GRIZZLY PEAR
In these fraught times, I wonder if the last thirty years of prosperity have been the abberation.
Humans adjust to a new normal very quickly. Adaptability in the face of pressure is generally a good thing, but maybe it comes at a cost of enduring gratitude in the face of continued good fortune.
On a brighter note, we had snow yesterday! Nothing strong enough to stick, but it was fun to watch fluffly white bits descend from on high.
I’ve been culling through my email newsletters again.
I’ve deleted almost all of my political newsletters, but I might still delete the last three – Jonah Goldberg, David French, and Jeff Maurer).
Of course I’m keeping Seth Godin and CJ Chilvers, but none of the other internet marketers – they are all too focused on the tactics of the day.
I’ve gotten rid of all the psuedo-psychologists except for Chris Boutte (who is from Vegas) and Tiny Habits. Interestingly, I’ve kept the guys who have a background in sports – Gordon Byrne, David Epstein, and the Growth EQ guys.
Art and Design still remains strong. I kept the Daily Dose, the Met, Incididental Comics, Create&Release, Fred Hatt, Craig Mod, DesignBoom, Van Schneider, and RLVTR. I don’t need fashion, but I appreciate delight and insight.
I’m still keeping BD+C’s daily 5 and Bob Borson, but they might both be cut as well. However, I find them a good way to keep a pulse on the industry.
In the miscellaneous pile, I’m still subscribed to Mr. Money Moustache (personal finance) and the Let Grow (parenting), and Jamie Thingelstad (personal musings).
Of course American Life in Poetry isn’t going anywhere.
Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.
One day, I’ll finally read Perec’s A Void the novel without an “e”, as well as his novella Les Revenentes the short story that only uses “e”. I have both hiding in my garage, buried in one of my many boxes.
In the meantime, I can vouch for Perec’s magisterial work, Life a User’s Manual. One of my favorite memories of my semester in Paris was reading that book in a park on a gorgeous spring afternoon.
But don’t take my word for it.
In my view, this book, published in Paris in 1978, four years before the author died at the early age of forty-six, is the last real “event in the history of the novel so far. There are many reasons for this: the plan of the book, the incredible scope but at the same time solidly finished; the novelty of its rendering; the compendium of narrative tradition and the encyclopedic summa of things known that lend substance to a particular image of the world; the feeling of “today” that is made from accumulations of the past and the vertigo of the void; the continual presence of anguish and irony together – in a word, the manner in which the pursuit of a definite structural project and the imponderable element of poetry become one and the same thing.
“Multiplicity”, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, Italo Calvino, 1985
Last night I played a quick game and a half of the old DOS game, Deathtrack.
The game has 10 races in a season. I happened to win all the races except for the last race, where I ended 2nd. In frustration, I pulled up a save file halfway through the season and reran the last few races…and ended up second on the very last race!
Naturally, I decided that perfection is overrated and went to bed.
I wonder if the 18-1 Patriots or the 73-win Warriors have made a similar peace with their spectacular seasons that fell just short.
Happy 22-2-21
(to be fair, I should have posted about a palindrome, but I don’t have a story from yesterday about symmetry…but happy 2/21/22 to you as well)
It took me a few weeks to start making 1 sentence stories after reading about them in Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millenium.
The impetus finally came last week at 3:30 AM last Monday when the boy woke us up with a huge nosebleed. While trying to fall back asleep, I decided to finally try my hand at writing some of these stories. This sentence was among the first batch of lines that I tapped into the phone while hazily sliding into slumber.
I wasted last night playing Sid Meier’s original Civilizaation.
To atone for staying up way too late, I wrote a blog post about my love of that game, but I then got replaying Acrtivision’s Deathtrack, my other favorite video game of my childhood. How did thirty years disappear so quickly?
It is super cool to have these old games back available to play on the internet now, but one must exercise some self control in the face of such temptations.
In other words, it’s the internet folks!
I visited my office yesterday, meeting some coworkers for the first time in a couple of years. It was a fun reunion.
However, the drive there and back reminded me why I much prefer WFH.
Borges and Bioy Casares put together an anthology of short extraordinary tales (Cuentos breves y estraordinarios, 1955). I would like to edit a collection of tales consisting of one sentence only, or even a single line. But so far I haven’t fond any to match the one by Guatamalan writer Augusto Monterroso: “Cuando despertó, el dinosauro todavía, estaba allí”.
“Quickness”, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, Italo Calvino, 1985
When I woke up , the dinosaur was still there.
Augusto Monterroso
I went to the dermatologist who removed a mole on my leg for a biopsy. It was strange to watch a small piece of myself being slowly detached from my body.
My guy was just a friendly nurse practitioner. But I now understand why a surgeons are stereotyped to have big egos. Cutting into another human must be the most powerful manifestation of god-hood in this modern world. It must be intoxicating to be the one holding the scapel.
I’ve started playing around with one-sentence stories. I’ll push it through the end of the month and reassess from there. Who knows where this experiment might lead (most likely nowhere), but this is what grizzlypear is for.
Hope you also had a good breakfast this morning.