a stream

Transcription, but with some misspellings corrected: (not ‘moomlight’ because I like that too much)

‘Friday, November 19, 2021
5:10 am at my desk
in the cloud-obscured
moomlight (and
maybe earth-shadow
obscured moonlight of
the eclipse still, but
I can’t tell.) And I
can’t really see what
I am writing now
so this is an
experiment.

‘I can’t fall back
asleep and I can’t
really see the eclipse
so I figured I would
try this.

‘I just took some
pictures / video
that I hope are
eerie but either
way I think I will
like them.’

Standalone post link: moomlight notes and pics

This site now aims to be the contemporary equivalent of enigmatic handmade publications hoarded in a drawer.

Standalone post link: On Some Emily Dickinson Shit (Fascicles in a Drawer 2022)

I’m curious how Mormons¹ who play Animal Crossing: New Horizons are responding to the new café.

• Does anyone refrain from having their character drink coffee in Animal Crossing, so as to avoid even the very appearance of evil?

• Have kids been caught by their parents drinking coffee in the game and had the game confiscated or banned?

• Are any Mormons going bonkers drinking cup after cup of coffee in Animal Crossing because it’s “just a game” or “doesn’t count?”

• How does someone’s stance on coffee in Animal Crossing compare to their stance on violence and gore in other video games?

• Is drinking coffee in Animal Crossing ‘Word of Wisdom pornography?’

• Am I overthinking this, or at least thinking more about it than I ever would have back when I was a Mormon?²

I was always jealous when one of the island residents would be walking around the island with a cup of coffee or hot cocoa.

But it turns out that now that I can, drinking coffee in Animal Crossing is not all that satisfying. Doing almost anything in Animal Crossing is not all that satisfying for very long, to be honest.

Drinking real coffee in real life is generally satisfying, though.

Standalone post link: On Virtual Coffee and Mormons Who Play Animal Crossing

Your art is more important than your audience.

– so says my A.I. / algorithmically generated horoscope today, the notification popping up while I was mid-contemplating just how to curate collections and microthoughts such as these on this website, and whether to continue to do it just for myself or reconnect somehow with a social media network for the possible benefit or irritation of unknown others.

I still haven’t decided.

Standalone post link: Your art is more important than your audience

Yay holidays! Yay traditions! Yay America! Yay humans! We’re the best! We’re smarter than turkeys!

Standalone post link: Yay Thanksgiving!

I Made the World’s Blandest Facebook Profile, Just to See What Happens

by Kaitlyn Tiffany in The Atlantic

It seems like not many people are talking about this aspect of why Facebook is so horrible because it is also horrible in so many other ways. This is actually one of the main reasons I finally deleted my Facebook account, though.

I didn’t have a ton of “friends” (230ish, which I’m sure is below average for someone on Facebook for over a decade) and most of them didn’t share much that was real (or if they did, the algorithm didn’t see fit to share it with me), so my feed was filled with so much inanity and corporate stuff, and I still just scrolled through it compulsively, hoping something interesting would happen.

You can see this article had a different headline when I first encountered it in the Apple News app (another demonic time suck if you aren’t mindful and deliberate about finding quality content there - you have to dig to find things like articles from The Atlantic.)

After this I did find one more person talking about this, again via The Atlantic, but this time one of their new newsletter authors, Charlie Warzel in his Galaxy Brain:

What might the Facebook conversation look like if it more readily acknowledged Facebook for what it is: a vast algorithmic wasteland? Infinite channels, but nothing on.

Facebook’s Vast Wasteland

by Charlie Warzel

Standalone post link: Reading Link: Facebook Sent Me Down a Centrist Rabbit Hole

Writing the Great American Email

(Published this new ‘longer thing’ in the Features / Longer Things area of this website.)

Standalone post link: New Longer Thing: Writing the Great American Email

The last rays of the sun transfigured the water tower, the freeway overpasses, and the tops of the pins on the bowling alley sign, as I sat at my computer in an emptied office. I hadn’t noticed the sky darkening as I tapped away on my keyboard, compulsively shift-tabbing the cursor, re-reading, revising, substituting words, deleting phrases, and reorganizing paragraphs.

I still didn’t notice how late it was when my wife called me up wondering where I was and what I was doing, if I was okay. It was only as I dumbly attempted to explain to her why I was still at work that I recognized my folly. I was deep in creative flow, composing a short essay. I thought it was pretty good, and it was nearly complete.  It had some humor, it had a detailed history of past work on the subject, and it had what I think are some promising ideas for the topic moving forward. Sounds great, right? I haven’t yet disclosed a key detail, which is that it was about to be sent in reply to an email I received with a simple question asked in a single sentence.

My wife recommended I not hit send on that email just then, and I took her advice. It is still in my drafts. It was not all for naught, though. As I closed up the office and drove home from work, I was finally ably to put a name to a needed work productivity goal (and probably professional relationship goal, but I hate thinking about relationships) around what I think must be a rather unique personal challenge - I should not be writing The Great American Email.

Getting lost in composing detailed narratives and obsessively reworking sentences is within my full purview here in nowhereland, but it is usually not all that helpful or productive in an email at work. So, if I recognize that I am starting to write an extensive email, I need to take pause and figure out if it should actually be a phone call, an item for a meeting, a note that I don’t share with anyone yet, a sentence or two summary, or if it really needs to be anything at all. After all, I know people skip or delete my emails, sometimes maybe I can skip or delete things, too. 

I need to recognize that sometimes I just like reading myself writing - case in point, this very website, of which I may well be the only reader. Please don’t try to like, subscribe, or leave a comment, because none of those things are possible here. (Well, I guess “subscribe” is possible, if you are into that ancient protocol, RSS.)

TL;DR here’s that quality productivity self-help life hack you can share with all your business bros and professional contacts on LinkedIn - DON’T WRITE THE GREAT AMERICAN EMAIL.

(That is, unless your work is composing an email newsletter that you hope will get picked up by The Atlantic or make you a Substack millionaire – in that case you should definitely try to write the Great American Email. The school district doesn’t pay me for that sort of work, though.)

Standalone post link: Writing the Great American Email

Teen Librarians are not Pornographers and Other Things You Should Know About the People Who Have Dedicated Their Lives to Serving Youth in Your Community

by Karen Jensen of Teen Librian Toolbox

Loved this blog post that I happened upon today – being on School Library Journal’s network she’s kind of preaching to the choir, so I don’t know if this will convince or speak to anyone outside of libraries, but it’s honest and heartfelt and made me personally feel just a little bit better about my life.

These issues hit close to home but I’ve been avoiding social media and the news about them, which I think has been personally healthy but perhaps professionally a little irresponsible? There is always a fine line with news…

Standalone post link: Reading Link: Teen Librarians Are Not Pornographers

Photograph taken on June 13, 2009, somewhere off the South Fork Road in Provo Canyon.

I guess I’m going to at least occasionally continue with the totally random old photos. Probably should get a good series/source name for them.

Standalone post link: topographicbark