Scratch Pad: Frahm, Franklin, Mingus
At the end of each week, I usually collate a lightly edited collection of recent comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I find knowing I’ll revisit my posts to be a positive and mellowing influence on my social media activity. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I generally take weekends off social media.
▰ I thought I’d make a helpful playlist of music I tend to play in the background while working — less listen to than surrender to — and then I realized it’s pretty much just Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon and Nils Frahm’s Music for Animals.
▰ Occasional reminder to myself that 2027 will mark the 300th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s original Junto club, as well as the mere 15th of the Disquiet Junto (and also its 800th consecutive weekly project).
▰ I don’t understand how anyone can enjoy Monopoly. Here’s a game called Cholera, for three or more players. Whoever rolls first dies first. Whoever rolls second dies second. Continue until final player. Final player rolls five times in a row, slowly, and on the fifth roll also dies. The game ends.
▰ I dug the Succession main theme music, even as it reminded me of things I couldn’t quite place. Just yesterday I was listening to a 1956 Charles Mingus album, and one of those things suddenly became apparent: “All The Things You Can C#” (off Mingus at the Bohemia).
▰ Kind of amazed to wake up to news of a massive fire in the neighborhood, and I hadn’t woken earlier to the resulting sirens
▰ This week in #dronescrolling — i.e., stuff other people posted: Thorsten Sideboard posted on Bluesky news that the next AAAssembly — that is, the Algorithmic Art Assembly — will happen March 26-28, 2026, back at Gray Area in San Francisco. Stay tuned at aaassembly.org. ▰ Ethan Hein’s been in Memphis for a conference and he’s posting photos on Instagram of culturally charged relics, like the Hammond M3 organ that Booker T. Jones played on “Green Onions.” ▰ Bruce Levenstein posted on Bluesky an advertisement for 1980s computer camps sponsored by Atari that, for an OG TRS-80 owner like myself, provided a nice reminder me that the concept of a “digital native” may date back earlier than the term’s general application suggests. ▰ The DNA Lounge in San Francisco is owned by Jamie Zawinski, a former Netscape coder; he posted on Mastodon about an upcoming performer requiring a half dozen CDJs.
