On or from the side
This one is about going on anyway and maybe a different way.
I've started doing mail swaps again. I'd mentioned it as a link in the last newsletter, but a month of contemplation (and also getting mail from it) has me marvelling over it again. The mechanics of it are very simple and nicely automated. You browse a filterable table of swaps, click into them to learn more, then can choose to watch (basically bookmark) or join the swap. You get emails when the swap starts, when it's over and time to rate your senders (which is basically noting whether you got something and it matched the theme or not), when you get messages. You can add friends, there's an old-school style forum, everything.
It all looks much as it did when I first joined almost two decades ago. The blog though, which really only had yearly holiday gift donation drive posts, hasn't updated since 2020. And when you look in the forums about account issues you see folks saying that it's difficult to reach the (two!) admins, if at all. But, honestly? The place has created its own ecosystem. And there's something beautiful about that. The site doesn't need to be more than it is for people to make friends and find joy in their mailbox.
My phone is a first gen iphone SE on its second battery. It's rather a bit smaller screen than the average and there's more and more apps that just don't quite work (or are available at all) on it. I like it though, it works like a little test for a lot of sites. When I go to a site, is the inevitable pop up telling me I should disable adblocker (which I can't do because it's just how Firefox works, lol sorry) or subscribe to a mailing list so big I can't actually get to the "x" to close the window? Is there a static menu bar that eats a quarter of my screen and, with inevitable ads, makes it so I'm reading something a few lines at a time each screen's worth? That sort of thing. It has definitely shaped what I browse, where I go, what I read.
Image description: Side-by-side phone screenshots of the "Allow Ads" pop-up on Variety dot com. The screenshot on the left only shows the top half of the ad pop-up. The screenshot on the right shows the whole thing, with more room around it. End ID.
As I've made various choices over the past year, or cancelled subscriptions, I've been enjoying seeing how changes in what I use to make things changes what is made, or how things are made. I recently shared a video about papier-mâché (filmed in like 2021, finished four years later, such is life) where I mentioned several times that I hate buying things when I can just make do. It's why I got into papier-mâché as a craft medium, it's why I'll turn to salt dough before any other clay. And I'm an actual skilled craftperson who does know that sometimes you do and should pay for a specific quality or ability of a tool. But in my day-to-day? I like the challenge. I like that by approaching a little obliquely you can get a very different experience, or distance, or perspective.
There's a lot of freeware and shareware out there. There's a freeware 2013 version of Caustic over on Archive dot org. I'm learning DaVinci Resolve for video editing, which is free for basically everything you need it for, or you can pay once for the Big Boy version of it. My library card gets me more movies than I can keep up with, although I do just watch the same handful of documentaries over and over despite it all. Some of my favourite sources for things are sites that haven't changed their design since the 2010s at the latest. People keep making the kind of zines you can make with a single, folded sheet of paper. Swap-Bot keeps trucking and we keep sending strangers mail.
It's funny, this is the first newsletter of the new year (because the first one was last February). This is the latest (11:50 on a Sunday!) I've cut finishing one of these. I feel the same as I did when I decided "why not, why not make a newsletter." I just want folks to have something kind of soft, with some fun links, the word equivalent of finding a really cool leaf on the sidewalk. It won't last (nothing does), but it's a moment where you get to smile and say "huh, neat." I hope I'm achieving that.
I always worry I'm going to run out of reading recommendations, but I have read 16 books of my goal of 50 for the year and don't think I'm slowing down so, lol, I think I'm good (but I will knock it down to two a newsletter for a bit). Links go to the Storygraph entries for each title, a great place to check out content warnings and find ways to read them.
- Asunder by Kerstin Hall is a fantasy that has the same vitamins as Robert Jackson Bennett's The Founders Trilogy, a complex magic system, a robust world with all of its problems, gods beyond knowing. It also has a fully bummer ending, but a satisfying one! Really couldn't have ended any other way and me, the fan of solid downer endings, felt well-fed.
- Opposite end of the scale, Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles #2) by TJ Klune can be read without reading The House in the Cerulean Sea (though you would be missing out on some good story) and has such a heart-full, loving and joyous ending. Followed, btw, by a vibrantly lovely author's note. It was a good book to read early in this year.
Speaking of leaves, here's some. Yeah, they're a bit autumnal but it's early March, the trees where I am only lost the last of their leaves last week.
Image description: A photograph of massive, ridged, leaves from the short kind of palm or banana plant that you wave to make breezes in island-type fantasy scenes. End ID.
Image description: A photograph of a light skinned hand holding a golden maple leaf, the tips faded red. Hanging heavy by a strap from the wrist is an old digital camera and the lot of it is dripped with honey sun. End ID.
Image description: A photograph of a dense prickly mass of many cactus, with overgrown bush and plants behind. Big parchment-crackling brown leaves half-bury the cactus or are speared by their spines. End ID.
It was accidental, but these are all kind of game-related. Except one.
- Blamensir is a mix of portfolio site, point-and-click game, and just a place to wander. I can't describe it well but if you like medieval beasties it's a joy. Its made to work best on non-mobile screens.
- This would have been a good add for the last newsletter, with it's scrolling and play theme, but Fathomverse is an app that is part cosy, immersive game/part ocean science. You basically follow a trail of bubbles and, as you encounter images, help identify what animals they are. The images are taken by robots and researchers and by playing you are helping train the programs used to discover and analyse ocean life. If the creepy crawlies of the sea are not for you then neither is this game, but if you (like me) love wet beasties, it's very fun.
- The Video Game History Foundation library is an amazing repository full of everything from video game development materials to artwork and ephemera. If you're looking for delicious pictures, then you'll want to go straight to their digital archive, though I also personally enjoy the finding aids.
- While we're on games and game ephemera archives, there's a complete collection of SEGA Visions on Archive dot org and seeing danged Niles Nemo in Segaland comics again was like time travel.
- The Bored Button feels like something from an earlier internet. You click the button and are given a little timekiller of a web game of some sort. It's silly and pointless and a joy, frankly.
- Speaking of a specific kind of retro, this neocities fan page about the history of the Otter Pops mascots sure evokes it.
If you've thought of donating eSims, this guide was very helpful, and Crips for eSims for Gaza is a good option if you can't easily manage topping them up. There are also more traditional donation targets like the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, UNRWA, and Doctors Without Borders. If you prefer giving directly to families, Gaza Funds is a nice resource that facilitates finding campaigns.