West Hollywood, May 2023

San Pedro, May 2023

Jeet Heer in his rebuke of Harvard’s slavering embrace of post-conviction Jeffrey Epstein:

The modern neoliberal university is a shark that must constantly consume donations in order to stay alive.

The only rocket ship I want is a rowboat full of arugula.

Great article on dark online patterns that trick you into not unsubscribing. I always thought my online literacy protected me—that dark patterns, awful for others, were merely a hassle for me. But last year, after I “unsubscribed,” the Wall Street Journal took me for over $300.

Tired: conspicuous consumption

Wired: conspicuous consumption of the commons

A chicken covering “Work” by Rihanna.

(Am I telling on myself as a millennial with this joke? (Am I double-telling with this (these!) meta-concerns?))

West Hollywood

Western Canon

My father once told me his favorite tombstone inscription:

What I am you shall become.

Sort of the opposite of Neil Young telling his old man to take a look at his life and see how “I’m a lot like you were.”

Ah, our fleeting numbered days, our many ephemeral returns!

Undoubtedly the best thing among many good things here are the simply enormous hands. But also: the silhouette resembling a twirly tutu. And of course the idea of such a card being used for “trading”. No notes, you can find me on Truth Social eight days a week baby.

Introverts.

Love these johnny-come-latelies in San Francisco wringing their hands about seeing drug users on the streets, when this is how San Franciscans spent the 1890’s:

(pic via this great post on Victorian opium den photos.)

At the bottom of an article on Yahoo News about a gang shooting in LA: a comments section full of dozens and dozens of not just racist but truly Nazi-, Jim Crow-level hate speech. Reported at least thirty posts. So unexpected and vile; unflushed toilet vibes. Do better, humans!

Just noticed the Botox lady’s sign is fading. It’s been up for years. Are its days numbered?

How sad it would be to live in a neighborhood without her visage peering down like a god, forever begging the question: is she, uh, holding a mask of someone else’s perfect, puffy face?

You know you’re at the post office when the back door features a narrow letter slit. Let‘s gooooo!

This new study on the climate impact of the LAPD and LASD helicopter fleets (famous nuisance and menace) is a great reminder that climate justice is additive: what’s better for climate is so often better for justice, too. (From the great Heated newsletter)

Myrtle Beach

“We first got together when he was a senior and I was a junior, and we got married back in 2011. We’re a couple of lovebirds, for sure.”

Reading the Odyssey, I keep feeling the phantom audience for its oral performance - can hear them cheering when Telemachus says Ithaca’s a simple island fit only for goats yet he loves it - can hear the storyteller giving a mid-story recap for stragglers. It’s haunted, haunting.

I’ve long felt the dichotomy between reading for status/progress/duty and reading for pleasure. Aiming mostly these days for the latter, I appreciated this recent Anne Trubek essay, “Why I’ve Been Reading”. (Her whole Notes From a Small Press newsletter is consistently great.)

We call meat in a tube a “hot dog” so why is tubal cheese called “string cheese”?

Let’s get it right, “cheese dog”

This morning’s realization: shortbread is bulletproof cookie.

No, wait. Now I’m hearing that I’ve got it backwards. Bulletproof coffee is actually shortjoe.

The eternal, rhythmic challenge of falling out of routine, recognizing that, and then falling back into it. Losing and regaining my routine IS my routine.

If these are the guardrails AI requires, we’re totally screwed.