Just the One is still free
"Just the One still exists?!," I hear you exclaim, incredulously, to no one in particular.
Why, YES.
And you may detect a change in platform -- from TinyLetter (which was cute and clunky like Crocs) to ButtonDown (which has more features, uses Markdown for me to do learning, and is responsively indie-run -- the Birkenstock of newsletter platforms).
Also: I am very much over digital subscriptions. Sometimes I want the physical artifact to add it to the pile/The Collections. Gimme a CD-ROM with software and instructions! There's a thin psychophysical line between archivist and hoarder.
ZERO shade if you run a subscriber- or membership-based con. It's all a con and a hustle. Get yours, boo.
How have I been since my mercifully COVID-canceled trip to a war zone?
Same, @PRADAXBBY, SAME.
If you've forgotten that you subscribed to this wee newsletter, it's purpose is keeping in touch and sharing Just One Thing in a few arbitrarily drawn categories that might interest/help you.
✨Here are some Fresh Ones just for you.✨
Just the one music recommendation for you GenX saddos: EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL released FUSE, their first album in 24 years! The singles and videos didn't do much for me (which is odd for Generation MTV), but the album is dancey and cohesive. Let's sway chic-ly, but sadly and wait for EBTG to go on tour in small intimate wineries that don't permit sing-shouting along.
"Kiss me while the world decays // Kiss me while the music plays..."
Optimal neu-romantic gloom on the dancefloor is my genre!
Just the one imperative action you should take: if you haven't noticed, the fascists and reactionaries are attacking your public libraries. It's not just banning books (as if that weren't enough) and being extra about people in drag reading books to children and, god forfend, encouraging LITERACY.
The Forces of Evil (yes, I know it is fear, but if you're that scared, get therapy) are also infiltrating library boards, checking out books and taking them to the police department claiming obscenity, harassing librarians, and sundry other proto-Gilead tactics. It is absolutely not enough express your vocational awe and proclaim how much you love your library.
Look y’all I’m TIRED but a) who isn’t and b) you know who was really tired? My enslaved ancestors and your indentured ancestors for whom banning literacy was a structural power move to be resisted and defied. So get over it, rest when necessary (always necessary), and check out these 10 options for actually supporting your public library.
Here's just one work-from-home tip: don't watch Succession and respond to work emails. You may be overly spicy to benign requests. Oddly, "fuck off" doesn't work in all instances! Especially if you're not a corrupt capitalist who never walks and only takes SUVs and helicopters to Important Meetings. You may end up fired and like...
Just one privacy violation to look out for because I re-watched all of The Americans and trust no one: ICE is out here using a customs summons for records that apparently have little-to-nothing to do with customs violations:
The outlier cases include custom summonses that sought records from a youth soccer league in Texas; surveillance video from a major abortion provider in Illinois; student records from an elementary school in Georgia; health records from a major state university’s student health services; data from three boards of elections or election departments; and data from a Lutheran organization that provides refugees with humanitarian and housing support...All of this is done without judicial oversight. - read the rest from WIRED
and just one request for those of you who think you have nothing to hide and conflate privacy with secrecy: if you're down with me hiring someone to follow you around 24/7, taking notes and recording your every thought and move, hmu. Actually, don't. I can't commit to the bit of taking time out of my drama-free life to trail you while you mull the new mashups at Trader Joe's, but you get the point.
Just one fun, nonsensical internet tool: yes, there are new emoji (at least on iOS), but why not mash up existing emoji into weird combinations and further obscure your meaning over text?!
Waste some time with emoji supply's tool because, as DSA Tech Action helpfully reminds us, "the more distractions you indulge in during the workday, the more you reclaim your labor value."
Just one seemingly gloomy poem that's actually an argument for solitude and coping by Pádraig Ó Tuama’s poem ‘How to Be Alone’ (also styled as ‘How to Belong Be Alone’)...
Perhaps if I went back to Twitter my user name would be @GENXSADDO. I'm not sad, I'm just studying the Buddhist dharma and grateful for moments of ecstasy.😑/🥳
I honestly can't think of one movie to recommend, even though I signed up for that weird MoviePass thing. I joined in anticipation of my building's A/C ritually stopping during the hottest week of summer and needing to seek refuge in the cool, dark cinema like a scopophilic perv (do not yuck my viewing yum). If you want to be invited to the MoviePass scam, consensually reply with your email address and I'll send an invite from their website. I prefer a referral code or link to the data-grab, but this is the world we live in.
Almost done! Just one request: I really do enjoy seeing friends’ baby and kiddie pics — email me yours! I promise not to circulate. I won’t clown you if you’re a Black kid who experienced the sheer terror of the white teacher coming at with that free FINE-TOOTHED COMB (really, a death-rake), ATTACKING the pigtails or tiny afro that your caregiver perfectly coiffed only to leave your previously aligned pigtails rocked akimbo and your afro no longer smooth like a Cote de Ivoire breeze. Classic white lady, “I was only trying to help…by making it ten times worse.” 😂 GTFO. Shout-out to Mrs. Miles and Mrs. Easton, the mixed race and Black teachers who knew better than to "try and help."
Then, when the photos came back, your caregiver/parent would exclaim, “What did you do to your hair?!” The assumption being that you, Junior Ruffian, had the motor skills on Picture Day, to keep your clothes neat but somehow managed to roughhouse with just your HAIR. That was white supremacist trauma. I should sue.
Mom Springer learned the best way to avoid a teacher “messin’ in my head” was to have my hair braided for Picture Day. Nothing thwarts The White Supremacist Fine-Toothed Death Rake™️ like some blackity-black braids. Anywhoosle, never mind my trauma: send your baby/kid pics! I bet you were super-cute and I love to win a bet.
Let's close with just one unexpected banger...Lyn Collins singing "Think (About It)".🎶
Don't forget: if your life has moved on (is this The After?! I don't like it. Do you? Weigh in below.), you can be like Shiv or whatever Holly Hunter's character was called...
VALID. I love you anyway and support reclaiming time and cognitive s p a c e.
Love,
Kimbos