Tyler Weaver's Blog

Talked about it in yesterday's MacroParentheticals, but I...

Talked about it in yesterday's MacroParentheticals, but I wanted to record it here: I'm taking a month away from the newsletter to rebuild it from scratch and bring it into line with where I am, creatively (for better or for worse). More zine, less letter, seeking that balance somewhere between; new name not unlikely, but like most things, remains TBD. Aiming to release every four to six weeks, starting at the end of July, first of August.

TSBMR returns

Continuing on with the “transitional phase” notion I seem to be in, I’m bringing back my SHORTBOX MEMORY REVUE mini-podcast this week. For the uninitiated:

“Each week, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 35 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection , (re-)read it, plumb the depths of both my memory and comics history to talk about it, and, on or about Wednesday, post whatever emerges.”

This week’s (Wednesday, or thereabouts) return features one of my favorite series ever, from Box23, Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan’s THE QUESTION, No. 33. In the meantime, earlier episodes live here.

TSBMR no more

After much back and forthing over the last 24 hours, I've decided that, instead of switching to bi-weekly, I'm pulling the plug on THE SHORTBOX MEMORY REVUE completely. While it was a fun little experiment, my reasoning boils down to the simple truth that I'd rather spend my creative time writing fiction and my usual little slices of whenever/whatevers here. As you were.

TSBMR/0006 :: announcement time(!)

Just a little announcement about the show. Short version: going bi-weekly, doing two comics; something different, something fun, something new. Train your ears upon me waxing philosophic about it all in the short announcement, below.

TSBMR now on Apple Podcasts

Which I guess makes TSBMR a for-really-real new show. Hadn’t planned on it going that far, but here I am and here it is. But hey, at least I get to use my favorite signoff again: you can (now) subscribe via RSS, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast delivery system. New episodes Wednesdays, give or take.

“something more ‘inward’…”

Pleasant Monday surprise: something I wrote appearing elsewhere (that elsewhere being Kevin Hodgson’s always-excellent Kevin's Meandering Mind blog) along with a super-cool graphic version of same and generous linkage to the newsletter! Super-cool graphic version:

And I loved Kevin’s rumination on it (a sentiment I wholeheartedly echo) about blogs now being an inward space:

Tyler’s piece had me thinking (yet again) of this blogging space, and how my view of it has changed over time. It used to be more of a space that I imagined as “outward” facing — sharing with other bloggers, and being connected into larger blogging networks — but now I see it more as a reflective space, something more “inward” where I am curating my writing and thinking. My audience may be smaller (I may be my only audience) but I still keep the door open for others (you, perhaps?) to peek in and see what I’m up to.
dogtrax https://dogtrax.edublogs.org/2024/02/19/blogging-a-stream-a-collage-an-unfolding/

Also happy to find myself sharing space with James Shelley's excellent piece, What's the fun in writing on the internet anymore? Many thanks, my friend.

principle09 :: this is it / this is me

Updated Principles page with 09 :: this is it / this is me:

I'm not aspiring to anything other than continuous progression and improvement at my chosen art: this site, the newsletter, and the zine are, until they are otherwise, my chosen, wholly independent delivery systems for whatever I think, ponder, and create. The expressions and experiments and explorations shared in these spaces are neither aspirations nor stepping stones for anything bigger: I've spent more than half my adult life caring about things out of my control and, as I enter the back half of same, I've little interest in continuing down the same path. This space is – and these spaces are – for better or for worse, the truest expression of myself in this moment; whatever the next moment brings will be dealt with when it's time to deal with it. Until then, this is me, and I'm good with it.
Tyler W. Weaver https://parentheticalrecluse.com/principles

THE GROUND LOOP, Volume 3

What started as a little experiment in the "I am the voice in your head" edition of the newsletter and a notion for a middle ground between full-on interview show and solo effort, has, it seems, become something real: I have guests lined up!

Short version: TGLv3 is a mini, MacroParentheticals-exclusive, Lipton-meets-Proust-meets-me questionnaire (which is actually far closer to my original concept of The Socialized Recluse than the final show turned out to be) in which I ask anyone who wants to join me for a 20-30 minute Zoom/phone call the same five questions.

Here's my first episode (excerpted from MacroParentheticals00128), what I call the mad-scientist episode, an interview with... ME. If you'd like to be a guest, send me an email and we'll work something out. In the meantime, I hope you'll consider subscribing to MacroParentheticals, my Sunday morning brain sythesis of the week that was, because, as I said, with the exception of this episode, TGLv3 is newsletter-exclusive (for now).

(insta)deactivated

After much searching through menus and settings (and an unwillingness on the part of the app on the iPad to scroll down far enough to hit the "deactivate" button requiring me to go to a computer), finally hit the deactivate button (six days early, but to hell with it: those who wanted to stay connected have already done so, the rest, bye): my Insta-presence is no more. Aside from that one video with the "get that shit out of my face" vegan frog (which I did watch about 35 times before hitting deactivate: that "motherfucker stop, STOP!" shriek kills me every time), I don't miss any of it.

(And when Threads launched, I realized I didn't really need or want another microblogging conversation platform: that's what this space and the Fediverse are for / Note: still want to use the FV for my comment system here; running out of time before the next annual bill comes due.)

Didn't go full delete on Insta because I'm enough of a shit that I don't want the other Tylers Weaver to have that account name. I've protected it long enough, even added the extra W to myself, across multiple platforms and decades, this being my third (holy shit).

Related/un–: I anticipate the day that some startup buys (or pulls a Muskian coup on SpaceKaren himself) the Twitter name and the rights and the bird and brings it back, sort of like Twinkies and PBR, banking on nostalgia as a (highly viable) business model. As someone rightly said, the brand was the only thing that didn't need fixing at Twitter.

Anyhow byebye massive communication/advertising conglomerate techbro companies. We had our laughs and our cries and our successes and our failures but it's time to move on. Internet dinosaur powers: activate.

instaexit

Deactivating Insta on 06 August. Farewell Insta-posts, recorded here because what the hell why not.