Sawyer Paul's Blog, page 38
July 15, 2018
Cura, July 16, 2018
Cura is my Spotify mixtape. You can listen to it and subscribe here. I keep it as one playlist so it’s easy to subscribe to. I update it fairly frequently, but I also keep an archive playlist so you don’t have to miss a thing.
I hope you like it. I made it for you.
Here’s the track listing for this week:
1 Guy Like You - Bleached
2 Remember That Night - Grouplove
3 Might Have A Worry - Donora
4 When I Needed You - Carly Rae Jepsen
5 Sydney (I’ll Come Running) - Brett Dennen
6 Shelter - Porter Robinson
7 Stuck On You - Meiko
8 Girl About Town - Helen Love
9 Television - You Won’t
10 Rock n Roll Star - Kero Kero Bonito
July 12, 2018
Morning Pages, July 13, 2018
Tess passed Jillian in the hallway to the washroom.
Jillian grabbed Tess’ inside elbow. She whispered, “I heard you’re holding. Also, did you wax your arms? Holy shit, girl.”
Tess whispered back, “I’ve got some weed. You wanna go out back and smoke?”
“Oh,” Jillian said, disappointed. “I was hoping you had coke.”
Tess hugged Jillian to get a little closer. “You do coke?”
“No!” Jillian said. “I just thought, I dunno, if someone had it, I might wanna try it for the first time tonight. I mean, college is in two months. I haven’t even smoked pot.”
“I have pot,” Kate said.
Jillian smirked. “You said you had weed.”
“Oh my god,” Kate said. “Let’s go up.”
Kate meant the roof, so she headed in that direction, but Jillian stayed back. Kate had to give her a little puppy-style “come on,” pat on her thighs before Jillian gained the strength to obey. Kate found the door to the roof around the next corner. She pulled the key out of her purse.
“You have a key to the roof?” Jillian asked, incredulously.
“You don’t have a key to the roof?” Kate said. She realized how this sounded. Jillian maybe wasn’t in the group of people who knew about the key cutting scheme from last year. She apologized.
Jillian followed Kate up the stairs. She’d never seen this part of the school. It smelled different, like static air mixed with outside, changing with every step. The stairs were a different height than the wide staircases on each corner of the school. She almost tripped. But then they reached the door, and she breathed surprisingly refreshing air. She hadn’t gone outside since the beginning of the dance, and Jillian felt unexpected relief.
“Have you ever smoked?” Tess asked. Jillian shook her head. Tess told her it wasn’t a big deal, and she probably wouldn’t feel too much. It was just a little bit nicer. Jillian asked about feeling paranoid. Tess calmed her of that and several other quick fire questions. Then she asked if she wanted to do it for real. Then she pulled out one of her three joints, lit it, inhaled, and handed it over.
“Take it in easy,” Tess said. “You’ll cough if you go too hard.”
Jillian didn’t cough, and felt proud of herself. She’d cough after the third inhale.
July 9, 2018
More Things, July 10, 2018
With the help of an IFTTT recipe that turns what I save to Pocket into a Markdown link, I can easily make a linked list blog post again. Hence, the return of More Things.
Articles are ordered from oldest to newest.
Beating Blossom Tales Without A Walkthrough Is Harder Than I Thought
‘The Sketch That Always Plays Hot’
Instead of abandoning print, the 119-year-old MIT Technology Review is doubling down on it
How to take incredible photos with the Nokia Lumia 1020
What became of the blogosphere?
Who Really Stands to Win from Universal Basic Income?
It’s Time to Admit You Love Muse
When It’s Too Late to Stop Fascism, According to Stefan Zweig
July 1, 2018
Morning Pages, July 02, 2018
Walt sat and drank orange drink. It had gin in it, and maybe vodka? It wasn’t exactly great, but it was free booze. All he’d done is place a cup underneath the spout and hit pour. Someone had spiked it. There were four large orange plastic containers in a row near the gym teacher’s office windows. Had they all been spiked? Walt hoped so. It would make the night a little funnier.
Hall had been gone a while. Maybe half an hour? It was enough time for people to get back to dancing and move on. Walt noted the half life of a major drama event at seven minutes. For that period of time, people milled, gossiped, and walked around worried. More mini fights broke out amongst people who disagreed with what they’d just seen, or which side was right. Walt sat back and watched the fray, not really sure what was happening, until he saw Banks head to one door and Hall get pulled away by Ram’s goons to the other. He figured something happened, but it wasn’t until Jillian came over to talk with him that he learned what happened.
Jillian said, “Those fucking drama queens.”
But seven minutes later, it was like nothing happened. The music didn’t even stop. Maybe that was it, Walt thought. If the music had stopped, and the lights turned on, maybe it would have meant something more. But the dance itself just kept going.
“Did you know there’s…vodka, I think, in the drink?” Walt said to Jillian, eying the stuff in his cup and trying to figure it out by sniffing it.
“I swear,” Jillian said. “Those two always have to make things about them. Like, I get it. Break up if you’re not happy, or if your guy is a jerk, but to do it in front of everyone? Like.”
“I wonder who spiked it,” Walt said. Jillian sat down next to him.
“So you like Lucy, huh?”
“What?” Walk replied.
Lucy took the drink from Walt’s hands and sniffed it. “Rum,” she said, handing it back, and then walking away.
June 26, 2018
Writing Advice - Creativity is heresy
Chuck Wendig, in a fantastic twitter thread about the creative process:
THREAD: there is no one way to be a writer, no one way to tell a story, no one way to do this thing we do as a hobby or as a job or as an art form. Some write a little every day, in an office; some write a lot at one time at varying, sporadic points. It’s all okay.
And then, later,
Creativity is heresy, every time. As it should be! Writing a story is forever an act of magic — sometimes it’s world-breaking magic, sometimes it’s cursed blood-magic, sometimes it’s practiced stage illusions, but it’s always a special kind of blasphemy.
I love that.
June 22, 2018
More Things June 23, 2018
With the help of an IFTTT recipe that turns what I save to Pocket into a Markdown link, I can easily make a linked list blog post again. Hence, the return of More Things.
Articles are ordered from oldest to newest.
Shortcuts: A New Vision for Siri and iOS Automation
The Mountain Goats — “Song For Sasha Banks”
The Americans ends as it lived: Tense, affecting, and one of the greats
Flight of the Conchords: ‘We’re retired sex symbols’
Alison Brie and Marc Maron Talk ‘Glow’ Season 2 and What Nobody Knows About Wrestling
Women in Iran Just Want to Kick Back and Enjoy Some Soccer, Thank You Very Much
June 21, 2018
Cura, June 22, 2018
Cura is my Spotify mixtape. You can listen to it and subscribe here. I keep it as one playlist so it’s easy to subscribe to. I update it fairly frequently, but I also keep an archive playlist so you don’t have to miss a thing.
I hope you like it. I made it for you.
Here’s the track listing for this week:
(You’re Better) Than Ever - illuminati hotties
Luv is Dumb - Lisa Prank
I Want to Kiss You - The Spook School
Hot 97 Summer Jam - Chumped
I Still Wanna Know - Goldroom Remix - RAC
Age of Consent (New Order) - Cayetana
Still Alive - The Spook School
Full Screen - Adult Mom
1967, I Miss You I’m Lonely - Martha
Soul No. 5 - Caroline Rose
Florence
Florence is the kind of video games that remind me how amazing the medium can be.
It’s short (the game lasts about an hour, but stays with you for weeks), and because it’s short it might seem odd that it charges a couple of bucks. It’s absolutely worth it. Monument Valley is also short and costs money. Sometimes good things cost money. I don’t know what else to tell you.
You might think it isn’t a video game, because it’s linear and you barely do anything but tap things. But it is a video game, because what you tap is up to you, and the story only progresses when you progress it. It’s not a difficult video game, even if it doesn’t tell you exactly what you’re supposed to do in any moment. Sometimes you’re presented with a blank canvas and you stare at it for a moment before curiously swiping and realizing a painting will reveal itself if you just keep at it.
Sometimes you paint by colouring in butterflies. Sometimes you work at your job by pairing up numbers in a match game. Sometimes you fill a shelf with items your new partner is bringing with him. Sometimes you fill a box with items your old partner is taking with him. Sometimes you kiss, or eat pizza. Each moment is heightened by interaction of some sort, your finger acting as the way the story progresses, tiny movements in a story about the self.
Why aren’t there more games like this? Pleasant, a bit sad, focusing on the pleasures and pangs of real life?
Morning Pages, June 22, 2018
You may have a conversation go a long time with someone you met once at a bar three years ago, connect deeply on a load-bearing pillar of your personality, and then never speak to that person again. The dialogue will stick with you. What she’ll have said will change how you think. A good house party, like a good book, will alter how you see people for the better. It will keep you going for a long time. A good party is life fuel.
June 19, 2018
Alto’s Adventure
I bought Alto’s Adventure a few years ago, played it a few times, and uninstalled it. I didn’t get it at the time, but I always had a feeling I’d missed something there. Recently, I listened to a podcast where Jason Kottke talked at length about the game, and it made me reinstall it. After listening to this interview, something clicked in me and I got the flow much better. It’s a game about timing, but it’s mostly a game about flow. Kottke has more to say about it on his blog as well. I’ve played it a ton this week, and I uninstalled it today, a day after getting my high score.
I uninstalled it because I found myself playing it a little too much. It’s a very addictive game, and it’s easy to play for just a minute here or there, until it becomes twenty, and you haven’t looked up from your phone, and it’s dark out now. I like video games a lot, but when it comes to games on my phone, I prefer the brief ones that end (Monument Valley, Florence are two excellent phone games).
Maybe it’s self control. Maybe it’s that I just watched that episode of Newsradio where Dave blows his SAT test (again) after spending all night playing Stargate Defender.
I’m impressed with that high score, though.
