This blog was a really dumb idea

 I haven't updated it in over a year.

Sorry (apologizing to myself here, because no one is reading this). 

I chose to go with a blog format because I felt like asking people to subscribe to a newsletter would be too much of an ask. But no one reads blogs anymore, except from well-established, pre-social media communities.

Anyway, here's an update on what I've had published in the last little bit: 

“A Brief Flash of Strangeness”: Adam McPhee in Conversation with Toadstones Author Eric Williams, Heavy Feather Review, March 2022 https://heavyfeatherreview.org/2022/03/04/toadstones/

“Oneiric One,” Dark Moon Digest, Issue 46, February 2022 https://perpetualpublishing.com/product-category/magazines/

“The Jarl’s Butter,” SFS Stories, Issue 7, January 2022 https://sfsstories.com/

“Influencing Mars,” Ahoy Comics’ Snelson: Comedy is Dying, Issue 2, September 2021 https://comicvine.gamespot.com/snelson-2/4000-883958/

“Chramn of the Wizard’s Pingo,” Dream of Shadows, February 2021 https://www.dreamofshadows.co.uk/post/chramn-of-the-wizards-pingo

“My Daughter, Prepper Bucket,” Great Ape Journal, Issue 2, November 2020 https://great-ape.com/

“Chramn the Unconquered,” Schlock! Webzine, November 2020 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Schlock-Webzine-Vol-16-Issue/dp/B08LNF3ZWY/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1604208070&sr=1-2

Sunday media roundup, week seven

I realized while writing last week's post that I've subscribed to a ton a newsletters in recent days, so I figured today I'd make them into a list. There's no particular order here and I don't read every single missive that lands in my inbox, mostly I dip in and dip out.

The Progress Report: The Progress Report bills itself as, "an independent and proudly left wing media project produced by Progress Alberta." Aside from CBC Radio One's programming, it's probably the best source of news I have for what's going on here in Alberta.

You can find the Progress Report here.

Foreign Exchanges: I learned of Derek Davidson through Chapo Trap House and his newsletter has fairly high utility value. Every week there's a short This Day in History section followed by a section rounding up overseas news, generally with one paragraph per country. This week covered news in: Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, India, Myanmar, North Korea, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Democratic Republic of Congo. It reminds me a lot of Gwynne Dyer's schtick, which is one of the highest compliments I can bestow, as I've been reading Dyer's column for longer than anyone else, probably close to twenty years now.

You can find Foreign Exchanges here.

Welcome to Sullyville: This is freelance writer Dan '@Bro_Pair' O'Sullivan's newsletter, which recently migrated from Substack to ghost as a protest against Substack's profiting off of alt-right writers. The word I associate with Dan is 'righteous.' He has an interesting sense of morality and he applies it to himself as much as he does to anyone else. It's probably going to drive him insane one of these days––it's certainly driven him off twitter more than once. Dan's at his best when he's writing about literature. He has a great taste in books, especially old noir and his account has probably exposed me to more good books than any other twitter account, save for maybe the War Nerd's.

You can find Welcome to Sullyville here.

Courthouse Stories: Freelance journalist Anne Brocklehurst recently relaunched her newsletter which had been laying dormant for several years and I'm glad I never thought to unsubscribe in the meantime. Currently she's doing a series called She Said, He Said about a rape trial that didn't make the news. I haven't had a chance to read it yet but I'm looking forward to it. Brocklehurst has a great eye for details and is careful to explain court procedures for those of us who aren't familiar. I believe she's based in Toronto.

You can find Courthouse Stories here.

The Time of Monsters: Jeet Heer's newsletter. I know a lot of my twitter mufos dislike him and he can be a bit exasperating but I've always appreciated him. The newsletter is still quite new but I think it'll be worthwhile. Heer's able to harness the nerd's power of pedantry to give background and context to current affairs, and I think this will be a better format for him than his interminable twitter threads. Recent posts cover the reactionary international, vaccine imperialism, Tucker Carlson's homophobia, and a lament for the blogging era. 

You can find the Time of Monsters here. 

Immigrants as a Weapon: Former eXiled journalist Yasha Levine's newsletter uses the author's background as a Soviet Jewish immigrant to America to explore current issues in immigration. There was a great post recently on the police attack on Camp Echo Park Lake, a homeless camp that's become something of a  Hooverville (Bidenville?) in Los Angeles, near the author's home.

You can find Immigrants as a Weapon here.

SHuSH: Kenneth Whyte's diatribes against libraries (he wants them to be privatized because he believes they take money away from authors) have always made me cringe when they pop up on twitter, but I have to admit I've otherwise come to enjoy his well-informed reports from the publishing industry and I wouldn't know about his newsletter otherwise. Recent missives have delved into the Blake Bailey/Philip Roth biography shambles, the Penguin-Random house acquisition of Simon and Schuster, and recent changes in the exploding audiobook market. That said, it's still great fun to dunk on him for his dumbass library threads.

You can find SHuSH here. 

Carl Beijer: Definitely an acquired taste. You have to know who Carl Beijer is ('are?' is it still a collective?) to get anything from this. Mostly it's short missives on socialism that are too long for twitter but probably only relevant to people deeply immersed in the discourse.

You can find the Carl Beijer newsletter here.

That's all for this week, thanks for reading.

Sunday media roundup, week six

So I think this week I'm going to focus on things I looked at online.

I've started listening to three new Canadian podcasts recently. Forgotten Corner, which does long form interviews with people involved in Albertan politics and media, interviewed NDP MLA Janis Irwin this week and outgoing Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi last week. Both were notable for getting their subjects to open up beyond the usual talking points and pabulum that are the norm for politicians. Big Shiny Takes shares a co-host with Forgotten Corner but is less serious in tone, even going so far as to bill itself as the 'world's first and only anti-free speech podcast,' but that's probably called for given that their mission is to read Canada's worst columnists. Hard to do with a straight face. Recent guests include Nora Loreto––who I've long been a fan of––and Dan Boeckner, co-host of The Bottlemen, third of this week's Canadian pods and maybe the closest in tone to Chapo. True Anon and Felix Biederman have featured as recent guests, but my favourite episodes are when they dig into Canadian history, as they did in their Victims of Victims of Communism and MCanultra ft. Mike Judge episodes. For a long time we've been told that Canadian history is either fairly rosy (especially in comparison to the States) or non-existent. But these last few years people have been waking up to the fact that that's just not true, and I'm glad to see leftists Canadian podcasts are starting to dig into our country's past, not as a curio of a time gone by, but as something that's still living with us, even if we're often unable to see it.

Other pods I've listened to this week:

Blowback Season 2 episode 1: the boys are back in town with a series on America's unrelenting war on Cuba.

Streetfight Radio: lifestyle content for the working class should be such an obvious concept that you'd think it would be everywhere, but the Streetfight guys are the only people I know of who are even trying.

Chapo Trap House: the only podcast where I'll listen to a new episode either the night it comes out or the next day. I used to be the same with Cum Town but now I find myself only sporadically checking in. The episode I listed to most recently had an amazing bit where they were riffing on nursery rhymes, talking about the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe, hypothesizing that  the reason she had so many children she didn't know what to do was because she was constantly getting raw dogged and then sent back to the shoe. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea but I have to admit I found it funny. I tried to transcribe the relevant section but I was laughing too hard and now I forget which episode it was in. 

I must've listened to this Lee Scratch Perry remix of Forest Sword's Thor's Stone like fifteen times this week.

In terms of online reading, I've subscribed to Jeet Heer's new substack newsletter The Time of Monsters. I know people like to laugh at Jeet online, but I actually do appreciate his writing. He had a great post on the debacle over the new Philip Roth biography and another on Tucker Carlson's homophobia. Maybe next week I'll do a post just on all the substacks/newsletters I've subscribed to in recent weeks and try to rank them from most readable to inbox white noise. It really does seem like newsletters are the new podcasts. They let people reach an audience without being public facing in the way of social media, so there's less risk of blowback from the general public, which I think in some ways might be a good thing and the start of a return to a healthier internet. I've thought about starting one myself but I don't think I could write anything consistently enough and I don't want to plead with my handful of twitter followers for their attention and I wouldn't feel comfortable monetizing it.

Otherwise, I read an interesting LRB article on container ships, which happened to mention a great book on the subject that I happened to thoroughly enjoy. And, despite swearing off economists as part of a New Year's resolution, there's an interesting Adam Tooze piece that actually made me feel sympathetic for its subject, Paul Krugman. If you're familiar with Krugman (I wasn't), you want might want to skip to the last third of the piece, which covers the Biden admin, Krugman's growing awareness of class inequality and his interest in Michal Kalecki, an economist whose work 'bridged Keynesianism and Marxism.' Killer line: "For critics on the left it can be infuriating to watch high-powered centrists inching their way towards seemingly obvious political conclusions. But when they do, it is consequential."

Well, that's it for this week. Stay safe and wear your mask.

Sunday media roundup, week five

This week I finished two books and listened to a ton of podcasts. I also watched a movie, but it was shitty to the point that I don't even want to talk about it. Maybe next week.  

Sunday media round up, week four

Okay so I told myself I was going to do 52 of these posts just to get into the habit of writing again, but I'm only on week four and already I feel burned out. There's only going to be like one more of these tops. I think a big part of my problem is that I wait until the absolute last minute to try writing these. 

This week I watched a movie and a tv series, listened to music, read a book and watched an online lecture.

The Franks and the Second Council of Nicaea

A great section just now in Charlemagne. Was going to post my summary to twitter but it got kind of long for a thread so here it is.

Sunday media roundup, week three

With the onset of Spring I spent a lot of time outside this week, and didn't mindlessly consume as much media as I thought I would, hence this post might be a bit shorter.