@pourfairelevide
“character = trauma + consumption habits”…yes!
especially when trauma barely fleshes out someone’s interiority and instead becomes a flat Psychology Today cliché…have read so much fiction where it’s like, ofc this Asian American narrator is traumatised by her tiger parents
I love every newsletter from
@aliciakennedy
but especially this one: on high-tech vegan meats versus simply…not eating meat 🐖🌱 and the failures of environmental technologies that don't consider what people need
wrote about 6 great short story collections for
@TheAtlantic
, feat. some of my favorite contemporary writers (Claire-Louise Bennett! César Aira! Mieko Kawakami!)
A short story has velocity and verve, and the best ones create an immediate, instinctual bond between the reader and the characters,
@mynameisceline
writes.
These six collections show off the dazzling range of the form:
I wrote about CONSPIRACY THEORIES on the left and right wing, why fact checking them doesn’t work, and how novels & nonfiction can help us understand the emotional stakes behind the theories
"But they also promise a conditional escape: if you attain the right knowledge and listen to the right people, you might be able to save yourself and those you love."
@mynameisceline
on Larne Abse Gogarty
🌃 NYC friends! There's a great panel discussion on tech worker organizing feat.
@lizthegrey
@mer__edith
,
@bentarnoff
…and more! Tonight!
And come by the merch table to say hello to me and
@moiragweigel
—and grab a copy of the latest Logic issue 📖
If you're planning to join us on January 11th in New York for a conversation about tech workers, please RSVP at Eventbrite to attend. Looking forward to seeing you all there!
I wrote a review of
@BuckleyInfo
’s extraordinary novel Tell (Fitzcarraldo/New Directions) for
@atmosphericlit
, and reflected on how critical writing should respond to a formally experimental work
what's your favorite way to diminish the achievements of women designers? 🤔 maybe turning a discussion on someone's portfolio into whether they're too "vain"?
I wrote about Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries (out today from
@fsgbooks
and
@FitzcarraldoEds
!), autofiction, and process-driven writing for ArtReview
Sheila Heti’s ‘Alphabetical Diaries’ shows how a confessional work is constructed. But why do we resist the idea that novelists are, well, writing – constructing, arranging, fictionalising?
Being present in the moment is hard,
@mynameisceline
writes. But reading can help us cultivate a more patient, attentive state of mind by highlighting the beauty in the worlds of sound, touch, smell, sight, and taste:
very delighted I got to design for yet another INCREDIBLE
@logic_magazine
issue! feat.
— an interview with
@antievictionmap
🌉
—
@cmcilwain
on tech's D&I attempts in the 1960s ‼️
—
@neintara
on supremacist emojis 🤔
and more fascinating/critical/urgent/interesting writing!
I'm reading a book a week in 2023. classics, nonfiction, or anything people highly recommend. start on Monday, done by ??? there will be absolutely no videos of my takeaways. if you want to read along, the current list is here:
now that I've quit my job, my dad has asked me to host our WEEKLY FAMILY STANDUPS
like many standups, they last twice as long as scheduled because that one guy [my dad] talks twice as much as everyone else
last weekend 🚆🤍 everyone I've talked to about this has been like omg that seems so useful and productive and leisurely and exciting…and it was!!
highly recommend trapping yourself on a low-carbon transportation method for a weekend & researching/writing with friends
My choose-your-own-adventure short story for
@COMPOSTmag
, 'Logging Off', is now out! 🌐🌳🍄
Thank you
@maira
and
@___tal_____
for helping shape this piece 💖🖊
It’s here! ISSUE 02: Inoculate, hot off the distributed press. This issue contains eight creative pieces—(non)fiction, interactive media, and stories from the front lines of alternative networks built on care & solidarity.
Read it on the World Wide Web:
really loved
@Delistraty
’s essay on grief, closure, and how we misunderstand both—we’re obsessed with solving & swiftly moving past our negative feelings, but that’s not how grief works!
As
@jaivirdi
notes, better accessibility is not just for a marginal audience. Curb cuts are helpful for wheelchairs and strollers—"it's a universal and inclusive design". What are the digital equivalents? 👨🏽🦼🏙
#NewPublicFestival
"Public and private design intersect to channel power...On one hand digital public spaces provide more inclusive space for democratic participation. On the other hand, if we design accessibility as an afterthought, we replicate exclusion." -
@jaivirdi
#newpublicfestival
waiting for my flight…reading Brian Eno’s diary…listening to the og Music for Airports (parents chastising their children, luggage wheels clicking on the tiled floors)
So moved by these numbers from
@UNITEHEREPhilly
‼️❤️ (and UNITE HERE union members across the US who made the Biden/Harris victory possible!)
Strong unions for a more liberatory political future 🙏
Many unsung stories to celebrate in PA, but I want to single out the extraordinary members and leadership of
@UNITEHEREPhilly
: 60,000 Biden pledges, 30,000 people who didn’t vote in 2016. Effective, inspired organizing.
😌☺️ thank you to everyone who came today! loved hearing about how people are using Notion for startups, at uni…what you love, what can be even better 🚀
I’ll be back tomorrow—please say hello! (& feel free to tell me your hot product design takes…)
👋 Hi London, it’s great to be back.
Will be at the Notion pop-up at Spitalfields Market later today with
@mynameisceline
@aliciatweet
from EPD — we’re opening a product office in London next year + we’d love to meet folks from the community!
Here til Sat, open 11:00-18:00.
Very excited for the
#NewPublicFestival
on public spaces and the internet!
@dsallentess
: "It's impossible to have any kind of discourse space where people convene that doesn't organize power in some way. The only question is HOW you're organizing power." 💬🏙
And a closing thought on why the internet needs better public spaces, from Sara Hendren: "Software platforms have become governance without government." 🌐🏛
#NewPublicFestival
Police suppression of black rights and protest movements is nothing new—the primary purpose of many US police departments has been to control the poor, black, homeless, marginalized (from
@avitale
's The End of Policing)
@schock
love Freire and have a (very bad) draft on this topic…so much work on AI ethics asks privileged people to make things less harmful to some marginalised Other—instead of truly ceding power and inviting the people most affected to define what “AI ethics” should do/mean
Very excited to announce my own 'Places to Go in 2020':
1. Climate protest
2. Voting booth
3. Anywhere within transit, driving, or train distance
4. , IF YOU MUST FLY
The glamourization of air travel is ecologically unsustainable.
S: Literature, Poetry, Dance, Painting
A: Music, Film, Performance Art, Theatre
B: Photography, Architecture, Design, Perfume
C: Fashion, Video Art
D: Video Games
F: TV, Podcasts, AI Art
anything serialized becomes narratively undisciplined imo, hence Film > TV
the official jmk ranking of art forms
S: Music, Food
A: Film, Dance
B: Architecture, Painting, Literature, Perfume
C: Video Games, Sculpture, Photography, Fashion, Theater
D: Poetry, Video Art, Performance Art
F: TV, Podcasts, Video Essays
@AsheeshKSi
been thinking about this question a LOT…I can't help but feel there is something anti-intellectual in justifying an education in terms of ROI
at the same time, there's a persistent (and imo false!!!) narrative that history/the humanities are "useless" and have zero econ. value
reviewed Mieko Kanai’s Mild Vertigo for
@clereviewbooks
—such a fascinating stream-of-consciousness novel about domestic despair, the allure of consumer objects, and how photography can pierce and move us 💞
"There’s no real pleasure in enumerating all this abundance: it’s a dissociative technique that lets Natsumi escape the vague, formless despair she feels returning to the supermarket."
@mynameisceline
on Mieko Kanai's 𝘔𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘰
@pourfairelevide
and the consumption is tiresome bc it fully accepts an ad-saturated world, characters are reduced to what they buy/read and the vibes it gives off about them…not how they act and what convictions they have!
Alicia's articulation that 'justice is more important than innovation' feels so essential and urgent ‼️ because STILL there is this belief that the Right Product can solve the climate crisis & let us escape the task of confronting social/economic inequality 🌍 [we can't]
@JustJokes247
this is SO good…love your analysis of the uncool, unsexy effortfulness of historical fiction + how well it actually sells + the pros and cons of the trend towards "recuperative" historical fiction novels!
very excited for this book club organised by
@oluoluoxenfree
📕‼️ come read and discuss async on Twitter with us ~ and share with ur friends who want to think about disability and accessibility as well!
our first chapter is due on the 2nd November!
we'll be discussing "capitalism and disability" by Maria Russell!
big thanks to
@mynameisceline
for the graphics help!
please RT!!
I had some very good Zoom convos today about community and humility—loved this idea from
@piamancini
: "We should think of ourselves as stewards of the community. How do we make ourselves redundant and replace ourselves to make place for other stewards?" 👩🏿🤝👩🏽💕
#NewPublicFestival
commuted to work today with a copy of the Paris Review, NYRB, and European Review of Books in my backpack…what kind of emergency am I packing for?? a spontaneous transit delay where I need extra copies of literary criticism to help my fellow train travelers pass the time??
A provocation from
@doctorow
: "We can work to fix the internet, or we can work to fix the platforms, but we can't do both. They're at cross-purposes…Trying to fix the platforms means giving them more power" 👀🌐
#NewPublicFestival
Very nice unpacking of a glib designer defense—"users don't like change!" We should respectfully seek out why they're reacting against something, and hold ourselves responsible—even if a user can't articulate why they dislike something without help.
Users don't hate change.
• Users hate when you take control from them.
• Users hate when your change shows no value for them.
• Users hate when they’ve invested in learning your design, only for you to disregard that investment.
Users don’t hate change.
It’s you, not them.
Sara Hendren 📢 "Public spaces become the public sphere. They are the spaces that collect us and sometimes collectivize us. But many of us carry vague notions of what a healthy public digital sphere is…" 🏛🌐
#NewPublicFestival
I'm beginning to question why there's so much research on "a woman does X or Y, how does she experience different biased responses?"
Why…don't we ask "audience X or audience Y observe a woman making a joke; who responds in a more biased way?"
Every metaverse pitch I get on LinkedIn boils down to "we are building a new world where anything is possible and the only limit is your imagination. for example, in this new world you can buy and wear various clothes"
Really loved this discussion with
@anamarialeo
& A. Herscher of the Settler Colonial City Project on architecture and settler colonialism…such a good model for moving beyond land acknowledgments towards decolonization.
(still avoiding election news through INTERESTING TALKS!!!)
Join us for Colonial Lives this Thurs 5 November, 7pm GMT. Part of Co-Liberation, our International Lecture Series. With Andrew Herscher & Ana María León of
@SCCP1491
in conversation with
@ThandiLoewenson
&
@dubravka
@RCA
Register:
4. Maybe the solution to tiny pockets is to BRING YOUR OWN POCKET, aka a FANNY PACK, which is a beautiful agender option for All Humans In 2018. I made a pinboard feat. men, women, tiny children wearing fanny packs for inspo, you're welcome
@schock
which Freire would have criticised imo…“Pedagogy which begins with the egoistic interests of the oppressors (an egoism cloaked in the false generosity of paternalism) and makes of the oppressed the objects of its humanitarianism, itself maintains and embodies oppression”
Let's study the people who are perpetuating inequality? And not just the victims of it??
Research has already suggested women should not make jokes, assert themselves, interrupt others to avoid workplace bias…but I'm pretty sure women are not the problem here???
I'm beginning to question why there's so much research on "a woman does X or Y, how does she experience different biased responses?"
Why…don't we ask "audience X or audience Y observe a woman making a joke; who responds in a more biased way?"
Tomorrow!
@HistoryofDesign
meets contemporary ceramics & glass practice—and how art can respond to museum collections and the COVID-19 crisis 🏛🏺⚱️🌏
Feat. some wonderful guest speakers, including
@V_and_A
curator
@CarolineMcCaff
!
Sign up ➡️ ⬅️
emerging from my dissertation writing haze so I can imbibe bad art friend discourse, respond to one (1) text, and then sink back into the depths of Zotero…
[everyone else] is it the unarmed people protesting a police killing who are escalating the violence? or police forces with military-grade weaponry and almost no training in deescalation?? it's just so complex! why can't people be peaceful when faced with yet another death???
"Here are some of the ways law enforcement officers escalated the national unrest." Thank you,
@slate
&
@MatthewDessem
for the correct framing of this & pointing out it's the armed men with weapons escalating violence, not the unarmed people with placards.
if I get ONE MORE TEXT from the Democratic party asking me to donate to Biden's campaign…I'm going to lose it (vote third party) (I'm Californian so I might as well vote third party anyway tbqh)
One answer?
@dsallentess
: "A more inclusive definition of stakeholders…Different communities of users will see different things faster." 👩🏽🤝👨🏾👩🏿🤝👩🏽
➡️ Being attentive to the most marginalized users, who will experience a decline in community safety first
#NewPublicFestival
@lily___digital
🖼 at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (& can picnic/swim nearby!), Kunsthal Charlottenborg; 🥐☕️ at Juno the Bakery, Atelier September, studio x kitchen; and 🪞🪑 the Hay House for interior design
On thoughtful typography & how
@SCCP1491
's installation was criticized as ugly: "It reveals a colonial understanding of beauty…the glittery Tiffany dome, but not the sign with a limited budget, with a deliberate and mindful font that includes indigenous characters." 🌲🌊
@tomcritchlow
thank you for reading and sharing this!!!! genuinely very fun to write (and then to hear from people with their own research as leisure practices!)
BREAKING: FTC + 48 States attorneys sue Facebook, alleging the company illegally crushes smaller rivals and competition — They're calling for the SPIN-OFF of Instagram and WhatsApp, a move that Zuckerberg has called "existential" for FB
w/
@ceciliakang