Immaculately Constructed — mnchrm vol. xxxviii

Hello friends, happy Monday!

Over the weekend I submitted my first-ever piece for publication, a review of the upcoming Adam Popescu book NIMA. The book comes out tomorrow, so I would expect the review to as well, but I don’t know for sure.

Here’s some of my thoughts—

Overall, I thought it was a good debut effort. There’s some issues of tone and voice, and a few other small discrepancies, but it accomplishes its goal.

I also liked the process of writing the review. I’m very well accustomed to reading novels and fiction critically, and even in taking notes on books, but I haven’t often tried and condense these ideas into a digestible and interesting conclusion. It’s not too difficult to assess a book in terms of it’s goal rather than what you thought of it, but another to turn those thoughts into a piece intended for others.

Hope I can link it to you all next week!

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I’ve been reading Ted Chiang’s excellent short story collection, EXHALATION this week. It’s awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

Chiang himself is a very interesting sci-fi writer by way of technical writing. The stories he writes are generally speculative in nature. He’s a very high-concept writer, which I really appreciate. He seems to think about an idea that would make an interesting story or plot, and then craft everything around this beautiful core. He also takes things to their logical and farthest edge. Upon finishing a story, I usually just step back and bask in the ideas put forth. Super cool.

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He reminds me a lot of the “weird fiction” internet writers I was inspired by and cut my teeth with. Writers like Uel Aramchek, Ritter Coldriss, and T. R. Darling. I love a story that makes me think. I’m dancing around the idea for something longford (maybe a feature screenplay?) which is along these lines; high-concept, sci-fi adjacent, immaculately constructed.

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One of my favorite living writers, Ben Lerner, has a new story in the New Yorker. I haven’t read it yet; the tab is open on my computer before I get the print version. Though, this is perhaps only secondary for me to receiving a new Murakami story; a very auspicious occurrence.

One of his previous New Yorker stories, the Golden Vanity, is one of my all-time favorite bits of short fiction.

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As is true most weeks, I spent a lot of time studying Kanji, the Chinese characters used in Japanese. In general, Japanese isn’t that difficult to grasp as a language. Especially being so far removed from English, it’s not difficult to come at it from completely fresh eyes.

However, there’s no getting around kanji. The Japanese government has made a list of essential characters to know to consider yourself literate, called the Joyo kanji. While this is a big step up from the vast library of characters, readings, and meaning that needed to be memorized before, this list is still around… 2000 characters.

I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m getting there. According to the statistics of it all, I’ve about achieved the knowledge needed to complete the first two levels of the five-level Japanese Language Proficiency Test, around 600 characters total.

I think my knowledge of kanji has actually surpassed my understanding of grammar. I need to balance out better. I should start looking into getting those classifications!

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Eri Kitamura is an artist who paints these lovely abstract compositions and drawings of girls on most notably gameboy shells. I love her work.

She recently added the ability to ship to the US on her webstore, check it out! I ordered a postcard set.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact of cellphones and technology lately.

I think the ability to walk away from technology is tremendously important, and have been trying to re-contextualize a lot of the tech and gadgets I interact with on a daily basis as a tool to help accomplish a task, rather than an all-encompassing filter.

Smartphones, computers, the internet, these things are all great when used correctly. However, something I’m still seeking for and trying to articulate about the casualness and omnipotence of smartphones makes it easy for me to get lost in them. It’s as if because they’re able to do anything, I find myself struggling to focus on the task I intended to accomplish.

Working on using the phone only when I need it, in the way I’d intended to, and not otherwise, rather than as this ever-present comfort to return to.

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This talk from designer David Rudnick is so good. I love little lectures like this.

It’s things like this, and the reaction I have to them, that makes me think I’ll return to academia at some point.

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I’ve been having a lot of fun with handwritten logs lately, inspired by how meticulous the note-taking was in ‘Penguin Highway’. I use a combination of my Hobonichi planner for daily journaling, and a bigger notebook (the ‘Crossfield’ from Seven Seas Paper Company) for more focused writing. My words have a place and a purpose, inherent to how I’ve structured them.

So far, my bigger notebook has been getting focused logs on how my meditation sessions have been going, ideas on stories I’m writing and want to write, notes from lectures and books, and drawings of layouts or things I want to make. It’s a good system for me!

According to a twitter poll I conducted, most of you write on both sides of the paper, a habit I’m trying to build. Have you got a system for notes and logs? Are you all digital, or an analogue holdover like me? How is it structured? Let me know!

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Thanks for your time as always, and good luck with the week ahead!

Your faithful commander,
 — I