully, it’s a dinner party.
So yes, actual equity, equality and all of it distributed ledger powered and approved. Amazing. Now if you can port this to a housing association you might just have a wide scale practical reason or application for this stuff. This is a damn good and cute start though. I’m a massive fan, but reckon it needs to be a whole hell of a lot more inclusive for the non-insiders.
Gramps Jim Breaks It Down
There was a time in my life, and probably in yours, where you knew the lyrics to all of your favourite songs. This could have been because you listened to music where the lyrics were relatively easily understood. I did not typically. So lyrics, and the ability to sing along with a band you saw up there screaming their tired, beautiful and hopeful little hearts out up there what passed for a stage in some dive or VFW hall in the Midwest where irony didn’t yet exist, were terribly important. This was especially the case when a lot of what you listened to, including hip hop, was political. We were young and there was a message. And we knew the message because we spent a lot of time in our bedrooms hating our families and reading lyrics. The bedroom was the place where you learned your politics and you learned them through listening while reading along. Reading along to the booklet that came with the packaged music. The point is my guess is that this is all dead because Spotify, but I’m old, so therefore likely wrong. Someone bring me my walker.
The Halfman Geography Showdown
Photo Credit: flickr seabhcan
The British Embassy in Tehran used to be on Winston Churchill Street. The post Islamic Revolution Iranian government decided at some point to rename it Bobby Sands Street, named for the Northern Irish Republican activist or terrorist depending on who you’re talking to. The British embassy moved its entrance.
Beautiful. A place as a fuck you and the equivalent to pretending you didn’t hear it. Absolutely poetic if you can even say that.
Awesome
The best thing to happen to me on a random sunny afternoon just like the other day when I was parking my bike? It was easily one time in London a guy with a “Show No Mercy” shirt offered to watch my bike. If you don’t know what that means, I’m not sure I can help you with the profound meaning of that exchange.
Super Serious Forwards
The Myth of the Productive Commute – We all know how shit commuting is. Some of us just stopped lying to ourselves.
“Wake Up, Sailors, Scurvy Is A Hoax by Kathryn Baecht – Yup, McSweeney’s does it again with yet another biting and witty take on well, you can guess what.
So you want to know with easy, clear, interactive graphics how an internal combustion engine or a tesseract works you say? Then you should probably mosey on over to Bartosz Ciechanowski’s site.
Terribly fascinating article about what you don’t read about when you read about Afghanistan, which is something we always forget: There are always a minimum of two sides to a story, and there are many times worse alternatives that nobody is talking about.
The Other Afghan Women
Why do I do this? Because this paltry once a moon screed keeps me going. Writing is surviving. That’s why. It might be ridiculous and likely sad, but it’s something and we all need one of those things to keep you going. Something to put a lilt in that otherwise dragging step and a thing you actually want to do. Because I ain’t dead yet and neither are you.
Halfman endorses: Bad Wizard, stoner rock, 70’s vans, Mountain Rock, Kvelertak, Norway in general, geography study for counties people are talking about as they’re talking about them, Cedevita, coffee, hiking, Mark Suciu, Adidas Skateboarding, DIY skateparks, watching and thinking about skateboarding instead of actually doing it, the Great Lakes, Red Eagle Distillery and typing.
