The Dice — 034

I almost didn’t make it through the barrage of stupidity this week, but the news of Jen’s new blog (see below) gave me a boost. I suspect that until the country—or the world—breaks, every week will be an onslaught. More of the same, or worse. Publishing this newsletter feels like pretending nothing is happening while the country heads toward disaster. And while I enjoy this, I’m starting to wonder if my time and energy should be directed elsewhere.

Until I figure that out, let’s go with Yahtzee!

“The first two weeks of Trump’s presidency have not shown his strength. He is trying to overwhelm you. He is trying to keep you off-balance. He is trying to persuade you of something that isn’t true. Don’t believe him.” For those of you not looking to get fitted for a brown shirt, Ezra Klein’s article this week is a much-needed reminder for all of us to keep our eye on the ball. “What Trump wants you to see in all this activity is command. What is really in all this activity is chaos. They do not have some secret reservoir of focus and attention the rest of us do not. They have convinced themselves that speed and force is a strategy unto itself — that it is, in a sense, a replacement for a real strategy. Don’t believe them.”

Look, I don’t want to write about politics or even share anything related to politics, but I’m concerned that if I don’t—if we don’t—then we will end up just as Klein forewarns. Eyes wide people! Keep sharing. Keep blogging. Keep talking.

In his piece, The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone David J. Morris writes, “reading fiction is also an excellent way to improve one’s emotional I.Q. Novels help us form our identities and understand our lives. Novels help us form our identities and understand our lives. Like many other bookish Gen X-ers, I can’t conceive of my formative years without the Douglas Coupland novel that gave our generation its name." I did not read Generation X when it came out which might explain a few things about my formative years. But as I’m not fully baked it’s never too late so I purchased the 30th anniversary edition. While you’re buying a copy for yourself I also recommend The Extreme Self, a graphic novel by Coupland and others about “remaking of your interior world as the exterior world becomes more unfamiliar and uncertain.”

After reading Jeff Gordinier’s With Generation X starting to turn 60, we finally get to be the seniors we’ve been acting like since our youth I’m starting to see glimpses of what my third age could look like. “We Gen Xers on the cusp of 60 are uniquely positioned to help snap the world out of its psychotic trance. We know how to slow down, buy less, stop talking, do the work, and go off the grid. We can speak to you about a realm beyond TikTok. Our superpower is we’re the last generation to remember life before the oceanic idiocies of social media.” That perspective puts us in the perfect position to mentor and support younger generations to shape the world they want to build. Thanks to Jeff, we have a manual to do just that. 

For those looking to take action and kickstart a new world order, then I have a book recommendation for you as well, the Manifesto for World Revolution “from the strategists who sparked Occupy Wall Street” also known as AdBusters.

Alright, that’s four book recommendations—all by Canadian authors I might add—so get buying or borrowing because we have a lot of reading to do.

Chris Glass posted, “The best part of January 2025 was folks posting answers to those blog questions.” I’ve heard similar statements from other folks in response to the blog questions challenge that kicked off the new year. Trying to track responses has been a bit of a challenge on its own. This is where Feedle—a search engine for blogs and podcasts—can improve future participatory provocations providing your feed is registered. The best way to add your site is to “simply write about us on your blog. Yes, that's right—write about Feedle and link to us. Win-Win.” Let’s see if this works.

In addition to Chris’ agreeable declaration, I submitted a second best for last month—discovering the Melonking website. Prepare to journey back to 1998 and experience Macromedia Shockwave without the plugin.

Have you killed your Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts yet (assuming you deleted your Twitter account by now)? If not I get it. Cory Doctorow made it simple to understand why: “All those people might want to leave, too, but it'sreally hard to agree on where to go when to go, and how to re-establish your groups when you get somewhere else. Economists call this the "collective action problem." This problem creates "switching costs”—a lot of stuff you'll have to live without if you switch from legacy platforms to new ones. The collective action problem is hard to solve and the switching costs are very high.” Switching costs are high but detoxifying off of those platforms leads to a better life.

I started publishing photos again on Pixelfed and I’d love to see you all there. While you’re at it join the Kickstarter so we can build a sustainable, bullshit-free alternative to toxic platforms. Don’t know what to take photos of? Start here.

In his book, Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon advises, “Don't just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don't want to look like your heroes, you want to look like your heroes.” Designer PJ Onori put this idea into practice by deconstructing elements of two different Batman movies to uncover insights on style.

"I watched The Batman with comic-book-movie expectations and little anticipation. Then I watched it again. And again. Numerous times. Its style grabbed me. Then I watched the Nolan-era Batman movies to see if it caused the same reaction. Nope. It seemed worthwhile to dig into why. I dissected the elements of The Batman compared to Nolan’s The Dark Knight to examine each style.” 

PJ concludes his experiment with advice that perfectly complements Kleon’s: “Developing a point of view on design is essential to fostering one’s own style. The things that inspire you should be broken into a million pieces to see what makes them tick. Without that understanding, you’re stuck in basic mimicry.”

If you'll excuse me, I now need to watch some Batman movies.

Published in Tacoma, Washington while silently weeping to myself due to the constant snowfall taking place all morning long. If anyone is looking for a fantastic house keeper in Palm Springs...I know a guy.