SWTLO(micro)

Note to self: do you care because you’re following them? Or are you following them because you care?

Watched: American Murder: The Family Next Door 📺

Truly horrific. Note: I need a break from true crime media.

Finished reading: LaserWriter II: A Novel by Tamara Shopsin 📚

I loved this “coming of age” vignette, full of nostalgia and focused on a tech repair shop. Even better when I learned that this is based on a real repair shop, and the impact it’s made to its community.

Finished Reading: A Paradise Built In Hell, by Rebecca Solnit. 📚

Somewhere between the ominous sounding title and the heartwarming stories of people helping others, you find yourself truly asking “what kind of person am I in the face of disaster?”

Watched: The Bad Batch, s1. 📺

There were a lot of clichés and common tropes (team of misfits helps child with “something special” about them, especially prevalent after The Mandalorian). But overall not a bad watch.

Thankful for a low-key Halloween, with time to stop and evaluate the things that have been taking up space in my mind. Picked up a bag of candy just in case we get visitors (later). Happy Halloween everyone! 🎃

The first three episodes of Invasion (2021) are extremely slo-paced which, by itself isn’t bad. But the way some of the characters treat others is hard to watch. Looking at you school bully. Also you, shitty husband/dad. 📺

Acapulco (2021) is a light-hearted watch. I like all of the characters, and I love that we’re getting to see stories through Mexican voices (storytellers). 📺

Watched Luca (2021). 🎥

Cute and good-hearted movie.

Finished reading: In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki 📚

I enjoyed every word of this one.

Finished Reading Monstress, Vol. 6: The Vow. 📚

The continued work of Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda still takes my breath away. Takeda’s art is something I like to take my time with; there’s so much in every frame. Liu’s storytelling is great; the tension build up is masterful.

Wishing I didn’t do the NYT Sunday crossword last night (when it first became available) rather than wait until today. Nice to be able to dig up a puzzle from the archives, though. 🧩

Finished reading: Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang 📚

Reframe the way you think about rest, then you might move it up in your list of priorities. It’s been “de-valued” for far too long.

We need more content that is not commercially driven. And that can only happen when you get back your place on the web and you do things at your own pace, following your own rules.

-@manuelmoreale

The man begins to offer his opinions and soon creates his own conversational gravity: everyone is reacting to whatever he’s saying. This, Saunders contends, quickly ruins the party. And if you have a particularly empty-minded Megaphone Guy, you get a discourse that’s not just stupid but that makes everyone in the room stupider as well…

-On the Internet, We’re Always Famous, The New Yorker

Finished reading: The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston 📚

A beautiful weaving in and out of fantasy and reality, history and the present, and family and the self. “Talk-stories” is a wonderful, wonderful way to position it all.

Only 4 days into this 7 day free trial of the NYT Crosswords app, and I’m hooked. I love the rhythm of solving a puzzle every day. But is my “miser” self ready to shell out $40/year for this? 🤔

Lucy Dacus' story behind “Thumbs”, told in this Song Exploder episode, is worth a listen. The feeling and meaning and intent behind expressing yourself through art is absolutely important. 🎵

Oh, hello. If you’re seeking an aggravating experience, might I suggest the native iOS Podcasts app? It’s guaranteed to offer multiple ways to drive you absolutely insane. Also, you’ll revisit redownloaded, already played episodes for no reason at all!

We binge-watched all of Sex Education’s season 3. 📺

Much better than last season. The performances were more mature and the storylines gave the characters a lot more depth.

I feel like Nicholas Bate’s post, Writing More, Writing Better 7 spoke directly to me today. 📝

I have watched Norm Macdonald deliver “the moth joke” a few times since his passing and laugh every time. 😆😢

Macdonald once talked about an uncle dying of cancer, skewering how we now describe people suffering from that disease as “waging a battle” because that means the last thing you do before you die is lose. “I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure that if you die, then the cancer also dies at the same time,” Macdonald said on Comedy Central. “That to me is not a loss. That’s a draw.”

via The New York Times. RIP, Norm Macdonald.

The two “big” events for today were Apple’s “California Streaming” and the vote on the Gubernatorial Recall Election. Their contrasting juxtaposition is not lost on me.

The beginning of Apple’s stream was a love letter to California. It made me proud to call it home.

Why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice.

~Marcus Aurelius

h/t Mike Crittenden