Cringe and hope for the best
hello,
October. Virginia Woolf wasn’t sure about October in London, she thought about going to France to escape. “I will sit on pavements and drink coffee”. That’ll do me. Sit on pavements and drink coffee.
Lots of promotional/administrative updates below but first: 5 things!
Some magnificent clarineting from Angel Bat Dawid. What a brilliant sound. Transition East. (Youtube)
Keke Palmer on the importance of finishing things, even if they’re not perfect. (I think that’s my first Hot Ones link)
Frank Chimero’s thoughts on selling lemons are worth your time. It’s another angle on enshitification. On the other hand - there is magnificence on TikTok.
4. On the work being on the paper:
“Weiner: (Referring to Feynman’s journals) And so this represents the record of the day-to-day work.
Feynman: I actually did the work on the paper.
Weiner: That s right. It wasn’t a record of what you had done but it is the work.
Feynman: It’s the doing it — it’s the scrap paper.
Weiner: Well, the work was done in your head but the record of it is still here.
Feynman: No, it’s not a record, not really, it’s working. You have to work on paper and this is the paper. OK?”
Richard Feynman, interviewed by Charles Weiner
5. Ken Isaacs on parenthood (via James)
“Every morning for the last six hundred days or so carole & i have awakened to a new & different kind of world. we have been joined by another person, full-fledged, intelligent & active. all my life i've thought in some Calvinistic, Baptist way with a quasi-scientific twist that "yes, it is necessary to explore the possibilities of genetic combinations blah, blah, blah." supercool didn't prepare me for the wonder of the benign explosion which was the entry of joshua henry isaacs into our collective life. i tended to think of abstract reasons for rearing children making it worth the hassle. the awesome truth is that it's some experience. like having some exotic stranger come for a long visit. it's the one life experience i've found impossible to take for granted even after all this time. no ego trip like the old-fashioned world but more like watching a beautiful little peach tree grow. the only ego thing involved is watching reinterpreted echoes of your own behavior & attitudes appear in this midget like the reverb from some mighty speaker in the sky driven by the DNA spiral. sometimes this is 0K but sometimes it makes you cringe & hope for the best.”
SELF-PROMOTIONAL CONTENT
Many people have signed up for Presentation Club. You can still do the same. Only a month away.
I made a video about making a song out of TikTok, Suno and Ableton.
Typepad died and took my blogs with it. But Phil was a hero and there’s an EBCB archive and one for my regular blog.
I’m now blogging on Ghost. And/or you can get it via email.
Finally (and Centrepoint aren’t going to like my priorities) I’m running a half marathon in a week so you can give them some money, if you’d like.
I’ll give you back your day.
Russell
(There are 1007 of you. King Æthelred the Unready paid Danish Vikings 36,000 pounds of silver in 1007, to stop further invasions. Didn’t go well.)