Many years ago, a college frenemy said the wisest thing I have ever heard. I’ve shared it with a lot of people and I’m sharing it with you all now today. Hold it in your hearts.
This, too, shall pass.
Like a motherfucking kidney stone.
How to write an email
I’m not sure if I can embed Bluesky yet, but please see this post by my friend B:
https://bsky.app/profile/beebrookshire.bsky.social/post/3lf6cbu4uis2n
It’s not just the kids that don’t know how to write emails; it’s us, too.
Practice this. Write coherently so you can get your points across. Salutations and valedictions set boundaries around the writing, much as serifs do for a font, and make it easier to read within the guardrails.
Elf
I realized the other day that Elf is a backwards manic pixie dream girl movie and they cast Zoey Deschanel perfectly because of it
Dystopia Creep, the Torment Nexus, and Repo Man
Today I saw this skeet and thought I would share it.
Petition to call this Dystopia Creep. Torment Nexus is when media illiterate techbros make something from fiction and completely miss the point that the cool thing is bad. Dystopia Creep should be when late stage capitalism gets more evil than writers thought possible.
— Deny Defend Decrow (@corbinbelasco.bsky.social) 2024-12-22T02:59:38.890Z
I don’t believe I can embed Bluesky posts yet, so here’s the text:
Petition to call this Dystopia Creep. Torment Nexus is when media illiterate techbros make something from fiction and completely miss the point that the cool thing is bad. Dystopia Creep should be when late stage capitalism gets more evil than writers thought possible.
Here is the origin of the term Torment Nexus.
Exceptions
This Instagram video about “exceptions” to an abortion ban is surprisingly effective at getting its point across.
It is less effective to ban-with-exceptions than it is to just leave the decision up to the pregnant person and their doctor.
Differently Abled
“Differently Abled is the disability version of Separate But Equal.” That’s a brilliant observation from a comment on this very helpful video about why using terms like “differently abled” is itself feeding into the ableist narrative that we are only as valuable as our ability to produce economic value. Give it a watch.
Quote of the day
Found this on a Tumblr meme posted to Instagram:
“Among cooks, I am the best engineer; and among engineers, I am the best cook.”
I’ll remember this the next time I feel self-conscious about being an amphibian employee.
Prompts
I am stealing this idea from one of my friends; but today’s Short Opinion is that the process of creating AI Art has more in common with “commissioning a painting” than it does with “making art.”
I do have a friend who makes AI art and then paints the results onto canvas, which I think is a really cool thought experiment that’s pushing the boundaries of “what even is art?” — but even that is most similar to the exercise you do in art class, where you copy a famous painting someone did. I recently painted a copy of “Spore Flower,” by Margaret Organ-Kean. My friend with more artistic talent painted a copy of “View of Toledo” by El Greco when we were in high school. It’s a normal thing to do. But it’s not its own act of original creation. And that is perfectly okay. (Paint-and-sips also fall into this category! I love those.)
Another friend calls it “You’re not an artist; you’re asking the interns for spec work.” That feels a little harsh, as does this skeet. But…it’s not the same process as creating the art. It’s more like requirements documentation.
Community
Lots of thinking about community and small towns this weekend.
Community is a system of mutual obligations and unmeasured transactions. (I stole this line from a friend because it’s true.)
You help people, they help you, on down the line. It doesn’t even have to be a barter economy, just a gift economy.
But in every case: you have to show up. You can’t half-ass this.
Lobstering is an actual free market?
I just watched this video from the lobster guy. Apparently in Maine all the boats have to be owner operated, and pay for the crew is done by shares of the total boat’s profit. That’s really good, and IMO very fair. More businesses should be run like this.
Emilybook 