Tag: 2019

Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 144

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Master Blend, Office Coffee

I like the way TV’s and computer screens look when you take them in photos. The colors get wavy, and geometric, like weaving, a loom. It’s got something to do with refresh rates and the speed a camera captures, I think, but I’m no expert. If anyone knows better than me please let me know.

(I could look this up – I’ve got google open in another tab – but where’s the fun in solving all your mysteries?)

Anyway, I took a picture of chat on a lo-fi stream that I like to put on while I’m working. I’ve talked about lo-fi before and chances are you’ve heard about it apart from me. It’s hip. An article called it ‘easy-listening for millennials’ and I think that fits. I never used to get in on the zeitgeists and still find myself falling off of them like dead leaves on a heat-burnt tree, but the fad around lo-fi streams has me by the hip. I like the sounds. The samples are nostalgic – quotes from Cowboy Bebop, a few lines of early aught’s hip-hop. It’s the closest I get to feeling empowered by my past.

And I like the community. The streams pop up with internet chats. Sometimes, like all things on the internet, they’re dressed in dim colors, people at their worse, but more often than not it’s just people talking.

I took a picture of a run from chat that speaks for itself. It’s my quote and photo for this Coffee Log. It made me glad to be living in 2019, and it made me wish it were raining, hot, humid, a full bowl of soup.

Currently Reading: Queen, Suzanne Crain Miller

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See Below….

Taken from the chat on Nourish.’s Lo-fi stream.

Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 20

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee

I read an article about positive parenting. It followed a few researchers who lived with the Inuit. It reeked of Westernism – ‘they’re so happy!’ ‘They’re such a peaceful people!’ It said they were never angry. No-one’s never angry. Cultural fetishism aside, though, the article had some interesting points.

It talked about stories. The Inuit teach morals and manners with stories. Think mother goose, only it’s an Aurora that steals your head if you don’t wear your hat. All the kids in the city grew up with these stories. All the adults could recount them. They talked about tempting a two year old to hit his mother with a stone. When he did, she’d cry, exaggerated, performing a play, and when he didn’t, she’d hug him. But it was always a story. And that’s how people learn.

As a wannabe writer, that stuck with me. I thought about what stories I’m telling. I thought about what stories I’ve been told. I grew up with Goodnight Moon. What man has that made me?

A funny thing happens these days. Kids are coupled to computers. Their eyes go wide with games and movies, and more than that they’re wrapped up in YouTube. They stream themselves. We watch other peoples’ watching. We consume media so we can talk about it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a different kind of story-telling. You can’t trick the kid to think he’s owed a visit from the tooth fairy. You can trick the kid to believe he might be famous if he posts an insta pic of that lost tooth. In 2019, kids skip a step: they’re becoming storytellers without having been a part of any story. They’re not the heroes but the narrators.

What do you do with that?

Novel Count: 30,349

Currently Reading: Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami; FINISHED! 

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Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.

Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon


Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 14

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee

I had a new conversation with an old friend. She’s at the same old job. She’s got new responsibilities. She’s working harder. They laid people off. The company’s making money but not enough. They can’t meet growth. There’s new management. There’s old wages. They don’t get raises. They get more hours. They’re all salary. They get more responsibilities. There’s a big project. An old deadline, from before the layoffs, but the new boss had a meeting with the shareholders and now there’s a new deadline a few weeks early. My old friend’s pulling out her hair. She’s drinking black coffee at midnight. She’s wearing bright scarves. We’re talking old memories.

My generation makes money for other people.

Novel Count: 29,897

Currently Reading: Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami; FINISHED!

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

You can be young without money, but you can’t be old without it.

Tennessee Williams




Coffee Log, Day 317

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee Tea: Earl Grey, Bigelow Brand; I woke up feeling somewhat energetic; ‘somewhat’ is a lot more energy than I typically have; I didn’t want to dilute that with too much caffeine, so I stuck with tea; it tastes like an idle afternoon.

Modern media is a weird thing. It’s produced in such great quantities that you could spend all day, every day consuming it. And to be a part of any kind of zeitgeist, you pretty much have to do just that. Water cooler conversations are less about sports and more about your latest Netflix binge.

For about six years I’ve subscribed to the website ‘GiantBomb.com.’ It’s nominally a video-gaming site, but the best way to think of it would be a games-related Mystery Science Theater 3000. There’s a team of about ten editor/producers who record and appear in the videos to talk over and joke about this or that game. There’s podcasts, series, and something new everyday.

As someone who has trouble sleeping, one thing I’ve found marginally helpful is to listen to podcasts as I’m going to bed. Half-focusing on a conversation tricks my brain into shutting off. I’m not too picky about the podcast, but most nights it ends up being something off of GiantBomb – I subscribe to them anyway, it’s easy, thoughtless to press play.

Because of this, I recognize those same 10 editor/producer’s voices as well as I recognize my best friends’. They’re with me most days. They follow me to sleep. I think that’s incredibly bizarre. I’ve never met these people – I never will meet them – and yet they’re a daily part of my life.

There almost seems to be a cultural aversion to in-person interaction in 2019. We seem to understand each other best with a computer screen between us. And in a small way I’m a part of that, and so are you – you probably only know me through this blog, and if you wanted to, you could connect with me here every day.

I can’t decide how I feel about all this. In some ways it’s comforting – a quilt blanket to drape over yourself when you need it, all the comfort of a person without their complications. In others, though, I worry that I’m losing something fundamental and replacing it – however unintentionally – with air. You stop drinking water when the soda fountain’s installed.

Novel Count: 10,989

Currently Reading: Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

Just move to the Internet, its great here. We get to live inside where the weather is always awesome.

John Green