[a pleasurable headache] a perfectly fine newsletter
Updates
It was recently announced that I will have a story in the upcoming "The Perfectly Fine Neighborhood" from French Press. The TOC (Table of Contents) was announced via livestream a few days ago. Alas, it was scheduled for 10pm EST, so I was unable to make it. It was a bit of an unusual submission call as the story had to take place in the universe of Stephen Kozeniewski and Wile E. Young's novel, The Perfectly Fine House.
It feels utterly bizarre to feature on the same table of contents as horror luminaries such as Brian Keene, Jeff Strand and Candace Nola. It was also completely gnarly to have Wile. E. Young describe my story as "very dark". If the story perturbs someone who has won a Splatterpunk award, I'll take that as a win. I don't want to say too much about my story until release. All I will say is that it involves ghosts (obviously), home invasion and a thorough mistrust of the rich and powerful (naturally).
The release is (fairly) imminent and no doubt I will post more as I know more. For now, here's that unbelievable TOC in full.
Links
Elon Musk's Shadow Rule
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
Not only is he ruining Twitter, but we also live in a world where the U.S government and allied military forces are dependent on him.
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Yelling is not journalism
https://insertcredit.com/opinion/igns/
On the Baldur's Gate 3 discourse.
"Instead of talking to people and attempting to answer that question, IGN’s Destin Legarie chooses to make a reaction video, multiple times admitting he doesn’t know anything about the subject, but is simply angry. This is not what journalism should be, starting from the fact no attempt has been made to learn to pronounce Xalavier’s name, the main dev who he is criticizing in the video. It is likewise irresponsible to say that Xalavier’s tweets go on to “give a lot of good context” but then not share what that context is or attempt to understand it. (I also feel I should point out that Xalavier is not a triple-A dev, he is a very notable indie.)"
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The Dad Canon (Circa Now)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/16/style/millennial-dad-style-culture.html
American leaning but I recognise a few points on the list here.
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What We Lose When Streaming Companies Choose What We Watch
Richard Brody knows where it's at. I'm still out here buying up Blu-Rays dirt cheap.
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Evil, Scary China Refuses To Passively Let Us Encircle It: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
"China’s still spending vastly less on its military than the United States, both overall and as a percentage of GDP. Yet we’re meant to act like China is the obvious aggressor nation, even as it’s being rapidly surrounded by US war machinery and increasingly militarized US allies."
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The end of the Googleverse
https://www.theverge.com/23846048/google-search-memes-images-pagerank-altavista-seo-keywords
It's been a long time coming.
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I'm off to have a kung-fu duel with my imposter syndrome. See you in two!