Category: Life

READING BOOKS TO AMBIENT MUSIC

Love this so much: “Tokyo Underground Club Turns Its Dancefloor Into a “Reading Rave“

“SPREAD, an underground club located in Tokyo’s Shimokitazawa neighborhood, hosted ‘JUCY BOOK RAVE,’ a daytime event that temporarily transformed its dancefloor into a dimly lit reading lounge on September 26th.

Running from 10am to 2pm, the event covered the club floor in carpeting so attendees could sit, recline against the walls or stretch out with a book while ambient music played around them. After 1pm, organizers gradually raised the volume, giving guests the choice to continue reading or hit the dancefloor in the more traditional sense.”

Via Kottke

WITHERING AWAY

As I approach 130 days of walking at least 10 miles per day (yikes), I’ve noticed the decay all around. Mostly wooden decks. The type of decks built onto houses. I notice them, and they’re beat up, falling apart, faded.

And I think about when they were built, and how enthused the families must have been. The outdoor meals they’d have, the friends they’d host.

I think about this too with the basketball hoops in the drive ways. The ones that are rusting away, the nets falling apart from multiple years of storms and snow. These basketball hoops were once the best thing ever for the kids. Put together by the parents, who then watched from the kitchen window the local kids come by to shoot hoops.

Cars, too. Trucks. Broken down, sitting next to the garage with grass growing under the fenders, rust on the roof, windows glazed over. At one point that vehicle was someone’s pride and joy. Someone saved up, or got a car loan, and they were so stoked to have that car.

Lots of walking, lots of thinking. The stuff we loved and looked forward to withers away as the years go on.

HOW TO SPEND THREE HOURS A DAY

Doing anything for three hours everyday sounds insane, sure. I’ve been walking 3+ hours a day now for like 120+ days, and well… it sounds a bit much, but I love it.

Now, “about half of Americans say they spend too much time on their smartphone.”

It’s normal to spend 3+ hours a day on the phone, right? It’s just – haha – the way it is!

Somehow devoting 3+ hours a day to your own thing is too much, but selling our attention to our phones, our data plans, and the businesses that monetize our attention is just a fact of life now.

Apps that limit my screen time, or the physical things like Bricks, or dumb phones… that just don’t work for me. Thankfully I’ve found this fun nerdy thing of walking 10+ miles per day every day and seeing where it takes me.

DISTANCE

THis is just mind boggling, from ‘One Light-Day Away: Time incomprehensible.”

Voyager is moving at close to 60,000 kilometers per hour, which is genuinely extraordinary by any human engineering standard.

At that speed it still took nearly half a century to cover a single light-day. The nearest star is about four light-years away. Do the math: at Voyager’s pace, reaching Alpha Centauri would take something on the order of 70,000 years! We built the first stone monuments about 6,000 years ago. 

Midterm elections are in two months, and then it’s two more years of who knows what?

Also from this post, “If the galaxy were the continental United States, one light-day would be about the width of a parking space.”

HELLO, BUTTERFLY

This butterfly would not leave me alone. First it landed on my shoe. Then it somehow landed on my finger, twice. I went inside, and when I came back it was on my chair waiting for me.

My sister said it’s mom paying a visit, which make me tear up. Miss ya, mom.

THE PSYCHIC WEIGHT OF BELONGINGS

Phil Gyford writes about renting a “skip” (a dumpster, for us American folks):

I’m increasingly aware of the psychic weight of belongings and disposing of stuff that is not and will not serve any physical or emotional purpose lifts the spirits.

I did something similar earlier this year when I had to discard of a massive TV that I was gifted, and it felt so good. Our lease ends in less than a year and I’m already in clean-out mode.

TURNING OUR BACKS ON BILLIONAIRES

Sony took away digital movies that people paid for.
Streaming services keep raising rates.
Amazon bricked old Kindles.

Sounds like the LA Clippers broke salary cap rules.
Sports teams use tax payer money to build stadiums.
Billionaires and VC just bought the Lakers, I guess.
See also, The American Sports Plutocracy Is Bullshit.

People will start turning their backs on all this.

Back to buying books, borrowing movies from the library, going to local sporting events. I can see movie rental places coming back. Hobby shops.

A collective act of turning our backs on the whole corporatized entertainment industry. Playing board games instead of video games. Hosting dinners for friends and neighbors. More pick up games.

“What do all men with power want,” asks the Oralce. “More power.”

Modern top tier entertainment can’t stop. It must seek growth and profit while draining the very soul and joy from everything we fell in love with in the first place.

Good riddance.

STOP BLAMING TECH FOR MISSING OUT

We don’t need a new platform, we need to fucking regain focus on allocate time and attention to the people we say we love and want to follow.

“Oh, I never see my friend’s posts anymore!”

Well fucking bookmark their profile and set a reminder!

Subscribe to their newsletter or RSS or podcast, set a recurring alert to email / call / send a letter.

There’s so much technology available to us to find, re-find, and remind. “Siri, remind me to…” is the probably 85% of the answer to all this.

We don’t need another login, we need to fucking grow up and choose our damn destiny, retake our agency, and dictate our own flow of time and energy.

Another platform run by a bunch of strangers probably ain’t the answer we need.

BE ON SOCIAL MEDIA IF YOU WANT

If you want to be on social media, be on social media. I am not here to convince anyone, or “win” a debate. I don’t want to challenge anybody. I’m not starting a vertical video show called “why the fuck are you on social media?”

But if you’re tired of social media. Worn out. Depleted. Losing hope. Yeah, let’s talk.

Like social media? Cool. Be on social media if you want.