“We’ve become incredibly good at turning collective challenges into personal shortcomings.”
— Kai, from Dense Discovery #327
My Most Dangerous Year: “In my view, whacking corporate CEOs isn’t an acceptable method of solving grievances. But perhaps the Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque idolization of someone seen as striking a blow to the system is a symptom of capitalism run amok.” — Marlon Weems for Oldster.
Bauhaus Manifesto: Walter Gropius' manifesto from 1919.
How the Federal Government Fell: “What is happening across the federal government right now is unprecedented. But this is not Germany in the 1930s; it’s not the fall of the Soviet Union. We grasp at analogies to help contextualize current events that escape understanding. There are similarities, but what’s happening is new, very American, and very 21st century. In 50 years it will be talked about in the vein of ‘What happened to the United States in the mid-2020s.’”—Garrison Davis
Chinpokomon Diplomacy: “On the surface, the conversation went smoothly — at least for the American President, who announced Japanese concession after concession without ceding much in return. And Ishiba pointedly refused to engage with questions about tarrifs. It might make one wonder what Japan stands to gain. The short answer is everything.” —Matt Alt
Comics Sans Frontiers @ Rice University in Houston, March 20-23: Featuring keynote presentation by Art Spiegelman, original art by Jack Katz, and full program jampacked with participants from around the world. Sadly, I'll be out if the U.S. well before then.
BRIDGE by Matt Madden: Narrated by the artist.
You can't post your way out of Fascism: By Janus Rose at 404 Media.
War for Eternity: Warren Ellis on the book by Benjamin R. Teitelbaum.
General thoughts by Warren Ellis on navigating the current platform-scape: “My thing was, does anyone really want to fracture common culture and a shared marketplace any more than it already is? And an hour later, I thought, common culture is a delusion of my age. Common platforms, perhaps, but platforms are contingent and temporary. We are all 'creators' now.”
The Future Is Too Easy: David Roth's takedown of this year's consumer electronics convention in Las Vegas.
The Colors of Motion: Prints that stack the average colour of each frame from popular films into a timeline.
Doing nothing with your favorite people is really, really good for you: The fact that this needed to be an essay at all and is in fact being shared around without even an inkling of a “no-duh” attitude is evidence of one of the deepest maladies of Western civilization.
How communal living makes cooking easier, cheaper, and better: Echoing my very same sentiments as the above link does.
Ugur Galenkus uses photography to juxtapose war and peace.
As I dismantle my workspace and pack up my life (and realize I own way more stuff than I'd like to admit), I'm noticing an uptick in “for sale” and “for rent” signs pop up around the neighborhood. Willing to bet this is just the beginning, and many of these places will remain vacant for many years to come, unless prices are brought down to a tenth of where they are now. This is something that will of course not happen given that very few of these places are owned outright; Most home-owners are in fact beholden to banks and the unreasonably high mortgage-payments they're entitled to.
The American crash is a-comin'.
- Public Work: Search public domain imagery from The MET, New York Public Library, and other sources.
- Public Work: Search public domain imagery from The MET, New York Public Library, and other sources.
Computer decided to stop working a couple weeks back and only managed to get it back online today. Also happen to be going through another one of those major life upendings.
Both Mythomatic and Garage.Ganzeer taken offline in the meantime. Newsletter likely to commence before they do.
Here's a link to the web edition of the latest RESTRICTED FREQUENCY – 219: The Great Shi(f)t is Upon Us.
In other news, one of my bookshelves made the Shelfies newsletter. Really delightful initiative by authors Jared Shurin and Lavie Tidhar.