Here’s to a minty fresh new year.
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“Let each thing you would do, say, or intend, be like that of a dying person.” - Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius was an intense dude. But the point is, extreme principles can lead to extreme clarity.
(Relevant: Stoicism in 500 words by Lois Pereria)
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PIRATE READINGS FOR PIRATE PLANNERS
Anna Wiener “Uncanny Valley. A Memoir”
A hilarious and scathing account of Silicon Valley at the height of its absurdity. Having been there at the same time, Anna Wiener captures it brilliantly. (DROPBOX)
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James Gleick, “The Information. A History, A Theory, A Flood”
I actually haven’t read this yet, but it seems fascinating. Let me know if anybody has read it and has thoughts. (DROPBOX).
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Eugene Thacker, “In the Dust of This Planet, Horror of Philosophy Vol 1”
Some top tier nihilism. This book provided a lot of the quotes used by Rustin Cole in True Detective Season 1. Radiolab did a good podcast on it if you want to get a better sense of what its all about. (shout out Meg for both the book and podcast reco). (DROPBOX)
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(By the way, if you ever have a problem accessing any of these due to format, there is a program called Calibre that converts different e-reader file types to whatever you need. Free and super intuitive to use.)
READINGS
Circular time vs. linear time, Austin Kleon.
Great concept that I think is a very healthy way of thinking. Along with all the links provided in the post, I’d recommend reading “The Story of your Life” (dropbox). It was the short story that the movie Arrival was based on and it does a really great job of making you feel like you’re experiencing time differently.
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Quarantine Brain, Vulture. A good cultural overview of what pandemic forced solitary confinement did to the psyche of pop culture.
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Bloomberg’s best books of 2020. Holler if you want a pirated copy of any of them.
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“The Gap Between Having Good Taste and Doing Good Work,” Kottke. Reading this was a bit of an “oh shit” moment for me (the feel good kind). Talks about how people who get into being creative do so because they have good taste. But for the first few years of creating, your output doesn’t match your level of taste, which can be really disheartening. So keep creating and remember– if you don’t like what you make, it probably just means you have good taste (…That was supposed to be encouraging, but doesn’t at all come across as such does it?)
Planning Adjacent with light commentary
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WEEKLY MONSTER
Shout out to Budsies for helping bring one of my monsters to life.
