2023
While walking the dog this morning, I saw this car. Kermit looks like he is desperately trying to escape from a serial killer.
I’m busy with work and other aspects of life and don’t have a lot of time for social media right now, so here is a photo of a palm tree in our backyard, which just got a trim and a shave and is looking beautiful after its spa day.
When Moviegoers Started Watching Films From the Beginning.
Throughout the classical Hollywood era, moviegoers dropped in on a film screening whenever they felt like it, heedless of the progress of the narrative. In the usual formulation, a couple go to the movies, enter midway into the feature film, sit through to the end of the movie, watch the newsreel, cartoon, and comedy short at the top of the program, and then sit through the feature film until they recognize the scene they walked in on. At this point, one moviegoer whispers to their partner, “This is where we came in,” and they exit the theater.
This is how I remember watching when I was a little boy being brought to the movies by my parents in the 1960s.
Alfred Hitchcock changed the national moviegoing habits with the release of “Psycho” in 1960. Hitchcock was a brilliant publicist for his own products, and a big publicity gimmick for “Psycho” was the demand that movie theater owners bar the doors and refuse to allow new audience members in after the movie began. Guards were stationed at the door.
Do you really need to walk 10,000 steps a day? And 17 other fitness ‘rules’, tackled by the experts. Do you need to stretch before and after exercise? Is running bad for the knees? Is sex good exercise?
People & Blogs: Manuel Moreale is doing a series of interviews with bloggers. Here are Rachel K. Kwon and Micro.blog founder Manton Reece.
I like finding out about how other people do blogging. It gives me ideas.
And I like the layout of Kwon’s home page, separating different types of posts into sections. It’s bothered me for a while that my blogging is mixed-up and spread across Facebook, Micro.blog, Tumblr, Mastodon and Bluesky.
Cory Doctorow: The proletarianization of tech workers. As employers turn the screws, tech workers are organizing.
Things I saw walking the dog this morning. I wish I’d stood directly in front of that rattan couch and centered it in the photo.
Currently reading: Track Changes by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum 📚
Finished reading: Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf 📚
Overheard: My kid throws such a fit any time his bread gets a little burnt, I’m starting to think he’s black toast intolerant.
Overheard: Sometimes a joke is a great way to break tension during an unpleasant situation, and lately, l’ve also been discovering all the other times when it absolutely is not.
Trash pick up is delayed by a day. Some of our neighbors will put the trash bins out tonight anyway, and we will feel superior.
America peaked more than 50 years ago. Since then, we have been a society in collapse. “Americans are managed like livestock. We’re draft animals for the wealthy.”