Dec. 20, 2024, 9:20 a.m.
Year-end projects + fave books of 2024
An email about my recent art and code projects, and reviews of my fave books of 2024.
Lee Tusman newsletter
Hi! In this email I detail some of my recent projects, and then reviews of all the books I read this year. About a year or so ago I switched from Mailchimp (crappy interface, hard to use) to buttondown.com (easy to use, just paste in your text. No templates) for these emails and I think I am paying $45 a year to send them. Stop reading when you get bored/annoyed.
I am writing this at a coffeeshop. A man came in an hour ago with The Diaries of Franz Kafka, then looked at his phone for an hour, then left. So it goes.
I am blogging a lot lately. Send me your blogs! I like reading them before bed. In general, less platforms, less instagram, less facebook, less new thing, more blogging and newsletters from friends.
I did sign up for one more "social network": it's izzzzi! I really like it, but it's minimal. You can only post once a day, and it presents all your friends photos or little diary entries like a newspaper daily page. Let me know if you join.
Recent projects
I am participating in December Adventure with a couple dozen online friends where we code a little something every day of the month in December and blog about it.
Right now I'm working on an art piece/narrative about hyphenated last names and changing your name, about egalitarianism, feminism, and assimilation.
Here's a screenshot of a very much demo-y work-in-progress version of my mom and I talking about changing our name. The final version will look very different, with more facial features, backgrounds. Also, you can't tell, but it's animated 3d where the models move based on the audio interview I recorded. I am coding this in p5.js/WEBGL because I know that ecosystem so well, but running into some performance issues from loading in all the assets. I might try Godot for future 3d projects like this.
Random Walk
This is a new computational art publication I'm working on. The first issue presents new projects by my undergrad students in Programming For Visual Artists. The site and concept is inspired by the work of Taper, the HTML Review and ORAL.pub.
=> Random Walk
Speaking of school, I just wrapped the semester and had some great students this semester. I wrote a new Programming Games curriculum for my new class, and it went well.
Generative Quilt poems
For National Novel Generating Month (NaNoGenMo) I worked on a project to encode various quilt styles into data, then used that to generate poems that visually appeared in the pattern of a quilt style.
Quilt encodings
An example of what encoded quilt data looks like
Examples of generated quilts
Flesh Tattoo Drunkard's Path Quilt
flesh flesh tattoo tattoo tattoo tattoo tattoo flesh
tattoo flesh flesh tattoo tattoo flesh flesh flesh
tattoo flesh tattoo tattoo flesh flesh flesh tattoo
tattoo tattoo flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh tattoo
tattoo tattoo tattoo flesh flesh flesh tattoo tattoo
tattoo flesh flesh flesh tattoo flesh flesh tattoo
flesh flesh flesh tattoo flesh flesh tattoo tattoo
flesh tattoo tattoo tattoo tattoo tattoo flesh flesh
Business Ho Big Quarters Quilt
business business ho ho business business ho ho
business business ho ho business business ho ho
ho ho business business ho ho business business
ho ho business business ho ho business business
business business ho ho business business ho ho
business business ho ho business business ho ho
ho ho business business ho ho business business
ho ho business business ho ho business business
A screenshot with my color-izer on:
=> You can read a longer blog post about the project here.
=> An example generated book (PDF)
Made a website creator for classes/blogging: panblog
I have to make six to ten websites a year. I make a new website for each class I teach, plus for a number of other projects or work-for-hire. For years I have been using a static site generator which is a collection templates and themes I write in HTML and CSS. I grew frustrated with the ecosystem of Jekyll, which is the back-end generator I use for Artists and Hackers, my own blog, my class websites. I wrote my own static site generator to replace it, and I'm proud of it. It's particularly made for minimal, blog-like websites.
Ok, without further ado. Book reviews. Send me your book recs too!
The Book Reviews
Most of these I acquired for free from my library as an ebook on my Kobo Klara e-reader (I love it!). Paper books I mostly acquired from this great Little Free Library near my house, or from Flying Pigeon Books in Kensington or Taylor and Co in Ditmas Park.
Rebel Girl
- Kathleen Hanna, 2024
I must have liked it as I finished it in 3 days! Really short chapters and each one I wondered what would happen next. Unfortunately, Kathleen had a really hard life, with rape, abusive family, and the challenges of being a "celebrity" representing feminism, girl power, and punk ethos. But her audacity, attempts at community and self-awareness and betterment shine through. A real model of living life according to your values. A compelling story I'd recommend to anyone.
Undoing the Grade: Why We Grade, and How to Stop
- Jesse Stommel, 2023
I read this with a cohort of other faculty at my school, and we've met twice now to discuss the book. It's a game-changer for me, with both insightful and detailed critique, as well as practical advice and systems to follow, and that can be tailored to fit my own approach.
All Fours
- Miranda July, 2024
What an incredible book! I read this rapidly in about a week with some breaks when doing a bike trip or my sister was visiting. Within a few chapters we get into the main strange zone, where she's stopped and becomes infatuated with this young man. The redo of the bedroom with $20k in decorations, a manic energy, it's exciting. As her formal partnership unravels and she finds her way to something else, the book is explicit and illicit time and again. So much sex. And sex-talk. And weird sex talk. Kink but not. It's exciting and strange and knows no bounds. As it goes on and she's left behind and has to figure out how to adapt to her previous life, she can't, and makes her life anew with everyone around her. I loved it and felt sympathy and excitement. Where next in intimacy and companionship and partnership? Spoiler: The final chapter felt out of place - too unbelievable - but how else to end this book? It was still a fine way to end. I'll just minimize that chapter in my mind, as it ends on the right foot. Hopeful, but still everything is on the table.
Art Monster: On the Impossibility of New York
- Marin Kosut, 2024
Written by my colleague Marin from SUNY Purchase. It's brilliant and zany even though it doesn't particularly end with anything like a conclusion or even any hope. She describes alternative spaces, being a poor artist in New York, weird exhibition spaces (her 'pay fauxn' gallery) and the people she meets. And this is mixed with a who's who of NY art history that's compelling. She's witty, writes well, and while it's very sobering (since everyone is poor, only capitalism wins), it was a fun read.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Mark Twain, 1884
I read this in prep for reading the new James book by Percival Everett. I'm currently waiting for it to arrive in my library/libby app. I last read Huck Finn when I was a kid in middle school, and I vaguely recall seeing the movie version with Elijah Wood. (Editor's note: It was in 1993 when Lee was 11). I forgot just how damn compelling the story was. I was deeply invested in Huck and Jim's path toward freedom. That said, while it's meant to be a condemnation of antebellum attitudes and racism, it's still written with Twain's 19th century biases, and stereotypes about Black people, and a casual use of the N-word. See this Times review on its 100 year anniversary from Norman Mailer in 1984. Are there anarchist critiques of the story? There must be. (:switches away to check:: Yep, a bunch.) This is definitely a book with contradictions, errors of judgement of its author as well. Mailer points out the book can be uneven but it's also incredible, with "nearly every chapter new and remarkable characters bounded out from the printed page as if it were a tarmac on which they could perform their leaps." Spoiler in a moment. You have been warned: When Tom Sawyer arrives I find him intolerable. The pains he puts Jim through in the useless machinations of play toward freedom are impossible. That's when I thought to myself, I know he's a character in a book. But what a cruel asshole. So much so I think I didn't mind when he got shot. But he makes it. And then the story ends with a 'happy' ending for Huck and Jim and the promise of more adventure away from 'sivilization' for Huck. I can't wait for the Percival Everett to arrive.
Moby Dick
- Herman Melville, 1852
A bunch of my friends read this in the summer, and I did too. I loved the queer storyline with Queequeg. I found the language exciting, strange, compelling - especially in the beginning of the book. It's so long I decided to try to listen to it as an audio book as well as read. The LibriVox reader made the language come alive. I loved his pronunciation of "harpooneers" and his voicing of Captain Ahab are inspired. But I found the book dragging in places, especially in the middle. And the end is so sudden! Right when we finally meet the whale. The story of the white whale's pursuit by Ahab is not nearly as interesting without the specific language and experimentation of the book. "The first modern novel." I want to read a tale from Queequeg's experience. Has anyone written one? (note: this is what led to me wanting to read Huck Finn and then James)
The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
- Rinker Buck, 2015
Wow did I love this one. A compelling adventure narrative, full of "the west" and unknown challenges - but also the premise of covering the trail over a century after its last demise as a used route of the wagons. I learned so much: about wagons, about oregon trail history, about fundamentalism, colonialist militancy and aggression, the history of wasteful pioneers, the ruts and how the trail is really a connection of routes and cut-offs and switchbacks. So many people offer help. The narrator's relationship with his brother is touching even when it's challenging. And the romance is brought down to earth by its many tribulations, and buoyed by the many folks and adventures to be had. And that's aside from the love of the mules that become central to the story as well. I want to read Rinker's next travel narrative, down the mighty Mississipp.
ZZT
- Anna Anthropy, 2015
I read this before maybe 8 years earlier. I like it, but I didn't love it as much the second time. But still, it's not a bad read, and I started and completed the 100 pager in a couple hours reading in a park waiting for the halloween parade to begin. This is a history of ZZT, a history of Anna discovering the game as a teen and later coming out. I like the approach to covering both a technology history as well as a personal autobiography a lot.
The Great Railway Bazaar
- Paul Theroux, 1975
This was great. I read it after The Old Patagonian Express, and I believe I must have previously read it about a decade or decade and a half ago, though I can't seem to recall when or how I came across it. And though at times the language (particularly making fun of various people from developing nations) seems of a previous age, it is his wry, at times curmudgeonly but overall funny, joyful, cantankerous, old country mien and joy of travel that comes through. It gets me excited to travel. I can feel the swaying train lulling him to sleep in its pages. Ironically, on the way home from school today, just after finishing the book on the train on my e-reader I myself fell asleep, lulled into dreams by "The Metro North Express from White Plains to Manhattan" (aka, how he'd write the chapter title).
The Old Patagonian Express
- Paul Theroux, 1979
I liked this one more than I thought I would. The story is compelling. Each day new people: who will he meet? The view out of the window changes in description, and I find myself traveling along with him. I want to take on my own journey, even realizing that I am part of the "rucksack brigade" he gently disparages (cheap!). i love his embrace and reminder that disasters, bad days, etc are sources for good writing, and that he prizes comfort or at least disaster with adventure more than speed.
Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings
- Paul Theroux, 2001
A collection of short articles. I probably read about 1/3 of this book too. I skipped anything that felt like a chore. Many of his subjects were obscure writers who traveled, or places in the world I don't feel curious about. I feel bad writing that sentence. But it did get me to rethink kayaking (i should do it) and I now want to re-read his train books. I'll start with The Great Railway Bazaar and see where it takes me.
Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America
- John Waters, 2014
This book was boring! The first 2/3 are fake stories of hitchhiking. I only read 1 1/2 chapters of this. Eh. The last third I read the whole way in a single day, maybe about a hundred pages. The premise is fun, but I'm just a so-so Waters fan. Heresy, I know. Anyway, he hitchhikes, sure, but they are boring stories, with boring people mostly, aside from one hippy band that picks him up and tells the story virally on twitter. The diners and Applebees stories aren't very interesting. And he stays in a motel every night. I'm glad he did it, and the premise excited me, but it's the kind of thing more interesting to do than to tell about it, I guess. It would be way better if it had photography from the trip. Hilarious: I didn't love a travel book! This is the second book I've read this summer about traveling around the US, and both of them made it seem meh. I mean, compared to Graffiti on Low or No Dollars, this book hardly registers. That one is a new On the Road. This one is a mildly interesting joke taken too far. Would only recommend to people who are fans or love reading about "celebrities: they're just like us!" One cool thing: I got this book for free out of the Little Free Library near my house on the tree-lined shady street, and that is where I'll also return it.
Racing The Beam: The Atari Video Computer System
- Nick Montfort, Ian Bogost, 2009
A nice book after Pippin Barr's. Short, well-written. The intro and outro give a raison d'etre for platform studies. The individual chapters demonstrate what that means, and I grew to enjoy reading about the simplicity and brilliance of the system and the original programmers-designers-writers. A quick read as well.
The Stuff Games Are Made Of
- Pippin Barr, 2023
I really enjoyed this gem of a book by Pippin Barr about his experimental, and mostly lofi conceptual games that play with conventions of genre. The chapters were very readable and always ended with references in books, film, and other games that related to the themes. I've assigned some of the chapters to my Programming Games students to read.
America the Beautiful?
- Blythe Robertson, 2023
Liked this, didn't love it. It's a travel narrative about a woman that drives around the US in her step dad's prius to visit as many national parks as possible. She is progressive, a good writer, and a comedienne - so many of her lines are laugh out loud hilarious. She also spends a good deal of time self-reflecting on whether it's okay/bad/good to travel across the country driving, about the pointlessness of driving, and driving around parks, and such. While this was important to note, and I appreciate it, it did get to be too much by the end of the book and i was glad when it ended. Also, the parks all blend together. And was moving too fast to really appreciate anything. Maybe this is "how not to travel" for me. Anyway, driving around to national parks and doing junior ranger activities didn't sound like my kind of fun.
Anarchy - In a Manner of Speaking
- David Graeber, 2020
Okay! Not the first suggestion of Graeber I'd necessarily give, but still I enjoyed many parts of it. It's a series of conversations transcribed - on a range of subjects. Some things right on, other things a tangent, still others surprising and specific. I particularly enjoyed reading about occupy, about how anarchism and direct action play a role in society and social movements, and about group dynamics - both capital A anarchism and 'soft' anarchism like meetings and decisions at flux. In the last section there's some interesting discussion of anarchism and judaism that i really liked.
Dungeon Hacks
- David Craddock, 2015
I'm reading this for inspiration the last week of school. I enjoy the tales of the languages, approaches and early "open source" university computing culture. But this is a very specific book on the history of the roguelike genre of videogames in the late 70s to early 90s, and so it's not a book for everyone but diehard fans of this genre of adventure-action games.
The Philip K. Dick Reader
- Philip K Dick, 1997
Great collection of short stories by Dick. Some only mild interesting but others contain whole worlds, ecosystems, movie plots, series and much larger narratives. Favorites include the horror story The Father-Thing about a child that realizes his dad has been eaten and replaced by an alien; The Last of the Masters, about a roving band in an anarchist society looking for old machinery to destroy lest it leads to warring with the robots again; Pay for the Printer, about a society with living almost-3d-printers that keep a reliant society going through recreating past objects and technology even as its members have lost the knowledge of the basics of constructing anything by hand. There are other favorites here like We will Remember it for you Wholesale (Total Recall) and The Minority Report. Recommended.
Our Friends From Frolix 8
- Philip K. Dick, 1970
I thought I had read this one before. I think I actually did, and got pretty far but didn't finish it. This wasn't my favorite PKD novel, though I say that and I was glued to the story, trying to learn what was going to happen next, so maybe it's more like I found some aspect of it unsatisfying? The relationship between the protagonist and a 16 year old girl seemed unnecessary - what was the point Dick? - and the story of the alien was kind of interesting. I particularly liked the conflict between old men, new men and unusuals. Precogs are mentioned, a nod I guess to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The flying cars ("squibs") and focus on a near future New York City definitely make this fit into other sci fi of this type - a non-comedic Futurama. The ending is a bit unclear. What happens when Provoni takes over? Does he become a new supreme leader or are things equitable? Do aliens end up running everything and absorbing everybody? Did Nick give everything up and feel empty/defeated since his girlfriend has been killed?
Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and sound
- Tara Rodgers, 2010
I liked the variety of women interviewed. I knew a bit less than half of them prior to reading. It was good for me to read to help think about "what makes a good interview" as I work on my podcast. Tara asks frequently interesting questions, and is a good editor. She asks both technique, history and culture questions, which is an ideal combo. That said, due to the variety and abundance it is hard for me to state any standout moments. Around the same time as reading this, I also picked up two issues of Tape Op at Control, and in many ways, these felt fairly similar to the interviews there, with perhaps more interesting questions in Pink Noises.
Four Stories
- Elberto Muller, 2014
Pretty quick read. I skipped one of the stories even because it was a chapter in Graffiti on Low or No Dollars that I read last year (which was by far my fave book of 2023). This one was okay but 4 stories is too quick! Viva Sluto.
Next
If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading!
I've been uploading more to archive.org lately. I'm thinking I may build out my own archive website soon too.
Also, I took a temp break from Artists and Hackers episodes but anticipate more soon!
Cheers, happy holidays, etc.
Lee