../melody in chaos
This “advice to self” list has grown, plateaued, and shrunk through the years and ears, and continues to evolve. I return to it every once in a while to add and pare, and laugh at some of the sillier constraints I’ve set on my happiness and contentment as time rolls.…
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If the web was scratch ‘n sniff, how many posts would you bring to your nose?
If sites and blogs emitted odors, how far would you keep your phone from your face when you check the subway status?
The internet, as with a war epic or a make-out scene in a barn or a Victorian-era period film, is easy to romanticize (and project ourselves into) because it doesn’t smell.
Twice in the early 2010s, I lost all my drafts in the Twitter app after running my phone through TSA airport X-ray conveyors. So I began to write potential tweets in an MS Word file, away from the app. I appended new drafts to the same file for a few years.…
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Spotify playlist #105 for June 2023 reflects movements in space, internal and external:
listening to jazz with my father on the lanai
stories of my parents’ meeting in 1969
my mother’s covid while recovering from a broken hand
my father’s pneumonia while recovering from covid
the WGA strike and potential SAG-AFTRA walkout suspending Cat’s latest gig, extending our trip by 3+ weeks
finding peace between the days of Luna’s now kinda-regular bi-weekly epileptic seizures
the kinetic calmness in the chaos of a tennis court
weekly quests for the perfect mango
the road from Florida back to NYC
Not bummed to be back in NYC, but I don’t return home after being away with unbridled excitement anymore, either.…
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…Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
It’s not the fake, it’s the flake.
Cat Thomas
all strains of a virus begin life as a variant.
Not all variants, however, become new strains
so it is with intelligence as with disease
all intelligence begins life as a thought exercise
not all thought exercises, however, become intelligence
The true epidemic of covid19 is to be overwhelmed by absolute certainty
Joe Rogan is a thought exercise in existential uncertainties, rendered in flesh
Canceling comedians is, in effect, an attempt to cancel laughter, and to shame those laughing.…
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Why silence anyone, lest we’re ok silencing ourselves as an unintended consequence?
There should be, however, a corollary right to free speech that confers the right to silent spaces.
Freedom of speech = freedom from speech
i.e., Freedom of Silence
a running list of useless phrases and rhetorical filler
I will say this…
I think that…
You know, it’s funny…
The funny thing is…
In my opinion…
Let me be clear…
Let me be perfectly clear…
Just so we’re clear…
I honestly think…
…literally…
I believe that…
In my view…
Personally, I…
Personally I think…
Personally I believe…
In my world…
In a perfect world…
I mean,…
I deeply believe…
I firmly believe…
I for one…
My personal theory is…
If you want my take, I…
I’m no expert, but…
I don’t know about that, but…
This is probably controversial, but…
This is a hot take, but…
I don’t know him personally, but…
I’ve never been there, but…
I’ve never had to experience that, but…
I cannot emphasize enough…
It’s obvious that…
I’m pretty sure…
Here’s the thing…
I obviously think…
Truth be told,…
It goes without saying…
This is textbook ________ …
You know what I mean?…
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The opposite of love is indifference.
Indifference, fwiw, is also the opposite of hate.
From indifference’s POV, love and hate are, in effect, the same emotion. They converge in equivalent affect.
They both may inspire equal sensations of asphyxiation, and the sustained acts of haters or lovers may require equal obsessive compulsion.…
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“I’m brighter than you stars!” New York City taunted, waving their walk signs, shaking their streetlights at Orion, the sole visible constellation that Fall night.
“Pfft,” said Rigel, Orion’s brightest star, “what are you, a hundred years old?”
“Shut up, I’m almost five!”
—-
Fwiw, Capella, Vega, Sirius, and Deneb were also visible over the City the night of the story.…
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The death of comedy signals an upstream, tactical conflation of embarrassment and shame.
Banning jokes is a means to censor laughter, not words, or comedians.
How do you censor a few comics?
Make one die onstage.
What is the world’s most offensive joke?
Depends who laughs.
Any word can be made dirty.…
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