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I haven't been too keen on working in January - words wouldn't come, and I wanted to watch movies or read instead, so that's generally just what I've been doing. The Peripheral was pretty good. I think that Cory Doctorow really liked it, and I thought it was okay, but Gibson's work doesn't usually tend to broadcast directly into my brainstem as much as I read it, unpack it, and reread it - the reread is always better. So maybe the jury's out. You might suppose that I'd be eager to write on it but, frankly, my first takes on things are always bad. Honestly they are. I tried with Hyper Light Drifter, and it was abysmal.
I'm always kind of glad when I write something that I think is bad. Just, like, objectively poor. I can be like, "Oh, okay, see? That's what bad looks like. Maybe this other thing you think is okay is pretty good. It's much better than this bad thing you did, at least." Produce something that's clearly shit, you know, and you've just managed to produce some perspective, is all. So you'll see me do that here, but probably not anywhere else. I'm typically averse to that, but if you're creeping here, than you already know - this is where all of my very worst writing ends up, outside of my paper journals which, I assure you, are some of the most incredibly boring documents you could imagine someone painstakingly writing in pen. (Those things exist largely as a means of self-flagellation - a kind of ritual cleansing - where things like my need to go grocery shopping are listed in minute detail in expensive pen.)
We watched Stand Along Complex this month, we're starting on 2nd Gig. I'm reading through a volume of Kafka's complete works that I'd been meaning to get to. This weekend was strangely packed. I know that Trump shenanigans are taking up a lot of processing power for me, eating up a lot of time, and I'm trying to strike a balance between keeping informed and actually living my regular life where things need to get done. I would say, "being more informed, past a certain point, isn't particularly helpful," since after a while, you know that the verdict is "Bad." But, on the other hand (and it is a heavy hand) I might point out to myself that the new developments have a fairly dramatic daily impact on many, many people around me. And things are coming very quickly and getting very bad. So, yes, it makes sense to stay informed. And prepare. Will the yelling and gunshots get closer, or recede? We have blocked the windows, and this does not seem excessive.
Strange days.
Weird, weird, weird stuff to write about catching up on media and writing that I've wanted to do over the course of a few years while I was neck-deep in coursework and grading while, simultaniously, I write on fascism taking hold. But where is cyberpunk more applicable, I ask you, than in the heart of a new flavor of dystopia?
I'm always kind of glad when I write something that I think is bad. Just, like, objectively poor. I can be like, "Oh, okay, see? That's what bad looks like. Maybe this other thing you think is okay is pretty good. It's much better than this bad thing you did, at least." Produce something that's clearly shit, you know, and you've just managed to produce some perspective, is all. So you'll see me do that here, but probably not anywhere else. I'm typically averse to that, but if you're creeping here, than you already know - this is where all of my very worst writing ends up, outside of my paper journals which, I assure you, are some of the most incredibly boring documents you could imagine someone painstakingly writing in pen. (Those things exist largely as a means of self-flagellation - a kind of ritual cleansing - where things like my need to go grocery shopping are listed in minute detail in expensive pen.)
We watched Stand Along Complex this month, we're starting on 2nd Gig. I'm reading through a volume of Kafka's complete works that I'd been meaning to get to. This weekend was strangely packed. I know that Trump shenanigans are taking up a lot of processing power for me, eating up a lot of time, and I'm trying to strike a balance between keeping informed and actually living my regular life where things need to get done. I would say, "being more informed, past a certain point, isn't particularly helpful," since after a while, you know that the verdict is "Bad." But, on the other hand (and it is a heavy hand) I might point out to myself that the new developments have a fairly dramatic daily impact on many, many people around me. And things are coming very quickly and getting very bad. So, yes, it makes sense to stay informed. And prepare. Will the yelling and gunshots get closer, or recede? We have blocked the windows, and this does not seem excessive.
Strange days.
Weird, weird, weird stuff to write about catching up on media and writing that I've wanted to do over the course of a few years while I was neck-deep in coursework and grading while, simultaniously, I write on fascism taking hold. But where is cyberpunk more applicable, I ask you, than in the heart of a new flavor of dystopia?