Ni ni ni and Ba dee ba dee ba dee
Today (22.2.) is cat day in Japan because you’d pronounce that date ni ni ni, and that’s the sound cats make. Well, in Japan anyway. I only know a cat’s sound as something like meow, but I’m not going to argue with people over animals sounds (ever told someone in the US that “cock-a-doodle-doo” is absolutely not even remotely an accurate description of the sound a rooster makes)? Also, any celebration of cats (or any other animals for that matter) is most welcome. So happy cat day to all cats (whether real or cool ones).
The other day, I realized that I don’t miss Instagram. I think when I deleted my account, the app told me that it would be put into some sort of pre-deleted state before it would finally and fully deleted in early March. I guess maybe some people change their mind and come back?
These past few weeks, I mostly caught myself almost opening the app on my phone out of sheer habit. I knew that I spent too much time on it. But I hadn’t been aware of how much it had become this thing to look at (even though I didn’t even enjoy it that much).
In any case, I think I told you that I’ve been playing with both Pixelfed and Foto. Pixelfed is more like Instagram, given it has all kinds of features you know from there. Foto, in contrast, is like the original Instagram. Foto just opened up to public use, so if you’re curious you can now easily check it out.
Just one comment, though: if you have a problem with either of those apps, please tell the people in charge. Telling me isn’t going to do anything.
Also, please don’t tell me that neither Pixelfed or Foto are particularly active. If at least half the people who told me that had instead started using it… I think you know what I’m getting at here.
Foto is weird, though. I mean I get the idea of re-creating the original Instagram experience. But since, we’ve become used to sites in general doing more than one thing, right? I don’t necessarily have a problem with it (it’s not a deal breaker for me), but it does feel a little strange.
A lot of people have moved to Substack. I don’t know if you know this, but Substack has a Nazi problem (this is why I left it). And in late January, they published a piece that contains the sentence “Elon Musk has been a vocal supporter of free speech.” Yes, that Elon Musk, the one with the Nazi salute.
So I don’t know, if you’re looking for a site to use, Substack might not be it.
Speaking of Nazi problems, I can only recommend this long article about Israel and the delusions of Germany’s ‘memory culture’. It explains nicely how Germany got to where it is now, this country that were it a computer, you’d switch it off and then back on again because it’s seriously malfunctioning.
They’re going to have elections tomorrow, and polls have the AfD (the contemporary Nazi party) at 20%, meaning one out of every five Germans will vote for Nazis.
As far as I can tell, Germans living abroad and foreigners are really freaked out about this, whereas most Germans in Germany (well, the Schmidt or Müller ones) simply don’t seem to care.
Meanwhile, Germans whose last names aren’t the Schmidt or Müller kind are openly asking themselves whether they’re still welcome in their home country.
I can’t express in words how dismayed I am about this.
Obviously, things aren’t better on the other side of the Atlantic. Apparently, the fight over photographs is also back: “In a rare move, photos from an exhibition [of Sally Mann’s work] at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth were taken into police custody.”
I like the expression “were taken into police custody”. To begin with, it’s the journalistic passive, where something magically happens to things or people.
And usually, you come across this phrase when someone gets arrested. I‘m imagining the police bursting into the museum, weapons drawn, to confront the pictures: “You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…”
The pictures are always silent, though. It’s us viewers creating the noise around them.
This longer article about Linder is more interesting than the click-bait headline might make it seem. Ironically, there actually is a quote by the artist in the article that says “I’m wary of clickbait”. Aren’t we all? But do read the article, it’s worth it.
Also, the article mentions the Buzzcocks, a band I’m fond of. Here’s a live video of Boredom, one of their most brilliant songs, in particular that guitar solo that goes ba dee ba dee ba dee…
Rutherford Change died. Maybe you’re familiar with his project We Buy White Albums, which for me was one of the few cutting-edge conceptual art accounts on Instagram.
But he also did other work, including this brilliant edit of a State of the Union speech by George W Bush.
It’s strange how that video looks as if it had been produced ages ago. I suppose it was; and yet the turmoil of those years still feel fresh to me (even though that now pales compared with the turmoil of our current times).
“In my view,” writes Dennis Palumbo, “the importance of the storyteller in difficult times—our writers, composers, painters, etc—has never been more obvious. Or relevant.”
First time linking to an article in Psychiatric Times, which refers to the profession and not our times (in case this is not clear).
I’m looking forward to the times when I can mostly link to normal sites again. I don’t mean to imply that the people behind Psychiatric Times aren’t normal. You know what I mean.
Philip K Dick, writes Henry Farrell, “captured with genius was the ontological unease of a world in which the human and the abhuman, the real and the fake, blur together.”
I’ve always been a huge fan of Philip K Dick. I keep re-reading his books on a regular basis. This author was my immediate reference when thinking about what’s going on in the US right now. It’s all straight out of any of his novels, this mix of complete weirdness, tech obsession, fanaticism fueled in part by drug use, and ordinary people trapped caught in the middle.
I own multiple copies of some of his books, simply because whenever I see a cheap vintage paperback that I don’t have, I’ll buy it. I love taking them on long plane rides (that, alas, have now mostly become a thing of the past for me).
Lastly, I still have so many copies of my new book to sell. My business manager* told me that unless I added something about how you can buy a copy from me in this email, I’d be in real trouble. So here then is the reminder. If you want your copy, please send me an email, and we can arrange things.
*I don’t have a business manager.
And with that I will conclude. I hope that for you it was either a ni ni ni day or a ba dee ba dee ba dee one. Or maybe it was both in which case: jackpot.
Unless the cat did their ba dee ba dee ba dee at 3 in the morning (which mine did), meaning you might not have got enough sleep.
Regardless, as always thank you for reading!
— Jörg