#minimal review

[colorful-horses]

charlie

[adhd-mode-activate]

Okay so I just saw the new Dungeons and Dragons movie

gotta say from the moment they went with the "let's dive out the window onto the Aarakocra" plan even as the council was like "WE PARDONED YOU" I knew it would be great because that is the exact kind of stupidity a D&D party would get up to

[galina]

The best book I’ve read so far this year is Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar.

When poets write novels I always get very excited because they enter into their contract with words in a different way to other writers, with a certain level of distrust of language’s abilities, with an understanding of the disappointing paradox in metaphors, and with a playful abandon for convention.

This book is a great example of all of those things. It tore me open so many times and put me back together again, too. It’s got everything — family, identity, death, nationality, history, death, art, politics, death, love, war, did I mention death, and dreams where the dead speak to cartoon characters

[hidefdoritos]

Am getting to know a freshman who's the same brain flavor as me, but has been too sheltered to know what ADHD is or basically anything besides "I am irredeemably weird." I got him informally peer-reviewed by myself and two other ADHD friends. Every time we got him talking about a symptom, he told a story that looped unto something else, and then he'd look up and say, "Is that an ADHD symptom too?" to three people who were already nodding.

[jakeperalta]

it is actually so unfair how being quiet is treated as a character flaw that needs fixing in every area of life

[freckliedan]

hi im glad to hear your not doing that badly but sending you best wishes regardless <3

i know i'm belated on this but i wanted to let you know the well wishes mean the world 😭 the kindness of folks here has been making a big difference.

but i am doing that badly, actually. just because i am good at making it through does not mean it is not extremely bad and hard. and being good at it is something that i have been working hard on for over a decade, not a skill i was born with.

[literatureaesthetic]

my 2023 bookish wrap-up is finally up on my substack!! includes all the books i read this year, some reflection on my reading, and my newfound all-time favourites <3

[amalgamezz]

[yilisbookclub]

Digital Minimalism📱is a philosophy of technology where you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected items and optimized activities that you can use intentionally and with purpose; and easily miss out on everything else. It teaches you the art of knowing how much is just enough and applies the idea to our personal technology. The key is to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world 🎧

This book walks you through a 3 step process to successfully “digitally declutter” your life. Its the perfect book to read if you have goals to focus on and will ultimately teach you to feeling like you are not missing out” by being disconnected 🔌

The author of this book says that the best way to establish control with social media is to rebuild your digital relationship from scratch. In other words take a break 🏝While this is quite difficult for entrepreneurs, a good solution would be to limit your online time to only when intentionally posting or searching for things you need for your business and limit this to 1-2 hours a day.

By monitoring what we do ⏰ we can see exactly how much time we waste and how easily distracted we can become. Once we are aware of where our time is being invested, we have more control and rediscover more free time to carry out our personal goals and interests 🥅

By following a digital declutter process, you’ll learn how to:

💭 Rethink your relationship with social media

⏳ Prioritize bandwidth conversations with low quality

🤍 Rediscover the pleasures of the offline world

[theflyingfeeling]

fic talk in the tags 💝

[galina]

Anyone's Ghost, August Thompson – enjoyed this advance review copy way more than I expected, it broke through my cynical shell and turned me into a soft wobbly mess. An angsty cheesy beautiful queer love story that will be a perfect crying-on-holiday read, comes out in July.

[khozee-mag]

How to find makeup staples to *actually* invest in (& red flags to ignore) from Amanda Zivkovic

Instagram: @ amandazivkovic

[questwithambition]

Digital Minimalism - some thoughts

(I took zero photos of me reading the book so here a couple of the library). Back in January I picked up Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, and as I read it I decided to implement some of the changes for at least a month to see what impact they would had. And oh my, has it been positive! A few takeaways:

I took an entire month off all social media, including Tumblr and Pinterest. I already didn’t have the Instagram and Facebook apps on my phone, but here I wasn’t able to access them on my laptop / browser either. This was a great break, as it really encouraged me to reconsider every time I picked up my phone. Since there was nothing to do on my phone I ended up reading more and doing other activities like painting and calling friends etc. It freed up not only time but the nagging compulsion to pick up my phone.

One of the biggest changes was spending time doing nothing, and also taking walks without headphones. I used to always listen to music / a podcast on my walk to and from uni / elsewhere but following the book recommendation, I stopped doing so. I was sceptic at first but I have so much space in my brain? These walks give my brain time to work through issues and worries, appreciate the world around me, or even just focus on putting one foot in front of the other. This calm has spread to other areas of my life: I was waiting at the dentist this morning for 10 minutes, and instead of reading or looking at my phone I just basked in the sunlight coming through the window, listening with half an ear to the receptionists chatting in the background and enjoyed a serene moment. If I could recommend a change it would be this one: on part of a commute, remove the headphones. Try sitting or walking in silence.

A final change was reducing notifications and availability: I implemented a “personal” mode on my phone where between the hours of 8:30pm and 9am only my family and a best friend will pop up in my notifications which immensely reduces the pressure to reply / think about it in the evening, and gives me a solid couple of hours work in the morning. I’ve taken it further and have removed notifications from a lot of apps such as snapchat and messenger etc: the people who need to urgently contact me have my number, and I’ll check the other socials throughout the day when I have time and space.

So would definitely recommend giving the book a read (I borrowed it from my library because libraries are amazing and so many of them have audiobooks / ebooks so please look them up! Also excellent places to read as pictured above). You obviously have to adapt what is said to your lifestyle, and some sections can drag on a bit, but I appreciated all the examples of how different people implemented steps in their lives.

[subsequentibis]

FINALLY started titanfall 2, the movement will take a little getting used to but i'm pleased to find it's way easier to pull off than i thought it would be, the ghost runner is so helpful and i like the game's clever ways of giving you Cool Badass Moments very organically.

[mywifeleftme]

196: Earth // The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull

The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull Earth 2008, Southern Lord (Bandcamp)

The most money I’ve ever spent on a vinyl record is on the stupid fucking quadruple LP Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness boxed set, but that was only because I allegedly scuffed the first track on the first side of LP1 of my friend’s copy while putting it away at a party, so I had to buy him a replacement and got his old dinged one—but I’ll write about that another time. The most money I’ve ever spent on a vinyl record I wanted was on Earth’s The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, and specifically on one of the editions bound in faux Bible leather that Southern Lord reissues from time to time. From the first time I heard the record back in 2008, from the first time I read the title really, Bees has held a strange fascination for me. Despite being a broke college kid, I ordered a Bees Made Honey hoodie using my first credit card and hemmed and hawed over whether to snag the leather record, though I didn’t even know how to use a turntable. I didn’t end up actually scoring a copy till more than a decade later, by which time I’d already pretty well carved the thing’s grooves so deep in my brain I didn’t need to listen anymore to hear its contents.

The inner sleeve.

Still, there’s the pleasure of handling it, opening up the gatefold and reading the hoary language in elaborately-filigreed gold text:

“from strength sweetness from darkness light the bees made honey in the lion’s skull”

A1. Omens and Portents 1: The Driver A2: Rise to Glory B3: Miami Morning Coming Down II (Shine) B4. Engine of Ruin C5: Omens and Portents II: Carrion Crow C6: Hung from the Moon D7: The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull D8: Junkyard Priest

I grew up just religious enough to really fear God and love His language, especially as filtered through all the fantastical art that’s borrowed the diction of the King James Version to command a sense of gravitas. It’s a tone of voice that still compels me, and it’s the perfect dressing for this era of Earth’s looming, desertified music. Starting with 2005’s comeback Hex; or Printing in the Infernal Method, Earth has been working on a form of Western-inspired instrumental post-rock that looks to the Bible and fire-and-brimstone writers like Cormac McCarthy for words to match the weathered lurch of Dylan Carlson’s lithic guitar. Bees continues this direction, and it’s broadly considered the best of the band’s later efforts: something elemental captured in the songs; extra pristine production; sterling contributions from Steve Moore on a variety of pianos and organs, plus famed jazz guitarist Bill Frisell; and above all the languid pulse of drummer Adrienne Davies, the sheer weight of her pauses (best exemplified on the title track).

When Davies joined the band in 2002, she became the long-term musical partner Carlson had never really had, and her playing has become as distinctive a signature of Earth’s sound as his. In the exhaustive 2023 documentary Even Hell Has Its Heroes, her interview is the most enlightening from a musical perspective. An amateur when she began casually jamming with Carlson, she soon found that all of the drumming instructors and guides she consulted emphasized focusing on how to refine the angles of her playing, minimizing the time and effort required to play a beat. But for Davies, playing in a band whose rhythm swells and resides like the breathing of a massive steer, this advice ran counter: her arms wave in slow, swooping arcs, drawing out the tempo in the air before falling into the drums, letting gravity provide the consequential force.

Despite the band’s mugshot stares and stupendous volume, that signal phrase holds: “from strength sweetness / from darkness light.” There’s no violence in this songs, only some obdurate quality of endurance; no aggression, only flickers of the transcendent among the amps. That’s the notion embedded in its title, a nourishing work transpiring within sinister ruins.

196/365

[blueberry-lemon]

I wrote a review of the book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I also included some general thoughts on my internet use, and my goals for the future.

You're gonna love it. It even mentions Tumblr, lol.