🌹📡❤️ – 02.14.2020
This is a slightly larger than usual collection of things I ~consumed~ recently, because I'm not using social media this month and it turns out that means I read and watch a LOT more in my downtime.
Not all of this is new. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. All of it gave me something to think about. 📡 posts are cross-posted from my patreon.
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Be Up A Hello, Squarepusher
Motus, Thomas Köner
Leather Teeth, Carpenter Brut
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Gut microbiome composition and diversity are related to human personality traits – Katerina VA Johnson, Human Microbiome Journal
Mourning the Low-Rent, Weirdo Filled East Village of Old – Jeremiah Moss, Longreads
All-American Amnesia: In Depraved Indifference, the scam goes all the way to the top – Peter Goldberg, The Baffler
Role-Playing Game Increases Empathy for Immigrants, Study Shows – Bob Whitby, Research News, paper at New Media & Society
Unnamed and Unsurveilled: Craigslist is the last holdout of a vanishing internet ethos – Tom Thor Buchanan, The Baffler
This Website Was Free: Vine burned out long before its legend did. Can you only really know a platform when it’s gone? – Kyle Paoletta, Real Life
Against Virtuosity: 1917 and the hollowness of technical wizardry – John Semley, Baffler
“We will walk with you, and sing your spirit home.” – Kate Steiker-Ginzberg, Popula
How Britain Got Its NHS – Nathan J Robinson, Current Affairs
Berlin Artist Walks the Streets With 99 Smartphones, Prompting Google Maps Traffic Jams – Sarah Rose Sharp, Hyperallergic
Contemporary Television’s Construction of Sonic New Jersey – Shannon K Mooney, Sounding Out
Sculpture Does Not Need to Be Permanent to Be Great – John Yau, Hyperallergic
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Everything published by ETTV. Like, all of it. Every. single. video.
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I finished Death Stranding. I love that game to ... death. But holy hell the ending is a sheer disaster. Kojima's storytelling has some real Raymond Roussel vibes: obviously the result of some punning, some weird and deeply internalized wordplay and crossed-semiotic-wires but, like, where Roussel is elegant and mysterious about the mechanics that lead him to his output (except where he writes about how he did it - new collection, btw!) Kojima is like a horsefly, buzzing around and nipping at your exposed parts as if he would waste away if you didn't know he was there, ~doing stuff~ The ending of DS adds almost nothing – except maybe a vocab word? – that 100 hours of play didn't already cover. It's just a feature length, animated restatement of the narrative, which I get the sense Kojima is just IN LOVE WITH.
<EXTREMELY LIGHT SPOILERS>
The fistfight scene was DOPE AS SHIT THOUGH.
</EXTREMELY LIGHT SPOILERS>
Anyway - after finishing DS I went right to Kentucky Route 0 (Console Collection), which is almost too beautiful for words. We should all aspire to create something as breathtaking and momentous as KY0, and I stand by my oft-repeated claim that it is not only the greatest videogame ever made - but perhaps the only truly good videogame, and one of the greatest works of art in existence. It sets the bar for conceptual and narrative cohesion so high, that it's like other attempts don't even really exist. I look at my own work, every day, and think about how I can put into practice what I learn from every replay of KY0.
Next up: Outer Worlds.
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Fun City Episode 12 came out today. The next episode will be published in one month, on March 13th, so if you're behind (or yet to start) now is great time to catch up! This episode is extremely exciting... some might even say: epic.
I have a bunch of writing in the pipeline on which I am perennially behind, thanks mostly to various bits of audio production, but I hope the back half of this month I'll be able to share some progress I'm making on a few things.
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More soon! <3 Hope everyone has a great weekend and a happy Valentine's Day.