Thursday #6 —  2 July 2026

Hello Thursday!

One of the many ideas that William Gibson presented in his “Sprawl” trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) is the idea of “simstim,” short for “simulated stimulation.” Rather than simply being on camera, actors would be wired to record their entire sensorium, so that when the viewer experienced the work, it was as if they were the actor, doing the things the actor had done. 

One consequence of this technology, presented in a throwaway line in Count Zero and then never mentioned again, is that when people in Gibson’s world watched soap operas, they would choose which viewpoint character they would experience the show as, and that character’s experience of the show would be their experience of the show. A viewer who chose to follow a different viewpoint character would experience a completely different show.

Even without the simstim technology, I find the narrative possibilities of this fascinating. Gibson explores it in a small way toward the end of Count Zero, when groups of characters that the reader had been following through two different arcs of the plot come together, and we have the chance to see a character that we’ve been inside the skin of through the eyes of another character that we’ve inhabited. But I’d like to take it even further. Typically a series of books can be laid out on a time-line, and if two books do happen to take place simultaneously, you can choose to read one or the other first, because they’ll be telling totally different, disconnected stories. I’m envisioning a series that would be laid out as a grid, and the reader would (ideally) choose a character and follow them through the story, knowing what that character knows and missing out on what that character misses. I imagine two readers of the series, one following “Character A” and one following “Character B,” meeting at a book group and discussing the books they’ve read in the series so far, being surprised (and possibly dismayed) at how the other views their viewpoint character, and being able to have a conversation — almost as if they actually were “Character A” and “Character B” —  filling each other in on what events they missed out on.

Obviously this would take a lot of writing, as well as an even larger amount of organizational work to keep track of what character knows what, when they learn it, where they were at a particular point in time, and so forth, but it strikes me as a lot of fun. 

Accidentally starting a new project

I ordered a small magnetic whiteboard to put on the refrigerator to track leftovers with, in order to cut down on food waste. But the best deal I could find was a 2-pack, so I bought that and just stuck them both on the fridge. One day recently, Rose and Lily wrote a kanji on the whiteboard we weren’t using, giving the pronunciation and definition of it.

I waited several days to see if they’d do another one, and when they didn’t, I erased it and put up one of the kanji I’d missed in my kanji practice that day, giving the pronunciation, definition, and a breakdown of how the parts of the kanji can help you remember and recognize it. On a whim, I took a picture of it and posted it to my Threads and Bluesky accounts. Then I did it again the next day, and the next. And it seemed to be popular — my “refrigerator kanji” posts were getting over a thousand views each, more than anything else I posted. So I decided to keep it up. If you’d like to follow my “refrigerator kanji” posts, they’re on Threads and Bluesky; my username is jkb314 on both sites.

I have a tendency to get stuck on things like this. My Duolingo streak just crossed 2450 days (6.7 years). There’s a story that my mom used to tell about me that shows I’ve apparently always been like this: When I was 3 years old, one Sunday we popped popcorn and watched the Disney Sunday Movie. The next Sunday, we sat down to watch the Disney Sunday Movie and I asked where my popcorn was. She said she hadn’t made any, and I indignantly responded “But we always have popcorn when we watch the Disney Sunday Movie!” This story became a repeated part of our family lore, and a useful thumbnail sketch of my personality. I even got a popcorn popper for Christmas that year! (I wasn’t allowed to use it by myself — I had just turned 4, and this was in the days before hot air popcorn poppers.)

What I’ve been watching:

Grace and I have finished watching The Recruit. And immediately after we finished the final episode of season 2, I checked online and saw that there’s not going to be a season 3 — it didn’t do big enough numbers, so Netflix canceled it. At least we got something of an ending, and weren’t just left hanging. But still . . . I would have enjoyed more.

Up next in the queue — maybe not “tomorrow” next, but at least “soon” next — is the live-action Cells at Work movie. I’ve watched the first 15 minutes of it to try to sell Grace on the idea and I think it’s great. Red Blood Cell and White Blood Cell are just like their manga counterparts, and the germs are so delightfully over-the-top rubber-suit cheesy! (Seriously, the germs make Power Rangers villains look subtle and calm.) 

What I’ve been reading:

Since last week I’ve finished reading

• 11/22/63 (Stephen King) — I picked this one back up again after setting it down for a while. Back in February I realized that with all the books I’d read, I’d never read a Stephen King novel. So I made a post on Threads asking the Stephen King fandom which one of his novels they’d recommend for someone who’d never read one. Once I tossed out all the answers that showed a failure to grasp the concept of “one,” the two most recommended books were this one and The Stand. So I flipped a coin and started reading this one, which is likely to be the only Stephen King novel I read. I stalled for a while at about 90% done with it, and from that point on I was reading it not as a reader but as a writer. What I mean by that is that by that point I’d realized I really didn’t care that much about the characters, but as a writer, I wanted to see how King got us from where we were at 90% done to a conclusion. At the end, I was impressed with the way he managed the ending, but I just felt like there was too much book before the ending. Perhaps if I had liked the main character better, I’d have enjoyed getting to spend so much time in his company, but I didn’t, so there we are.

• Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (Alex D. Ketchum) — This book turned out to be just as good as the first chapter indicated it would be (see Thursday #4). After the completion of the main text, Ketchum provides an appendix with more methodological information and a reproduction of part of her database — I would definitely assign this book to students! One random fact from the appendix really hit me hard: Ketchum says that her initial estimate of the number of feminist restaurants in America was low by about an order of magnitude (she expected to find about 40 and she found about 240). I found this heartening because it meant that there were more than expected, but also disheartening, because it meant that even with so many more feminist restaurants in existence, indicative of an even more widespread feminist movement, we still managed to end up where we are today as a country.  

I’ve continued reading

• Inkpot Gods (Seanan McGuire) — More excellent villain writing. Asphodel Baker is a monster. We’re never allowed to forget that. But we’re given the chance to understand why she turned out the way she did. Or part of why, at any rate. 

• Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, vol. 19 (Yuto Tsukuda).

• Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon, vol. 1 (Shio Usui).

• Art in America, Winter 2025.

• Cozy Companion, vol. 25.

and I’ve started reading

• Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World (Anne-Laure Le Cunff) — I’ve been reading Le Cunff’s “Ness Labs” newsletter for years, so when I saw a chance to grab the ebook of her book for $1.99, I grabbed it. So far I’ve just gotten through the introduction, where she tells how she got to the point of writing this book, some of which I knew from the newsletter and some of which was new to me. 

• Make:, #97 — I’ve yet to actually make any of the things I read about in Make:, but I enjoy reading about how to make them, and I’m always open to the possibility that someday I might actually manage to do it. 

• Blue Rose: The AGE Role-Playing Game of Romantic Fantasy: I’ve wanted this for several years now, so when it went on sale for $20 last month, I snatched it up. I have no idea when or if I’ll ever play it, or who I’d play it with, but even if I never play it, I’m the type of weirdo who enjoys reading RPG rulebooks, so I’ll still have fun with it.

And as always, THIS NEWSLETTER CONTAINS 100% HUMAN-CREATED WORDS.

Have a great week, and I’ll see you next Thursday,

Jason