A Cool Natural Stream That Turns On and Off Throughout the Day (AD S4E6)
Short missive tonight because it is my self-appointed NAprilWriMo. The count stands at 6,716 / 50,000. That means there won’t be much more than a few links I...
Patiently Waiting To Get Our Vaccines (AD S4E5)
I finally got around to finishing that outline! So, now I just need to write like crazy for the next month… With that said, these newsletters will probably...
Picking and Choosing Elements of Western Culture to Adopt (AD S4E4)
So I didn’t end up taking that outline more seriously and as a result didn’t finish it in time for April — I wish I could say “April Fools”, but I’m...
Hang Out With Some Horses, I Guess? (AD S4E3)
I don’t really have much to talk about this week so this is going to be a short issue mostly focused on links that caught my attention, sorry! “Dragon in the...
I Should Probably Take That Outline More Seriously (AD S4E2)
I was supposed to be writing an outline for the Next Novel™️ that I’m hoping to tackle in April, but instead I found myself bombing through The Sympathizer...
What’s New, Rooby-Doo? (Applied Dilettantery S4E1)
Well, that was a fun experiment. Unfortunately the results from our three month A/B test just came in and looks like it’s a no-ship. (That’s a joke, albeit...
Dragon Farming (AD S3E15)
“Panel from Model Cooking Stove: Fairy Feeding Lingzhi Fungus to a Dragon”, 101-100 BC Dragon Farming Dragon farming is a tough job, yes it is, but it’s my...
From the Travelogue of Multan Dhzon: The Desert Libraries of Tingiz (AD S3E14)
Hello all, I hope you had a wonderful Square February. I don’t have much to report, but I am thinking of slowly reintroducing short essays to the newsletter,...
The Structure, Part VII (AD S3E12)
The complete story can be found here. Celestograph by August Strindberg The Structure, Part VII Tamblyn and Thoman stepped towards the center of the large,...
The Factory (AD S3E11)
Applied Dilettantery is on vacation. Come back next week for the conclusion of “The Structure”. In the meantime, here is an old story I wrote a long time...
Parvis (AD S3E10)
Applied Dilettantery is on vacation. Come back in two weeks for the conclusion of “The Structure”. In the meantime, here is some flash fiction. “Flüelen,...
The Structure, Part VI (S3E9)
Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. Part III can be found here. Part IV can be found here. Part V can be found here. Part VI can be found...
The Structure, Part V (S3E8)
The Structure, Part V (S3E8) Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. Part III can be found here. Part IV can be found here. Celestograph by...
The Structure, Part IV (S3E7)
Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. Part III can be found here. Celestograph by August Strindberg The Structure, Part IV Tamblyn saw the...
The Structure, Part III (S3E6)
Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. Celestograph by August Strindberg The Structure, Part III The structure drew closer. It continued to...
The Structure, Part II (S3E5)
Part I can be found here. Celestograph by August Strindberg The Structure, Part 2 A week later, the ship drifting ever closer to the mysterious structure,...
The Structure, Part I (S3E4)
Celestograph by August Strindberg The Structure, Part I The generation ship floated, gently, upon the solar winds of a distant star. “Andromeda?” said...
The House, Part III (S3E3)
You can find the entirety of The House, lightly edited, on my website. The Haunted House: We Both Saw a Large Pale Light, Odilon Redon, 1896 The House, Part...
The House, Part II (S3E2)
In case you missed it, you can find part I here. The Haunted House: We Both Saw a Large Pale Light, Odilon Redon, 1896 The House, Part II It was a cloudless...
The House, Part I (S3E1)
Hello and welcome to season 3 of Applied Dilettantery. As you’ve probably noticed, the newsletters have been getting shorter and shorter — to be frank, I’m...
Rewriting Everything in the Rough Draft (AD S2E11)
Every time I start writing a newsletter I feel I have nothing to talk about — I’ve veered away from planning like it’s a deer that just leapt onto the road —...
Getting Sidetracked Building A Detailed Universe (AD S2E10)
As the days get shorter, so do the newsletters. A stray comment from Sherry had me thinking: why do I write this newsletter, anyway? I think the two main...
Isn’t That Just New Years’ Resolutions? (AD S2E9)
Rough draft completed, with a total of 51,434 words. However, it is very, very rough — I will take November to basically completely rewrite it. And then,...
Surprising, and Maybe Even Unfair (AD S2E8)
48,000 words. Just 2,000 left to go before the rough draft is done! Two essays this week, no miscellanea (didn’t you have enough miscellanea the last two...
An Anthology of Obsessions (S2E7)
Wait, it’s newsletter day again? That can’t be correct — let me check the calendar. Ah, I see it is in fact newsletter day again. I’m sad to report that, for...
A Form of Transcendent Mysticism (S2E6)
Apologies, this will once again be a short issue—pages don’t write themselves, and seeing as how we’re halfway through my (self-declared) NaSepWriMo, I just...
We Now Disrupt This Broadcast (S2E5)
Hello all! This will be a short missive (isn’t “missive” a great word?) because, to be completely frank, I forgot that it was newsletter week until just now....
This Email Has No Content (AD S2E4)
Hello again and welcome back to half-baked essay land. This is a long one (sorry!) but hopefully it’s of some interest. I’ve been working on a SwiftUI...
Simultaneously Praising Restraint and Forgiveness While Also Drenching Audiences in Gallons of Stage Blood (AD S2E3)
Another two weeks of work and pandemic boredom. All images this week are stills from Tokyo Story, which you’ll read about below. That which is spontaneously...
Suffused with a Deep Sense of Nostalgia for the Past (AD S2E2)
You ever had one of those weeks that was just… rough. Not even bad, mind, but just rough. Well, these past two weeks were some of those weeks—I can’t even...
Misplaced Institutional Incentives (AD S2E1)
Hello one and all to this new season of Applied Dilettantery (neé Adventures in Dilettantery)1, two weeks early. As mentioned in the last few issues, I’ve...
Running Out of Steam (AiD S1E26)
It’s been a bit of a long two weeks, so this issue is rather short, if you discount the (very) short story I’ve attached to the end 🙂 So, without further...
An Imitation of the Eternal Forms (AiD S1E25)
Buddha Amitabha with Two Attending Bodhisattvas, 1200s Boy, what a year, huh? What I’m Thinking About Black lives matter. I’ve done the bare minimum...
The Clockwork Precision of Storytelling (AiD #24)
Hello, one and all, from the latter half of a delightful four day weekend (that nevertheless feels just a little too short to be entirely satisfying). I...
A Long-Term Target for Reading (AiD #23)
Hello all! It’s that Sunday again—another weekend, another adventure in dilettantery. I do apologize for the length of the newsletter, this week and every...
Hopefully A Nice Chance for Rest and Relaxation (AiD #22)
Hello all and hopefully you’re all staying safe and sane. Personally, I (and, it seems, most of my coworkers) am finally feeling the strain of work-from-...
Convicted Unanimously by a Jury of His Peers
Happy Easter one and all! It’s not actually a holiday here in California, but oh well. Short edition this week, since I already wrote a 2,000-word newsletter...
Surprise Stories (AiD #20)
Russell here with some surprise flash fiction, inspired by Sherry (and Magic Realism Bot). These aren’t particularly polished (honestly, I don’t think...
Mindbending Escheresque Puzzle World Works of Art
Yes, it’s me, Russell, back with another exciting issue of “what have you done in the past two weeks”, which (it will surprise nobody) mostly consists of...
... And Another Thing
Right after going to press, I saw this video about Italians singing from the rooftop to survive quarantine and Chinese sending videos of support to Italy,...
This Story Is Bonkers and Has No Chill
rwblickhan 5 likes Mirrors show us not what is seen, but only what is unseen Feb. 29, 2020, 7:52 a.m. Hello all from a world that looks considerably scarier...
Nothing!
rwblickhan 6 likes And then one day, their shadows grew longer Feb. 24, 2020, 2:51 a.m. I don’t have much in the way of “deep thoughts” this time (do I...
Hello from New York
Hello from New York, or technically, Union City, New Jersey, but given the trip is around/about New York, I think it's fair to say hello from New York....
A Really Useful Interpretive Lens
Sherry’s new artwork on our wall. What I’m Reading I finally finished The Secret of Our Success, Joseph Henrich’s explanation of his theory about, well, the...
Whoops I Got A Dog
Short this week because, as the title implies, I got a dog. What I’m Reading Continuing with my book-a-week-for-2020 pledge, I read two books in the past two...
All Quiet on the Non-Fiction Front
Happy New Year, one and all! I’ve had a nice two weeks off (exactly coinciding, I am now realizing, with these newsletters) and I’m not preparing to head...
An Intentional Work of Literature
This is quite long! I apologize! Just think of it as an early Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Chunjie/insert-other-winter-holidays-here present. What I’m Watching...
Jangly Psychedelic Indie Pop
Short one this week because I’m lazy, sorry. What I'm Watching We finished up American Horror Story: Cult, which was reasonably entertaining if not...
An Early Thanksgiving Feast
It's almost American Thanksgiving! Which is a profoundly problematic holiday in some ways (although thank god it's not Columbus Day, which has been very...
Is This A Crossover? (It's Not)
The Buttondown image uploader seems to be down at the moment, so apologies that this doesn't include any pretty photos. What I'm Watching Having caught up on...