D&F 5-30-21
Greetings from my iPad, which is now my primary computer again until I discover if my quite wet MacBook will recover. I set out for St. Helena with Haley and Andre on Saturday morning, but forgot to twist my water bottle to “closed” mode before setting off, and only realized it 10 minutes later once the laptop sleeve in my bag was a small lake. My plan to write this newsletter by the pool last night was a failure due to this mistake.
It’s good to be in a position where I have a a work computer and this iPad, so I’m not exactly in a lurch, but definitely not the way I wanted to spend however much money it will cost to fix or replace it.
Ç’est la vie!
This week, while thinking about other forms of loss and talking to some new Binhead friends about Japan, I took a virtual tour through a number of weird favorite places now closed. The blog linked there is truly bizarre and delightful, and responsible for my finding so many things around Tokyo. If you’ve been to Japan with me, I’ve likely taken you to one or two, and enjoyed browsing through old erotica, or various pachinko enforcer weapons.
I’m still not certain when Japan will reopen their borders, but Craig Mod’s latest adventure newsletter has me itching to return.
If you love a more luxurious adventure, perhaps you’d like a falconry car?
This smart essay dives into the world of Twitter status anxiety and the allure of the bird site for many of us. I’ve resisted the siren song of twitter.com since January, save for an accidental book post that self-deleted three days later. The sad Tumblr warlocks banished to the realm of Twitter are hellbent on skewering anyone and everyone in the most Tumblr anarchist house way. No thanks.
Increasingly, I’m doing my social posting on private Slack and Discord servers with friends and friends of friends, and it’s much, much better. I miss the easy “drop in a goofy joke” format of Twitter, but the laughs for some joke about farts no longer balance out the endless bummers. If that wasn’t enough content on social media, perhaps this post about being a “real” person online will be to your liking.
This link on public vs. private affluence went around a bit this week and really captures a long-standing frustration I’ve had with the disappearance of good public spaces in favor of everyone having a weird yard. That said, I did quite love getting to swim in my friend’s family pool yesterday, so perhaps I’m just a hypocrite. I do really the lakes in Texas though.
PUSA is a band that will forever be associated with copious hours spent in the outfield with my little league team. Somehow I managed to sneak out a CD player and headphones to make games a little less terrible, and Lump and Peaches and all the rest were my jam in 5th grade.
Links
- Before there was Beyblade there was ベイゴマ
Closing
It’s hot today! In St. Helena, it hit the mid-90s, but now that I’m home, even my apartment is a warm 70 degrees out of the shade. I guess I won’t need a sweater for a while. While I close out this week’s edition, I’m enjoying a truly spectacular 1989 Riesling that Haley’s mom broke out for me, with a conspiratorial “let’s see if this is any good.” Reader, it was glorious. My plan for tomorrow’s holiday is to lay around and watch tv, and perhaps go on a long bike ride. This week will be mostly a vacation, save for Tuesday, and I need it.
I hope if you have Monday off, you get to enjoy it doing whatever brings you joy and rest. Stay safe, stay cool, and see you next week, space cowgirls~