Refactoring a method, trying to reduce cognitive complexity from 19 to 15. I think I can bring it down even lower than 15. Anyway, my focus music of choice is Torres from Mayonnaise. This one is a beat or two slower than the original. But man I love how they turn the end into a jamming session. These guys are true musicians and have mastery over their instruments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLtBOxH8FZs

#Status #Mayonnaise #MusicVideo #OPM

Disclaimers: This is a script taken from a video guide of Bluesky. It is imperfect, I have yet to taken the time to adapt all my sources into the text as I am locking down twitter this week. I will add a handful of more experienced people than I at the beginning of this post if you want to drill down, and will be properly citing and even adding pictures later.

I am also not talking about atproto in this video/script. that’s a whole other can of worms and I have decided to make that a separate video

A handful of important links:

Chris Titus’s video on getting started

Jglypt’s gettign started guide Jglypt’s guide on skyfeed (since I talk about feeds in this video/script)

Rudy Fraser’s Moderation explanation

The script:

Can things just stop exploding for 5 minutes?! Like Damn! I feel like a new issue I care about pops up every week and I just can't cover it all! Don't they realize I work a full time job and I'm a very... very tired man.

The issue this time... is that twitter decided to make block useless, AND Solidify it's AI scraper. Have I mentioned I hate this site, and its owner. Except I kept it because of friends and moots. Especially when I really got into a proportional representation and Canadian politics rabbit hole. I am regretful of the latter fact.

Luckily, Friends are at least going to one of the two alternatives that I have semi-regularly use, Bluesky. Making the need to be on Twitter way less. But what is the deal with Bluesky, and what makes it different than twitter?

Well in this guide I hope to demystify some stuff about

Getting Started

Account

First you'll need an account. Head over to bsky.app and click sign up. Add in your email, password, and birth date. Don't worry about your hosting provider, Bluesky is what 99% of you are going to use, unless you're nerd. And nerder than me.

Then Make your handle, this is how people will find you on the site. The full handle will be what you type in plus your host's domain, unless you add a custom domain after you make your account.

Once you make all your stuff and confirm your email.

Starter Packs and Sky Follower Bridge

So you're in Bluesky... Who to follow? Well if you're coming from twitter, there's this thing call Sky Follower Bridge which allows you to see who on twitter you follow also has a bluesky account. Just login to the extention with your bluesky account details or with a onetime password while on the following screen and just follow who you want follow from there.

Or if you want to start fresh Users can create these Starter Packs that they can send to new users. Thinking of them like recommendations from users for users. from there you can view profiles from the lists, follow them individually or all together. I've went ahead and made a handful of starter packs of people I think are neat. But there's about starter packs for everything if you go searching through keywords or feeds.

Lets go into what makes this similar to twitter. Not hard as Twitter has been THE Microblogging platform for years so lets start with posts:

Posts

When making posts you have a 300 character limit. as of the time of writing you can add emojis, up to 4 images, gif support and recently video support up to 50MB, 1 minute videos limited to 25 videos per day apparently. Also adding links will actually show to a preview of a card if it supports it such as for youtube videos which was more reliable than twitter ever was, you can even remove the link once the card is created. And discord supports most bluesky embeds of posts without having to add extra letters with the exception of videos at the moment. For videos posted to the site, use cbsky.app when sending the link

These post can set there reply settings by everyone, mentioned users, followed users, users in select lists, or nobody, and can even turn off Quotes.

Posts are the bread and butter of twitter likes, and Bluesky does these posts in spades. the only thing it's missing right now is polls, but I personally don't mind that so much.

Lists

Lists take 3 forms. We've mentioned starter packs, but there's also follow lists, and moderation lists. Follow lists might be what you know in twitter as lists. These are a subsection users that you add to a list for filtered experience, that you can pin to your home like I do with my vibes list. Moderation lists are public lists of people that you don't vibe with and either want to mute or block. These lists can then be subscribed to by others. A very popular one that people pass around is the Anti/AI/Crypto Shill List. I kind of wish there was away to review followers part of those lists and double check if you want those exempted, or to remix your own block/mute list.

BTW since we're on the topic of blocking

Moderation options

Muted words and tags filters out posts with words and tags that you add. This can be for a certain duration, for text and tags or just tags only. These rules can be ignored by post of those you follow. This can be useful in trying to avoid certain topics, nasty words, and even spoiler from your favorite manga and/or anime!

Mutes prevents you from seeing any notifications or top-level posts from an account. If they reply to a thread, you’ll see a section that says ‘Post from an account you muted’ with an option to show the post. The account will not know that they have been muted.”

Blocks are so strong here that it not only removes all interactions and prevents future interactions such as likes, replies, mentions, DMs or follows and their posts are hidden form you.

Moderation lists can be viewed under moderation as well. As mentioned, Moderations lists are good for mass blocking or muting.

Bluesky Content Filters are filters for content on the network that is labeled under certain filters such as adult content, impersonation, and scams. You can be as stick or about as lax about these filters as you want. We'll talk more about labelers and their role on bluesky in depth later.

A note on blocks and 3rd party apps

Something I need to mentioned and is that blocks are publicly viewable via the Api. This is part of maintaining that Bluesky is an Open and Public network. There is this third party app called Clearsky that shows you who a user is blocking, who they're blocked by, and what lists they're on. Now I know some people have issues with this, others say it's not a big deal. I don't think I can comment! I just know it's important to mention.

There's also Blockenheimer that lets you mass block who have reposted, liked a post, followers an account or what an account is following. You can either add these to a list, or just mass block from the app. Useful if you come across nasty people and probably don't want to deal with their following either. Just keep in mind that this is a nuclear option. hence the name.

Note that two use these third party apps such as Blockenheimer or Skyfeed, you will need to generate a 1 time “App Password” to use to login. Just a security precaution.

DMs / Chat

A more recent feature. You have the ability to allow messages from Everyone, Users I follow, and even no one. Blocked users are not able to dm you, but muted users are. Eventually it's suppose to get End-to-End Encryption, media in Dms, and Group DMs. Its still a work in progress, but it does work if you need it to.

Okay now that we're done with all the similarities to Twitter now lets get into the user facing things that make Bluesky stand out:

Feeds

You might have heard that bluesky has no Algorithm. This is... Technically true... but it's about as helpful as saying mastodon and the fediverse is like email. It's more accurate to say that Bluesky does not have a centralized, singular Big-A Algorithm like most social media, but a butch of user curated feeds with different algorithmic preferences that people can subscribe to, and pin to home like you would with your lists.

Anyone can make a feed either through either using a service such as skyfeed, or bluesky feed creator or even manually coding and hosting their own if you know what you're doing.

Many of these are topic focused feeds that filter down to certain topics via hashtags, keywords, people (via lists or single users) in a chronological order but this can get very granular such as displaying only certain types of media, only your mentions, or push pins. The sky's the limit. And your understanding of variables, and coding of course.

Some of my favourites include:

Quiet Poster: For those that follow people that maybe post once in a blue moon, but want to still see what they're up to.

Mutuals: because it always nice keeping up with moots moot

Everything Ps2: Please take a guess, I wonder why I might follow that one.

Popular with friends: Shows you all the popular content from accounts you follow and what they like. Good for new comers if you have a lot of people you follow that you trust.

The Gram: shows only the posts contanting pictures from those you follow. Helpful for those that follow a lot of artists.

Pushpin emoji: because there's no bookmarks on the offical app and it's useful for finding old post.

OverheardBsky: for when you're in a late night tumblr posting kind of mood, and want to read some unhinged.

I also took the time as of writing this to use Skyfeed's built-in feed builder to create a few feeds. Most of them are to filter out update posts or videos I post or share. Other Feeds I've made that's less narcissistic is a Rumbleverse Feed that filters the rumbleverse supporter's feed but Rumbleverse warrior only when there's a rumbleverse post. And just a general curation of artist I think are neat.

I think what nice about having these custom feeds curated by users for users is that it makes community a bit more fluid than a fediverse instance, but less of a toxic hazard than twitter. You don't have to worry about taking psychic damage from Twitter's algorithm, or be worried that you're not able to reach certain people beyond your Mastodon instance. What Feeds you follow, are ultimately up to you, and paired with mutes, blocks and labelers make for ultimately a better curated user experience. It's like going to your community center or library and living a little instead of just working and going home.

Did I just call myself out?

Oh wait I still got to talk about labelers

Labelers

Labelers are effectively Content Filters you can subscribe to that allows you to filter out or label content and users via certain parameters to either Warn the user of the post, hide that content or user all together, or simply add a badge next on the post or poster. These also can be turned off if there's some labels part of the labeler you don't care to see on the site.

These filters can used for something as nasty as racism, Sexism, homophobia, transphobia, to simply filtering out pictures of say pictures of spiders, or AI images, or even just giving badge for something a bit more fun like TTRPG Labeller. I'm a halfling magus. I'm lil that casts the pew pews.

The key example for a moderation style labeler is Bluesky's “main” Moderation Filter that is used for most sexual or graphic content to name a few things.

A lot of this is done to a reporting system, or a reply forum like the Pronouns Labeler. however, some labelers have some sort of automation bots attached to them like the aforementioned TTRPG Labeler.

What's nice about the labelers is I think this is better than relying on the Tumblr etiquette of say relying on proper tagging, and “anti-” tagging. It's cool if you still want to do that, but you always have people who don't follow those rules.

One weakness of the Labelers is that these are hosted services that run independent from the network. This means that this service can go offline and removed. Now this means that these services can go offline without disrupting the whole network, but that means if the labeler goes offline then those that are labelled that you are using to warn or hide no longer has those applied to them.

This was seen when one of the high profile labelers basically imploded after some “drama” that I'm not going to get into because it's in the past, I don't know the whole story, and it's beyond the scope of this video. Just trust me when I say some vibes were off, and that's a gross understatement.

But I think it does bring up important questions about relying on these mostly community supported services, Backing up any important work, not trying to do too much, and the importance of verifying moderators. That again is beyond the scope of this video, I even feel unequipped to deal with that, but is still like massively important to at least mention for a social platform.

Generally, I still think Labelers are good concept in this two part “Opinionated Services” but I think only time will tell how well these can actually work as the network matures.

And Yeah that's about it for the network, but I wanted to include one more thing before we end things off.

Following people from the Fediverse and through RSS Because I have no better place to put this.

Something I wanted to add that I don't have really any other place to put this. So lets say you have someone you want to follow on bluesky but you're on mastodon, or vis versa. interoperability is super important for these kinds of socials. While there is a 3rd partyy too that will help with this. Bridgy,fed is a decentralized social network bridge. This can be used to follow people on and from bluesky, fediverse, and even from some websites if the admin has added that functionality.

But we only really care about Bluesky and mastodon in this example.

If you are on bluesky you need to follow [@ap.brid.gy](https://bsky.app/profile/ap.brid.gy) on Bluesky. Accept its follow to make sure your fediverse posts get sent the bridge and make it into Bluesky. After a some time, you will appear in the fediverse as `@[handle]@bsky.brid.gy` so in my case @nemescontent@bsky.brid.gy the you should be able to search for other Fediverse addresses in searchbar. To search for poeple on the fediverse, you will need their full address, and search under people.

If you are on mastodon or other fediverse account, search for and follow `@bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy` That account will then follow you back. Accept its follow to make sure your fediverse posts get sent the bridge and make it into Bluesky. On Blue sky your account will appear as: `[user].[instance].ap.brid.gy` so as an example: @NemesContent.mstdn.ca.ap.brid.gy

For more information, take a look at the documentation that I'll link in the pinned comment. Bridgyfed

You can also follow people via rss on bluesky by putting /rss at the end of the profile url, but it's only so helpful. you only see the text of the post and media. This how it works on mastodon as well, but it is disappointing.

Conclusion or is it?

And that's about big main things to let you all know about. The network is still in development with a bunch features promised, but trust me this is way more improved than when it was back in the invite stage. Psst thanks marideerie... you guys should like... follower her or something.

I think Bluesky has some potential. it being more focused on user curation and simplifying some processes that Mastodon. It's actually something I wanted that I mentioned in a write as blog I have, rambled well written, where the user should have this kind of control.

That being said. I have been researching, and using bluesky for... a while now. And Through that Research I have learned... Deeper knowledge. And burdened with said knowledge, I need to get it out of my system. You need to understand this script is the 3rd script of me trying to make this damn video, and I'm in too deep now. IT's skunk cost falasy so if I had spend a good few months of my life to learn this information just so I can understand what the hell firehose and why it's hooked up to a relay to populate feeds on Data Sever is you're going to fucking SIT THERE- AND IM'!

For many people, a major pull toward minimalism is the simplicity it provides. Not only the aesthetic simplicity but also the simplicity of choice, of habit. Minimizing and restricting choices and options can actually liberate someone in a way that freedom of excess choice can not. I argue that a similar outcome can be achieved with something I call bulk decision-making.

What is minimalism but making one choice that affects many outcomes: wardrobe, diet, technology, etc. By making one general decision, you minimize the amount of decisions you need to make at a later date.

For many, this boils down to addressing what's called “decision fatigue.” This is the idea that someone can only make a set number of decisions effectively each day before their decision-making skills become fatigued and subpar. Now, I can't speak to decision fatigue, but I can speak to the need or desire to streamline your life and daily habits.

What it is

---

Bulk decision-making is a response to this desire. By deciding something in advance to cover as many outcomes as possible, you can minimize the amount of mental energy it takes to address the situation at a later time.

For example, deciding on what to eat for breakfast every day is a bulk decision many people already make. Most people eat the same thing for breakfast every day. That way, they don't need to decide what to eat each morning. Now, make another decision about what to eat every day for lunch, and you've made another bulk decision: deciding once for many occurrences.

This is slightly different from meal planning every week. Weakly meal planning is a way of preemptively making many decisions before their deadlines. Bulk decision-making is making one decision and applying it to many situations. Deciding on one weakly meal plan to repeat each week is a bulk decision.

Think of bulk-decision making similarly to making general rules for life in different scenarios. When any given situation comes up, how are you going to handle it? It can create routine, form buying habits, or shape your diet. By deciding ahead of time, you don't have to think about it at that moment. Self-discipline becomes easier, because there aren't other choices to choose from.

Another great but more extreme example of this is deciding on what color or colors your wardrobe contains. Most people buy many different clothes from many different palettes that don't match or come together well. By sticking to a palette, or in my case, one color (black), you minimize the choices you need to make when looking for new clothes, and deciding what to wear for any occasion is a breeze. Your options are limited and decisions become easier.

What it's not

---

Now, this is not a one size fits all solution. For example, a bulk decision many people make is to choose Apple products. You no longer need to decide on which phone, laptop, tablet, apps, or services you are going to purchase or use. Just use the latest one Apple offers and don't think about it any further.

This works for many people, but also comes with restrictions. When done well, bulk decision-making liberates you from excess choices. But in this instance, it can actually lock you into future decisions, deviating from which can be quite the chore.

The goal is not to lock yourself into a decision for the rest of your life, but to minimize decisions when possible. Bulk decisions should be periodically reevaluated and remade when necessary.

In the case of diet, eating the same thing every day could have negative health outcomes. Especially if you didn't make a proper, well-rounded meal decision in the first place, and you aren't consistently evaluating your results.

Just remember, though bulk decision-making should ultimately save time and energy, making an affective bulk decision often requires more initial effort than making decisions on the fly. If you don't put in the work to make a proper bulk decision and evaluate it periodically, your outcome could be worse in the long run.

Conclusion

---

Therefore, bulk decision-making can be an effective tool when used intentionally, but can be quite detrimental when used haphazardly. So, if you are drawn to the benefits of minimalism, if you want to apply the freedom it affords to other aspects of your life, and you are willing to put in the work up front, consider bulk-decision making.

Just start by asking yourself “how can this be solved by a bulk decision,” and you might find it easier and more intuitive than you'd expect. The following is a list of some bulk decisions I make to get the most out of my mental energy: – Wear all black clothes – Use Linux on my computers – Use GrapheneOS on my phone – Drink black coffee – Choose sugar-free sodas – Eat the same thing for breakfast – Feed my cats the same brand of food – Feed my cats at 7am and 7pm every day – Don't eat food 3 hours before bed – Don't drink water 2 hours before bed – Minimize screen time 1 hour before bed – Get in bed at 10 every night – Wake up every day at 6 – Journal first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening – Run every day – Etc.

Tags: #productivity Write.as Comments:

I wish I could say things will get better, but I think we all know that in many ways things will continue to get worse, and so grief has become a thing that lives with us. I've noticed the last few years that the more I name my social grief and let myself feel it, the less reactive and squabbly I am, and the more compassion and energy I have to care for others.

Grief requires tending, a form of labor, but the advantage of social/political grief is that we have many hands to make light work — there are millions of us on this planet to help hold it. Even when we feel so alone in the absurdity of loss, we can breathe and remember how many wanted the same world as we do, and we can feel how that world is very much alive in our hearts and collective imagination.

It remains true that what we focus our attention on tends to grow. I know in the coming days I will need to practice redirecting my attention to my own grieving – to outing my relationship with sorrow rather than suppressing it – so that I can spend more energy on being of service, and less energy on being an asshole.

I don't know what works for you when it comes to grieving, but I do know that I will need your love and jokes and shared visions to tend to mine. There is big power in leaning into our common humanity together, and in mirroring each other's deep hopes and dreams for the world.

I think choosing to walk toward one another and to keep seeking connection in the face of cultural atomization is a form of faith, the kind of faith that alchemizes communities and ushers people through the worst horrors.

I've learned that grief is ultimately love turned inside out. The contours of our grief trace the lines of our love for what we lost or what might else have been. And when we share both sides of that coin, when we make our love-pain collective, we find the beating heart of whatever we're building next. I propose we have some faith in that, and that we embrace the idea of faith. Because we have precious little else with which to fight these fucking fascists, and I'm not going down without a fight (for love).

a postscript:

Tending grief is also admitting you have emotions and that you cannot control them, which American men have been raised to avoid. Coincidentally, we are confronting a fascist project in the US that denies male emotional vulnerability or authenticity, and shames men into suppressing primary emotion so that it can be leveraged toward fear and hate. You might argue that speaking about grief is off topic as we consider forms of resistance, I would argue that its very much on topic.

---

Photo credit: Linoleum block print by Lee Kingman Natti, a juried artwork in the Folly Cove Designers art guild of 1938-1969. Natti and others trained with illustrator Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios, who believed anyone could make art, and taught her neighbors in the Folly Cove corner of Gloucester, MA to closely observe the world around them and perfect their designs for excellence.

Okay this Monday felt insurmountable, felt like the day was ten days long and my brain was wrung out like a dog breath smelling old wrung out rag, and the thought of retirement being so far away felt absurd, but then I became (thanks to my strong psyche) like a steam powered iron golem with a dog breath brain who just chugged along in a very impressive way and then I had lunch.

Sometimes I fantasise about working with something which is actually meaningful (to me), like a job where I could help people with meaningful stuff to which I do not count build pipelines or anything with kubernetes or worse yet terraform. Maybe a teacher helping young children find their footing and see their worth.

But I hated school. Still gives me bad vibes. 😬😬😬

I should maybe hibernate in a bunker for four years and think things through.

The rest of the week so far really did feel a lot better and now I am in a very good mood.

Life is nice and then you die

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#001988 – 06 de Novembro de 2024

Trump venceu. E vamos ficar a saber em breve como o mundo perdeu. Normalizou-se, mais que isso, institui-se a violência verbal e política, a instrumentalização do conflito, as alianças estratégicas com os inimigos mais aguerridos da democracia. É este o centro político, hoje em dia.

Para ser radical basta defender que todos os seres humanos têm os mesmos direitos, que o genocídio é inaceitável, que as pessoas têm direito a uma vida digna, a cuidados de saúde e condições de trabalho mínimas. Nunca durante o meu tempo de vida, quase 50 anos, a barra esteve tão baixa para que qualquer defesa da civilização, do respeito mútuo e da paz entre os povos, por mais moderada, fosse considerada como perigosa ideologia . Não são só os fascistas que comemoram, são também instituições cujo conservadorismo tem financiado estes políticos, como a Igreja Católica, que é a instituição em todo o mundo que mais dinheiro gastou para influenciar as leis do aborto, com sucesso já em muitos países. E bilionários que querem destruir o que resta do estado social, como Elon Musk, que poderá vir a ter poder de decisão e assento no governo que aí vem.

O perigo não está só nos grupos mais extremistas que estes movimentos políticos atraem, está também na larga base de apoio popular, nas muitas coligações de interesses económicos e políticos internacionais que financiam e influenciam o poder. As próximas décadas poderão piorar as crises mais urgentes que enfrentamos, com milhões de refugiados do clima e da guerra a serem tratados desumanamente, com a supressão da liberdade de imprensa, com retrocessos nas políticas climáticas, com a abolição de direitos de pessoas queer, mulheres e minorias. E com o agravar de guerras que já provocaram um número obsceno de vítimas mas que ameaçam a qualquer momento tornarem-se conflitos regionais alargados.

O nosso luto não tem tempo e à nossa urgência nem interessa assim tanto quão moribunda está a democracia. Há que reforçar o quanto antes os laços de solidariedade, garantindo que defendemos, sempre, a nossa humanidade comum.

“And however you want people to treat you, treat them the same way. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even criminals love those who love them! If you [in fact] treat well only those who treat you well, what credit is that to you? Even criminals do the same. And if you lend only to those from whom you hope to get the loan back, what kind of credit [is] that to you? Even criminals lend to other criminals, meaning to get back an equal amount. No, love your enemies and be helpful and lend without the hope of getting anything back. Then your payment will be generous, and you'll be sons of the highest one, because he's gracious to the ungrateful and to those full of mischief.”

— Jesus, The Gospel According to Loukas 6:31-35, Sarah Ruden translation

Perhaps I should write something about politics because today is election hangover day, but if there was not an election I would still be sitting down to write this update, so write it I will. I am a few days late because our family has been dealing with some health issues that required most of my time and energy. They are mostly resolved, and we are on our way to a sort of normalcy, but there is still a constant stress. The election has not helped. My wife and I voted early, and looked up the results this morning. Bah humbug. It is an evil to me that politics can goad the most lovely, generous, and kind people into such hateful speech and action. It is all the more evil to me when I read the words of Jesus, and see Christians worrying themselves and everyone around them to death. Those words “love thine enemy” have never been easy to follow, but they are the only words which I believe worth sharing about this mess. Don't forget that Jesus told this to Jews oppressed by a Roman regime that could crush and steal everything they owned with impunity. It would have been much more shocking to hear for them, which does not mean our troubles are not troubles. What it means is that the words of Jesus are no less relevant today than they were yesterday. So “love thine enemy,” and “take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Writing

It is a terrible thing to fall out of love with your art. Not that I don't love books, I always will, but I am so uninspired by what I try to write that I end up distracting myself with guitar pedals and other garbage. Lord help me repent! If I only wrote when I was inspired then I would hardly write at all. I did write a bit this month, but I hit a pretty big block and I've hardly had the energy to try and break through it. Once again, the election really doesn't help, especially when you have limited free time. Writing, especially writing fantasy, feels very dinky and unimportant next to the loudspeaker-voice coming through everyone's phones and mouths except yours. I plan on going back to commiserate with Virginia's Diary. She never fails to inspire me. And continuing on my re-read of LOTR. How did writing feel to Tolkien while he was in the trenches of the Great War? And my re-re-read of Don Quixote, to remind me that “Peace, calm, delightful meadows, serene skies, murmuring brooks, and a tranquil spirit — they turn even the most sterile Muses fertile, filling the world with wonderful, delightful offspring.” (Don Quixote Prologue, Paragraph 1).

Audiobook

I managed to finish re-recording Part II of the audiobook. Now all I have to do is edit them all and turn them into videos and schedule them.... Ugh. Audio is so much work, but if I can get it done and put it into the grand Colosseum of YouTube in the right way, then maybe I can get a little compensation. It would be nice to not work for free all the time.

Music

Well, even though I have been using it as somewhat of a distraction, I have been playing guitar every day. I think I am improving marginally, but I haven't really produced anything. I want to record demos of all my Lit Songs, which really shouldn't be taking as long as it is. But here we are. I feel I am coming down from the life-and-money-wasting pursuit known as “tone-chasing.” And I think what I realized, and should have known a long time ago, is that guitar tone does not come from any piece of gear. The gear amplifies it and can be a useful tool, but tone really does come from the fingers, and the ears. I have been enjoying Jeff Beck this month, not least because his playing, especially on the album “Emotion and Commotion” is so calming and lovely, but also because his approach is really inspiring. He mostly played a Strat into a Marshall with hardly any effects, maybe some subtle delay and reverb if the room was too small, and yet his playing is so dynamic and beautiful, with such great “tone.” He was also known to grab a guitar off the wall of a music store if he was traveling and show up at whatever gig he was doing and not really sweat it, and when you hear him play, whatever he's playing through, you know it is him — because tone is in the ears, and the fingers. Jeff Beck could walk up to any decent amp with any decent guitar, twiddle with the knobs and set the gain and EQ where he wanted it, and sound like himself because he had great technique AND a great ear. In fact I think his ear is probably one of the most precise of any player ever, which is why he is Jeff Beck... But the point is that as long as your guitar doesn't have any major issues, and your amp makes halfway nice sounds, you don't really need anything else to play live. I do think that “tonechasing” comes more into play in the studio, where everything is controlled and the environment is very different than playing live. In a live situation most guitarists just want to be heard and not mess up rather than create a sonic masterpiece. All this to say, I've been very silly, and I am going to try and discipline myself to try and focus more on playing than my pedal board.

I shall add what I have been listening to here because it has been a lot of Jeff Beck. Some favorite tracks include “Scared for the Children” (the live version at the Hollywood Bowl), “Lilac Wine” and “I Put a Spell On You” off of Emotion and Commotion, “Going Down” off of Jeff Beck Group, as well as his playing on Clapton's “Moon River.” I'm sure there is lots more, and I've got a lot more listening to do, but if you only listen to one I'd say listen to Scared for the Children. The lyrics made me cry, as well as his homage to Jimi's Little Wing in the solo.

Reading

I started The Two Towers, resuming my re-read of the Lord of the Rings. It really is lovely. I think the problem with adaptions like Rings of Power, which try to generate new material in the LOTR universe, is that fantasy like Tolkien's, which has the naive quality of fairy tale and myth, is very hard to execute well unless you have a very rigorous imagination and put in a lot of work. It takes so much work to have characters say things like “good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house,” and not have the reader rolling their eyes. This is why so much of the dialogue in Rings of Power was painful to me, because they tried to come up with something new and force it over us with stunning effects and good acting. And as much as I respect the passion and skill of the actors, there is just nothing that can match the lifetime of imagining that Tolkien did in order to write the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.

My wife and I have also been reading Grimm's Fairy Tales to our four year old each night (in between Magic Tree House books from the library) and we've stumbled upon some real shockers. They are not so scary as they are just a wild ride, and usually quite a bit of fun. Recent favorites include The Golden Bird, The Father's Legacies, and The Fisherman and His Wife. I happily recommend reading them because they are pretty short and fun. Certainly beats reading an article about the election...

And now I think I am finding a little love for reading back. I have struggled, towards the end of this month, with reading. Many times I have turned to a video game (mostly Read Dead Redemption 2) instead of a book, and I am wondering why that is. I think it is because the screen wows the senses more, and casts the illusion of having greater depth and beauty, because it is so loud and because it is so shiny. The book just sits there. It is as if a stranger comes to me and shows me an ocean whose end I cannot see and whose surface is swirled with complex waves and whirlpools, and then shows me a still and humble lake, then asks: “Which one of these holds more fish?” Just looking from the shore, I say “the ocean,” but when I go to fish in it I discover that it is only three feet deep no matter where I go, and that it holds only minnows and tiny perch that are too easy to catch. But when I go to the lake I discover that it is bottomless, that there are large and myriad species of fish that reward the challenge of catching them with exciting flavor, and deeper still there are unfathomable monsters and mysteries. The book is the deep lake, and the screen is the shallow ocean. One parches me with salt and easy scraps while the other rewards my efforts with fresh water and a full belly and more besides.

#update #election?

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Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

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since I’m regaining my sense of smell, it seems, I’m feeling less inclined to let my little dog lick my face because her breath smells like garbage.

Furthermore, and for similar reasons, I’ve changed out of green fleece sweater which I’ve been wearing so long because it’s such a soft and nice one into another fleece sweater which is also green but not as thick.

So you see there are big changes in my life right now.

Remember…

“God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure… be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”

- Philippians 2:13-15 (RSV-CE)

So, what should be the posture of Christian-Catholics and other faith-based communities today and going forward? Whichever presidential candidate is elected, our role will have to be, as it is often already, that of resistance. As a stark warning, we remember the largely craven non-responses of the Christian churches as Nazis took power in the last century. The failure of those denominations was a historical failure, a monumental scandal and it led to enormous tragedy.

-Joseph Nangle, OFM (Pax Christi USA 2023 Teacher of Peace)

This morning Jean-Luc Mélenchon tweeted that “The US could not choose the left: there was none. When there is no left, there is no limit to the right.” He is correct. The enthusiasm generated by the Bernie Sanders campaign and resistance mounted to the election of Donald Trump in 2016 has been exhausted in the Democratic Socialists' broken marriage with the Democratic Party. Over the same time period, the French radical left was able to break with their liberals and build a force capable of resisting the rise of the far-right. ¹

There are, of course, many differences between France and America that make it impossible to copy-and-paste the success of the France Unbowed across the Atlantic. However, the Unbowed can and should be studied as Americans try to rebuild a left from the wreckage of 2024. To begin, we should go back to 2016 and work forward from an interesting wrinkle of history: the Unbowed took technology from the Sanders campaign. This marks the beginning of the differences in strategy which have led to relative success and failure.

The 2016 Sanders run spilled over into the Democratic Socialists of America, a post-New-Left holdover. The DSA has the form of an association with (nominally) dues-paying members participating in local chapters. The first Trump term grew the organization fifteen-fold, and it has since sprouted caucuses that fill out the lack of regional coordination on broadly ideological lines—and contend for influence within the organization's internal democracy. The Sanders campaign itself would get rebooted for another go-round in 2020.

Meanwhile, the Unbowed took the Sanders campaign's technology and repurposed it to build a new, modern platform: Popular Action. The Popular Action website allows anyone to sign up to order materials, attend events, and connect with local Action Groups, which are usually neighborhood-scale committees of a dozen or so people. The Unbowed do not structure themselves as an association or a political party: there is no membership or dues per se. Rather, people are free to participate as they wish, coming and going as they see fit. There are various leadership roles at a local and regional level like facilitating Action Groups or managing social media accounts, but there is not the kind of internal democracy or formal tendencies like in the DSA. Ultimately, each Action Group is autonomous, with only a national ethics committee intervening if the established Principles of the Movement are not respected. Instead of abstract ideological consistency, the Unbowed are united by their shared commitment to a practical program: The Future in Common.

As the 2010s waned, American democratic socialists saw several stars rise, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. These celebrity politicians connected directly with the public via social media. The push for key policy proposals like Medicare for All and The Green New Deal motivated activists to seek concessions within the orbit of the Democratic Party. Although the Democrats had been caught undermining the Sanders campaign, he decided to support them again in 2020. As far as I can tell, Sanders' theory of the case was the same as in 2016: by running for President he could use the bully-pulpit to advance a broadly social-democratic agenda within the Democrats' center-left coalition.

By contrast, the Unbowed had produced a coherent theory of action as elaborated in Mélenchon's book, The People's Era. In short, the current French constitution, the Fifth Republic, is insufficiently democratic and must be abolished as a critical step in social revolution. Specifically, the constitution gives too much power to the President. The solution is to win the Presidency and use it to abolish itself. To build a coalition, the Unbowed continually develop their holistic and detailed program. By constantly mobilizing in and with labor, ecological, peace, etc., movements the Unbowed hope not only to gain the votes needed, but the support in the streets necessary for revolutionary social transformation: a rupture with the capitalist world-order.

And what about those social movements—like the George Floyd Uprising or Palestine solidarity encampments? You tell me what the Democrats did. The Unbowed came out and joined the Yellow Vests.

Sanders and AOC rode with Biden all the way into the ditch, and only the smoke drove them out of the wreckage. They contorted in undignified ways, junior partners in a party and supplicants of an administration arming and funding genocide. Democratic Socialists became split on how to respond, with the DSA national and New York City leadership publicly contesting whether or not to endorse AOC. Ideological fissures within the DSA became more pronounced as old-timers accused entryists of trying to capture the organization. Harris spat in the face of her base, trotting Bill Clinton out to Dearborn to inform this key constituency that Israel was “forced” to kill civilians. And of course, Harris lost to Donald Trump. In some Dearborn precincts she came in third place, after Jill Stein.

In France all the polls said that Le Pen's far-right National Rally was supposed to win the snap legislative elections. And yet, the far-right did not win. The left won, because the Unbowed were able to build a left coalition on the basis of their program and mobilize people all over the country to do the groundwork. Note something important: the Unbowed left the center-left Socialist Party and deviationist Communist Party—and in a few years the Unbowed were able to build a coalition on the basis of their program. The Socialists and Communists are the junior partners in the New Popular Front.

So what can we take away from this comparative summary?

1. A new American left is necessary.
2. That left needs to be radical, not liberal or social-democratic.
3. That left needs to organize as a movement and work with other movements.
4. That left needs to be independent, not hitched to the Democratic Party.
5. That left needs to be programmatically unified, not ideologically homogeneous.
6. That left needs to avoid internal tendency battles and entryism by avoiding the form of a party or association.
7. That left needs to theorize the present, not rehash the failures of the past.

In 1898, the great socialist Eugene V. Debs wrote about his time, and how the experience of European comrades influenced American politics: ²

It is scarcely necessary to observe in this connection that capitalism is the same everywhere, that like causes produce like results.

Wherever capitalism appears, in pursuit of its mission of exploitation, there will Socialism, fertilized by misery, watered by tears, and vitalized by agitation be also found, unfurling its class-struggle banner and proclaiming its mission of emancipation.

If we believe the situation is hopeless, what is there to do but get drunk and lie down in misery? If we choose to hope that a better world is possible, let's stand with dignity and fight like hell for the living.

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1. For details see the new book published by the Institut de la Boétie, Extrême droite : la résistible ascension. ↩ 2. Eugene V. Debs, “The American Moment”. ↩

She came over at like 10:30 to dye her hair, and it's 3:40 and she just left. I get it again.

Einen Blogpost über die USA wollte ich schreiben, viel davon war schon fertig. Über meine Erfahrungen, über die Vorurteile, über die wunderschöne Natur, die wir in dieser Form in Europa nicht haben und die ich wieder und wieder besucht habe. Über die Indianer, die Bisons und all die schrecklichen Dinge, die wir Europäer ab 1492 auf der anderen Seite des Atlantiks so veranstaltet haben. Enden wollte ich damit, dass die Vorurteile nicht alle stimmen, dass es gute Menschen dort gibt und dass vieles einfach anders ist als bei uns, auch wenn wir immer denken: Naja, ist westliche Welt, ist genau wie bei uns. Und jetzt sitze ich da, genau wie 2016, und starre ungläubig into the abyss of the election und schreibe sehr verwirrte Zeilen in meinen Computer. Das wird nicht gut altern, ist mir aber gerade wurscht, es muss einfach raus, so wie es aus dem Kopf fällt.

So mit dem Ende meiner Teenagerjahre hatte ich – neben diversen pubertären Themen – eine Frage im Kopf: Wie konnten eigentlich diese Weirdo-Nazis an die Macht kommen? Es erschien mir immer unlogisch, dass eine Masse von Menschen, u.a. meine Großeltern, so auf einen Idioten reinfallen konnte. Aber irgendwie muss das ja passiert sein, sonst würde man nicht durch die Reste des Konzentrationslagers Dachau laufen können. Ich ging auch davon aus, dass ich diese Frage nie wirklich beantwortet bekomme. Das war in der Vergangenheit; klar gab es immer noch diese verdammten Freaks, die Asylantenheime anzündeten und menschenverachtende Parolen schrien, aber es fühlte sich nicht so an, als könnte das jemals wieder eine kritische Masse werden. Bekämpfen musste man die natürlich trotzdem, aber als Gesellschaft waren wir da recht entspannt.

Spätestens Anfang bis Mitte der 2010er bekam ich langsam und schleichend meine Antwort. Kein „Event X“, sondern einzelne Zellklumpen, die sich gemeinsam zu einem fiesen Eiterbeutel manifestierten, der immer weiter wuchs. Gefüllt mit Republikanern, der NPD, Pegida, Anti-Impf-Schwurblern, Pro-Russland-Propaganda, Antisemiten und so weiter und so fort. Alles verstärkt durch Social Media, den Un-Ort des Internets, in dem alle Dorfdeppen denken, ihre Meinung sei mehrheitsfähig.

Bis sie halt mehrheitsfähig wurden. Und der Grützbeutel geplatzt ist. Überall auf der Welt läuft jetzt die ekelhafte Suppe raus, weil wir uns nicht an den medizinischen Grundsatz „Ubi pus, ibi evacua“ gehalten haben. Wo Eiter ist, dort entleere ihn. Tja, jetzt ist es zu spät.

Jetzt haben wir die Sauerei, es stinkt, es blutet und keiner weiss, was wir dagegen tun können.

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Random shit, an dem ich beteiligt bin und nun überlege, wie man damit umgeht:

Fucking Elon Musk. Mit einem Tesla herumzufahren fühlt sich an, als hätte man ein Hakenkreuz auf der Motorhaube.

Bitcoin: Herzlichen Glückwunsch, ihr Wixxer. Eine an sich gute Idee, gekapert von libertären Incels, die die Grundsätze der Demokratie nicht kapieren. I want to watch your Telegram Groups burn.

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Lyrics: Father John Misty – I guess time just makes fools of us all

Mein Lied des Jahres und der Soundtrack zu meiner Gefühlslage.