Hi friends!
I want to get back on track sending these around the start of the month, so pardon the second email within two weeks.

In June, I visited Philly and had a wonderful time. The city's architecture and planning is the average of Boston and New York, though the public transit is frankly awful. The highlights of the city were honestly the art museums, especially the Barnes museum -- easily a top three museum of all time for me. I spent most of my time hanging with Finn, the highlight of which was also biking 26 miles and spending the following day bumming.

Carlsbad was also great. I managed to catch up with a lot of friends in a short period, got wine drunk with Nana, and surfed. My parents moved houses recently, so it was odd living at a place Carlsbad where I felt like guest, but it had a nice ocean view porch with a fire pit that made up for the nostalgic loss. There's also a lack of urgency in Carlsbad compared to Boston, and I surprisingly found it difficult to adjust. I kind of forget life could be that way. I best settled by waking up early and bringing my coffee and journal to the sea.

I published my first Substack piece on why screamo is Nietzschean. In writing it, I wanted to introduce Nietzsche by means of screamo, and for others, introduce screamo by means of Nietzsche. Perhaps for most of my readers who are familiar with neither, the piece will accessibly introduce both. It took me forever to write, and I think it's good! Similarly, my community college paper got rejected and resubmitted within a week (woof). I am gunning for a big boy journal and the criticisms were fair, so hopefully it's on the right track now.

I often forget how much time writing takes -- especially something I'm proud of. As of now, I'm still thinking a lot about AI and threats to democracy. I expect to put a lot of time writing about it this month.

The day-to-day at work has still been alright, I spent a lot of the early part of the month building office chairs for a new office near Harvard and a moving MAIA into a new office. Honestly, plugging in music, a podcast, or a phone-call to a friend back home while building and organizing is wonderful work.

What I've been listening to:

• The Bed Is In The Ocean by Karate

• Jane Doe by Converge

• Hyperview by Title Fight

What I've been reading:

• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

• this simultaneously mystical and grounded life advice piece by Sasha Chapin

• this damning blogpost on the lack of evidence within animal welfare charities

Longshot asks:

• Im going to Converge's hardcore festival on December 13, folks are welcome to join :)

• Really good chiptune rock songs (e.g, Get Olde/Second Wind by Crying)

Enjoying the height of summer,
Ryan Baylon
ryanbaylon.neocities.org
ryanbaylon.substack.com
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