2018: Season Finale
A short one this week as the New Year bears down upon us all.
A practice I usually utilise, but didn’t this year, is that of picking a theme or keyword for the year. I started doing this a few years ago after a few email exchanges with Ryan K Lindsay and he does a similar practice (more consistently than I).
2019 is the year of ‘engagement’.
I’ll let you roll that around the brain and chat some more about it in the next newsletter, the first of 2019.
If I had to pick one word to sum up 2018 it would be ‘transitory’. 2019 then will all be about building on the lessons learned (good and bad) and re-engaging with the things I’ve missed and backed away from over the last year.
Once again, thank you to all who continue to read, imbibe and say nice things about the newsletter.
See you next year!
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Links
- A stirring call to arms from, of all places, Pamela Anderson’s blog.
“We must stop believing that the current system is set in the stone with an inability to change. We must stop believing that what we have is the best possible system out there. We must stop claiming that the other side is bad or confused or brainwashed by fake news. Instead we must do more than just wave the flag of tolerance and civility. We must work towards offering a stronger political story.
We must fight against those who not only hold but hang on to power and wealth with relentless tenacity.
We must stand against neoliberalism and its global and regional institutions. We must offer an alternative democratic and socially-just society, one devoid of social democratic compromises (especially those with big business).”
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Six Years with a Distraction Free iPhone.
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I loved this editorial/piece by Matthew Meylikhov over at Multiversity Comics on the year in comics, and in particular, his personal connection to Tom King’s run on Mister Miracle.
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Dan Kieran’s Unified Theory of Alcohol over at Medium is a pertinent read heading into a new year:
“Not drinking entirely feels like a kind of betrayal. And not in a flimsy way. In the sense that to stop means a betrayal of a huge part of my identity. An unspoken criticism of those I love around me and of the life I have lived so far. ‘Not drinking’ is a kind of shroud that those around me are discomforted by. Not in an overt way, but you can see the disappointment in the faces of those you meet when you tell them you are not drinking. They briefly reflect on something in their own heads and then smile and shrug it away. Or you have a brief conversation where they agree with you but then they carry on slugging their beer before checking ‘if you’re sure’ you really don’t want to join them. This is because booze is really about displacement. Drinking is actually about saying ‘it’s nice to see you and I’m in a good mood and there are lots of things worrying me at the moment drinking allows me to forget briefly. Please don’t suggest I have a dependancy problem and ruin it for me.’”
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As we head into 2019, the spectre of climate change is only going to loom larger as time passes. Common Dreams has compiled a list of the 10 costliest extreme weather events this year, with Hurricanes Florence & Michael coming out on top with $32 billion worth of damage caused. Something worth noting from the list is the truly global reach and scope of the events. Nowhere is safe.
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It’s been linked a whole bunch of places but the Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse screenplay is online for your perusal.
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Tim Maughan has another speculative treat up at Motherboard. Elf on a shelf mixed with surveillance and Amazon - what could go wrong?
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Operation Jane Walk is a video tour of NYC landmarks via the medium of the video game Tom Clancy’s The Division. The video touches on the intersection of the digital and the real and is funny to boot. Go watch!