Newsletter.027-Sep2022

Now

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Here’s the bit where I talk about how utterly busy I am with amazing things. This clearly isn’t true, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing a newsletter. Instead, like you, I’m busy with the minutiae and endless minefield of administrative and logistical tasks that eat our collective souls for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I’ve come to the realisation recently I don’t really like Bjork. I’ve tried. I’m also still not convinced that I should worship Brian Eno like all the cool designer people do. I don’t really feel I need to apologise for this. Neither of these people played drums for Slayer on their first five albums or invented vaccines.

Earlier this month, the Flashkit Community Forum wished me a happy birthday as it does every year. Flash was a software you used to see everywhere on the internet ages ago. For quite a while it was my job to make annoying intro animations people wanted to skip. It hasn’t been a thing anyone in their right mind would use in a decade and was officially euthanised by Adobe in 2017. Yet, it still somehow lives on in a forum I can’t quit for software that is long dead. It’s good to see that my posterity for the ages is being preserved in all the right places.

In other recent news, I’ve had the rare opportunity to be appreciative of being from and living in a republic. I’ve been likewise saddened to see that way too many people on a large island in the North Atlantic didn’t get the memo that the Divine Right of Kings is absolute horseshit and even passing nostalgia does nothing but perpetuate extreme inequality.

I’ve recently realised I actually wrote two novels and started a third.

As always there is a Top 10 for September which will blow your mind.

Three things people think about when getting a satisfaction survey for every damn thing you do these days

  1. Wait a minute MegaCorp Customer Services, you’re absolutely right, my life is just that fucking long that I can spend it on this! How quickly I forget. Thank you so much MegaCorp for reminding me of my immortality.
  2. So let me get this straight, so 3 stars equal average right? Like you did what you said you were going to do. I got the sink washer seal I ordered. It came. Thanks. Great. Well done you. But if I don’t give 5 stars I’m an asshole?
  3. How about I don’t do free market research for you and instead you pay me. Then, just maybe, I’ll click on your little star. Hey guess what, you pay me even more, I’ll click the fifth one.

The Jim Kosem Story Explosion

The Story Explosion is back. Shorter! More random and less consistent themes than ever! All for you dear reader. I could tell you all about these best laid, slain and perpetually reanimated plans for this thing, but probably best not. Here’s a short story for you that will take approximately 2 mins 39 secs of your day.

The Worst Ransom Note Ever

Writing partner wanted! I think?

I’ve been thinking about a writing partner. I’m not even sure what this means really. Maybe you do? Maybe you’re interested in batting about frivolous, absurd and readable short stories? You can of course read what I write here otherwise. Did I mention I have no idea how this will work? Well, one thing I know though is that this bit where I ask for that person should work like band classifieds did way back when in local, free newspapers.

Writing partner wanted. Into Point Break, Seinfeld, Bill Burr, Vonnegut, ACDC, snacking, Simon Rich, Conan O’Brien, art school ambivalence, Catch 22, staring at trees, amateur economics, The Golden Age of Piracy, Caravaggio, Kyuss, psychedelic historical fiction, weekday boozing, mountains. Available at some undecided point in the future. Can promise nothing short of disappointment, frustration and misplaced dreams of glory that will fade in seconds but will be looked back upon with wonder and musing years later.

Super Serious Forwards

There is apparently some scholarship that American Publishing is Rooted in Theft

If you’re a huge fan of international standardisation of measures like I am, and wondering if there was any other reason most of the planet has a certain size of paper besides that the Swiss just incessantly kill it at graphic design, you can read about Why A4? – The Mathematical Beauty of Paper Size

Bet you didn’t know there’s a guy going back and forth to Russian and writing a Substack newsletter called Psychopolitica about what it’s like on the inside did you?

“A bunch of their youngsters made up lots of ridiculous fiction about a far-away place, the USA, and benefited from that. And I came from a far-away place and made up some fiction in return about them, but based on a true story.” A fascinating dive into a photographer’s comment on myth, truth and reality by exploring a town in Macedonia and faking it after. The Book of Veles: How Jonas Bendiksen Hoodwinked the Photography Industry

Halfman endorses

Reconciling ourselves, our comforts and privilege with high energy prices

It’s been freezing down here. I’m technically in Southern Europe, yet the temperature has dropped to November levels. It snowed in the mountains a week or so ago. It’s now only September. I don’t have any nation’s insane warmongering to blame for being cold, and I’m not among those for instance in the UK who will freeze for other political short-sightedness. I can’t get the damn connected boiler thermostat the landlord installed to work for the life of me. I’ve spent hours on networking issues and forums. Oh woe is me. Assuming this is sorted my family and I will be warm soon. Others won’t be so fortunate, and it’s times like this that I thank my lucky stars of how good we’ve had it so far.

Ends

Thanks for sticking around. You mean the world to me. Seriously. Somehow there are an extra 12 of you. Organic f’ing growth. So stick it. I love you all.

Ride. Shoot straight. Speak the truth.

— Jim Kosem