Newsletter.018-Nov 2021
Now
Now how did you find yourself here? Likely because you know me, Jim Kosem, your host for this fine newsletter that is sure to instil unending gratitude.
Please hit REPLY in your email client of choice and let me know what you think in the form of unrequited vitriol, complaints, outright disgust, languid disappointment, emojis, music recommendations or, “What the hell is wrong with you?” Anything will do really and greatly appreciated.
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What you will not find here
- Answers
- Hope
- All of the above
Articles of Awesome
The Top 10, November 2021 is always the guide for your life. Read it, drink it in, live it.
Cyrillic Saves is yet another article about alphabets and a bit of a ramble.
Here’s some “highlights,” AKA old stuff that may be of some merit.
Time to Fun is an actual concept which I still struggle with.
100 Words is primarily a logo and a bunch of sort of related ideas about language that never went anywhere
Semi-long essay about mental meanderings on the notion of Suburban Computing
The Pizza Complex Live – Critics say “a human triumph”
Read about the amazing The Pizza Cycle Opening at the Cleveland Museum of Broken Dreams
Here’s an excerpt:
The Invitation
It was a sunny afternoon, a real peach of an hour at the weekend getaway Schloss Affenkugelnsberg. The castle, a modest manor really of a mere 30 rooms, is nestled in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, overlooking seas of green pine and fir, reaching for the sky and our manor which they couldn’t possibly afford. Giovanni and I had just had tea as it was the hour and between stolen gazes at each other, enjoyed the short, yet pleasant and lush expanse of the tidy cliff garden which reached to the curtain wall keeping our castle on its mountain perch.
We were not expecting callers that day, much less on horseback as it wasn’t even yet that time of year for such invitations, but nonetheless one came. To have our moment disturbed in such a clop-cloppity manner in all ranges of light dust and and equine odour was not ideal to say the least, but we had our interests more than piqued by the messenger, on a passable gelding I wasn’t convinced would have passed the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Warmblutzucht.
I’ve been thinking about installations and “art” for a long time. I did a masters in Interaction Design at the Royal Collage of Art because I thought I could or should be able to be an “installation designer” and do all sorts of crazy, technological things in real life. This clearly never happened beyond the world’s first phone-based tour of a mass grave for kids. I’m not sure how much I care, but enough to still keep on thinking about it. Then again this is The Pizza Complex we’re talking about so obviously required it. And would you believe writing it is way more fun and way easier than trying to make a thing?
Ponder this damnit
As we all get ready for this holiday season whether we like it or not, it’s good to ponder these two things:
“Tradition is peer pressure from dead people.”
From the Netflix documentary “We are the Champions”
And New Years resolutions are soul destroying as Anne Helene Peterson wrote eloquently about this in a post called Is it a Resolution or is it Capitalism?:
This isn’t just New Year’s resolution time, of course. It’s all times, at least under capitalism, which depends on the cultivation of a constant feeling of lack, no matter how much abundance you have received or generated. There’s always more to be done, more ways to improve, productivity levels to cultivate. It’s resolutions all the way down! Significantly, this obsession with personal amelioration also distracts us from the sort of collective action that would actually change things, or work towards a society where “eat a healthy diet” and “save money” weren’t in direct opposition to one another.
Super Serious Forwards
Caution! ⚠️ These emoji mean different things in different countries
Putin buys Erdoğan an ice cream
Martin Shkreli’s Wu-Tang Clan Album Now Belongs to a DAO
Weather Review: New York City, October 3, 2021
The Promise and Paradox of Decentralization
“One possibility for the successor to the current Internet is that it will end up being a system designed to support communities that achieve cohesion based on which forms of addictive or socially corrosive technology they reject. Sort of a digital version of the Amish, not rejecting technology wholesale but carefully considering every new technology before adopting it.”
Ends
Halfman endorses: Gary Spear, Almir Jusović, John Bonham, Team Eagle vs Mancrush Skateboarding, baths, really long email threads where the subject doesn’t really apply any more, Thin Lizzy, just about anything lemon flavoured, The Weedian compilations, brownies, flossing, Cannonball Adderly and conifer trees.
