Category: Navel Gazing

What’s Another Notebook…?

A handmade leather traveler's notebook with the classic "Ithaca Is GORGES" logo etched on it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was minding my own business, browsing a local bookstore with my writing EDC in tow (various notebooks and pieces of portable tech), and just happened to pass by this. It was the only one there, so I grabbed it like the golden ticket was inside. Hell, this was the golden ticket!

Did I mention I already had notebooks in my bag? Plural. Surely I didn’t need a handmade traveler’s notebook, embossed with a classic logo? Basically, in the time it took me to mentally begin to process that question, I’d already taken it to the register.

Because it’s one of those “cool notebooks,” it took me a few days to figure out what I wanted to put in it. The way it ended up shaking out…

  • Notebook 1 is where I put random bits of writing from my main notebook that I’d mark for me to come back to later, which I almost never do. These are things that tug at something, things I might be able to develop one way or another, and now they’re all in one place… at least until I fill it. Eh, I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.
  • Notebook 2 is a project notebook where I’m putting a bunch of stuff that I know is… something. There are lists, themes, some blocks of writing that could be part of a short story, an essay, or a collection of one or the other — I don’t know and I’m not going to worry about it for now.
  • Notebook 3 is a bullet journal for all the short projects I’ve been neglecting.

I want to plug the maker, but I get the impression this person doesn’t want to quite put themselves out there quite yet. When they do, though, I’m gonna be a total shill!

Analog-to-Digital Underground

Shot of my old Acer netbook running Win95, next to a custom leather Moleskine notebook cover and a Motorola flip phone I rocked about 15 years ago.
My EDC from over a decade ago.

Who remembers Dead Drops, from back in the day when some of us were rocking netbooks in our messenger bags that we’d just bust out at a moment’s notice? Has it really been long enough for folks to start waxing nostalgic?

These cryptic storage drives are known as Dead Drops, taking their name from an anonymous drop-off technique used by spies. It started as a guerrilla art project created by artist Aram Bartholl back in 2010, creating an anonymous file-sharing system that anyone can interact with, in any location. Its premise is simple: all you need to do is take your laptop to one of the Dead Drops and plug it in to either retrieve whatever’s on it, or to leave something there for the next person to find. It’s kind of like a digital scavenger hunt, where you can leave treasure just as easily as you can find it.

I never encountered Dead Drops personally or really went out of my way to find one, but I was always fascinated by the concept. Same with the Pirate Box–remember those?? Different method, but the same concept: a way for people to share curated material anonymously, off of the established grid.

Having come up well after the peak of pirate radio, I harbored a fantasy of being part of one of these networks. This was about the time I got myself an OG Raspberry Pi I never did anything with. In the end though, in terms of my day-to-day life, these were always solutions in search of problems I didn’t have.

Still, who hasn’t fantasized about the thrill of being part of a shady, but not necessarily Dark Web shady underground, sharing cool shit for its own sake, under everyone’s nose?

Say Up Jump the Boogie…

Here’s an exercise I came across in Brevity the other day…

So here’s a challenge I have for each of you. Find an instrumental online of a rap song that you like. Then, freestyle to it until the beat stops. How did that feel? You might even find, if you make this a practice like I have, that you have go-to instrumentals. Why do you think that is?

You know, I do have the album ENTER THE 37TH CHAMBER by the El Michels Affair and wonder if I can go Wu-Tang on it…

“When they left fully loaded for Cleveland…”

A bottle of Edmund Fitzgerald Porter by Great Lakes Brewing Company.

There are two reasons you could observe the anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald year round…

1
You could observe it anytime wherever Great Lakes Brewing Company beers are sold…

2
Or…

“From 1875 to 1975, there were at least 6,000 commercial shipwrecks on the bottom of the Great Lakes,” [writer John U.] Bacon told NPR. “So that is one shipwreck a week every week for a century. That is one casualty every day for a century.”

via NPR

Revisionist Harmony

“Harmonious” is one of my favorite Eric Bogosian monologues. In terms of content, this stuff is evergreen! Presentation, though — that can get a little touchy. The piece is from Bogosian’s 2001 one-man show WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE. Apparently inspired by some Deepak Chopra specials he’d seen on PBS, the stage direction reads thus:

A man speaks in a British/Indian accent, deep and resonant with a slight lisp:

So obviously, 20some years ago, that’s how he performed it.

Now, this isn’t a “Gotcha, you colonizing appropriator!” post. I’m just saying Bogosian definitely owes Aasif Mandvi, here.

#Weeknotes S04 E01: Back on My Bullshit

I come up here and I do the best I can. I give you the best I can. I can’t do better than this. I can’t.

–Eric Bogosian, “I’m Here. I’m Here Every Night”
from TALK RADIO

I used to be one of those people who would come back to their blogs after a prolonged absence, all self-conscious about it, wanting to explain, to pledge to post more regularly, to get on a schedule. I’m over that.

So, the only question is what to write about after so long? I cast an eye inward, but then decided to just let the Story Cubes put my thoughts together.

I’ve been on a huge reading binge lately. I’ve got about 5 or 6 books going on right now, but the top 3 this past week:

The thing that’s helped me do all this reading is the Nook Glowlight 4e that I decided to splurge on a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it’s my aging eyes, but my laptop, tablet, and phone screens just weren’t cutting it anymore. Between that and the fact that reading at night no longer keeps me up and is thus improving the quality of my sleep, Nook is the first single-use media device I’ve had in my EDC kit for a very long time.

All this reading has definitely unlocked something. It’s filling me up on the old magic, helping me rediscover things that make me smile. Things like Nathasha Lyonne doing an Eric Bogosian monologue…

Goodbye 2020

No year in review because, I mean why? You can’t do any better that Netflix’s DEATH TO 2020.


But I won’t leave the year cynically. While I also had moments “when I couldn’t even see the point of steppin’ out the mother fuckin’ house,” I did make it to the new year and so did you, if you’re reading this.

We should celebrate!

My bag is sinkin’ low and I do believe it’s time…

This past holiday weekend, I went around with what I call my “Ultraportable EDC-In-Exile.” It’s smart to go with a lighter load every once in awhile, but one thing it does is introduce room for error. In this case, making sure everything I put in there gets back into my real EDC bag, my monster of a Filson 258.

Which, come Tuesday, I didn’t. Which then triggers all of my unresolved control issues and a rant of “Shit fuck goddammit, this is why I should never switch bags, one fucking bag is all I need, I don’t care how heavy it gets, I need everything, every day, all the time, why am I so fucking lazy??”

There’s that old organizational saw that says a weakness is an overused strength. It is a strength that I’ve condensed the gear I need to carry on a daily basis such that I have a good 99% of all essentials with me at all times without much thought. Who can argue with that logic? Certainly not a control freak. And, that’s a problem; not just for my spine, either.

I’m never giving up my Filson. It’s the bag I’ve always wanted, I don’t care how big people say it is! But… maybe I just don’t need every damn thing every damn day. And maybe, just maybe I might benefit from actually choosing (Gasp!) to be okay with going without every once in awhile.

I just need to remind myself that it’s okay to take a load off…

GTFO Here with this “Real Fan” BS

I’ve been meaning to post more besides Weeknotes, and I’m in a mood. So, why not let the two impulses dovetail?

You know, I used to have more patience for people who protect and defend their fandoms. Back in the day, there was a line to be held with the people who point and laugh for loving STAR WARS, or DOCTOR WHO, or any comic book. There was a good fight to be fought.

But now, I see “real fans” doing the pointing and laughing, targeting poeple with the gall to love what we love, except a little bit differently than how we do? Really?

And if you’re within spitting distance of my age and doing that (Yeah, I see you.), what the hell’s the matter with you? Try aging gracefully, FFS.