sixty-nine: failures of generosity / the freedom to
The first half of this month’s title from Chris Wilcha’s documentary Flipside, which I watched in late October and holds more inside it, more nimbly, than...
sixty-eight: i walk through walls; i float down the Liffey.
It is not a good sign when this song takes up residence in your head. It is not a good sign when this one does either, but at least then you know, and also...
sixty-seven: but i know that this time i have said too much, been too unkind
(Nothing especially thematic in titling after The Cure today, it’s just in my head. Reliable, bulletproof banger.) Here in the House of Attempted...
omake! #1: Fritz Lang's M (1933) and sleepwalking awake
The recorded vote went well in favour of the mini-editions, so here we have the first of an occasional series: today featuring your friend and mine, German...
sixty-six-point-five: straw poll! (おまけ)
This micro-instalment in service of asking you all a format question! Here and there I’m accumulating some essay-length pieces or thoughts that are...
sixty-six: ostranenie
This month’s title from an essay on the concept of estrangement in science fiction that I’ve been meaning to read for approximately a million years, and...
sixty-five: but if i can't swim after forty days
I hadn’t heard this in twenty years before YouTube served it up to me on a cool and humid Saturday morning, end of June. Rec algorithms occasionally have...
sixty-four: ultimately it's more rewarding, creating things
This from an Oxford Union interview with Mat Baynton, whom I have adopted as a temporary Taskmaster crush for approximately eight to twelve weeks — but is...
sixty-three: you are just a door. i'm rik. fucking. mayall.
I never watched The Young Ones, Bottom, or Filthy Rich and Catflap in the actual 1990s. They are sincerely too much violence for me, even if it’s slapstick...
sixty-two: put on your spurs and swagger around / in the desperate kingdom of love
Sometimes a song has hit you before, in a graduated way, and then you are curled up on the couch under your soft grey blanket, outwaiting an April frost next...
sixty-one: 𝄽
So, apologies, because this edition is a week late (I never know if you guys notice; I do). It’s been an incredibly politically and socially tumultuous month...
sixty: salute your solution
January, I think, was about seven qualitative weeks long. February didn’t get shorter; this month packed in approximately eight more weeks of action, even if...
fifty-nine: non-utilitarian and doing things for their own sake
Happy newsletter-time belated New Year! I ring you in with a quote from Clive James, in a 2007 interview he did with Stephen Fry that had momentarily dwelled...
fifty-eight: do you want to hear about the deal i'm making?
It’s funny; my usual process for these is to accrete them throughout the month, adding bits and items together until they’re ready to smooth out on mailing...
fifty-seven: a river in a time of dryness / you fight the long defeat
(Note — sending this a few days later than scheduled, but truly, I felt like 2,000 words of ruminating on politics and personhood and then dropping more...
fifty-six and three quarters: lives outside crisis (the American politics mini-edition)
(Yes! It’s a fraction! This does not get the dignity of a whole number! Down with having to waste brain cycles on this bullshit at all, really!) So as you...
fifty-six-point-five: a question of consent that i'm asking you all to get a real answer
So: My inbox has been rife with very personal processing of American electoral politics and fallout for the past few weeks, most of it fairly invasive and...
fifty-six: (if this is a game, are we cheating? yup.)
(This month’s title from that XKCD strip I linked last issue: a mood which extended, and never a bad one.) We kicked off October around these parts by...
fifty-five: use the edges and value the marginal
This month’s title from a permaculture principles video that was part of my Food Security coursework this summer: a handful of guidelines for growing food...
fifty-four: because people are good / whisper it under your breath
This month’s title track, found one Saturday evening in late July after a week in which the air was thick and noir in an L.A. fashion, a week when the river...