The Swipe Volume 3 Chapter 23
I was getting into one of those slightly boozy text arguments with a pal, which are about nothing but generate bruises and ill will if you let them. Stupid stuff, growls and pokes which often come from misunderstandings or lack of clarity. I spat out a comment I really didn’t mean. Thinking on it ten minutes later, I realised it was nasty and unearned.
When I picked up my phone to try and minimise the damage, I saw the message hadn’t sent—a passing network error. I erased it, crafted a more reasoned reply, and the evening was back on track.
It’s easy to snap at folks, especially those you love, out of pride or a momentary burst of unexplainable spite. It’s never worth it. The great thing about chatting over text is that you can walk away, think, then say what you mean in the way that you mean it. The universe did me a favour yesterday. I’ll take that lesson with me.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
Comics, maybe, or perhaps something entirely new. That’s the joy of The Ninth Art. You can make it in any way you like.
Rob is watching…
Wednesday. I’m not sure the weather is appropriate for the drop of the first half of season 2, but I’m enjoying all the gothy shenanigans nevertheless. Here’s a BTS of the standout sequence of Episode 1—a dose of good ole-fashioned stop-motion animation.
Rob is listening…
To CMAT. Are you listening to CMAT? You should be listening to CMAT. I love the drama, the commitment, the sheer wild glee of her performances, all in the service of some proper pop.
Rob is eating…
The lovely Samin Nusrat revisits her incredible buttermilk-brined chicken recipe. Her tips transformed the way I roast a bird. Try it this weekend if you get the chance and prepare to have the meal of legend.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
This carpet. The skill in making this carpet. The sheer attention to detail involved in making this carpet.
https://www.tumblr.com/preserving-tiktok/790429772418351104Speaking as someone who has spent time in food service and retail, I agree heartily with every line of this. You get a really hard fast lesson in human nature when you’re behind a till or serving food.
Speaking of which, Laurie Penny ran her own version of Squid Game. It provided a few uncomfortable lessons on her own nature, and what that kind of heightened, unreal atmosphere does to people. The Stamford Experiment was no one-off…
The Tiny Awards have locked their shortlist, and it’s now up to us to choose our favourite bit of hand-crafted webby goodness. Good luck choosing—I couldn’t.
This is a tale which highlights the casual callousness which comes when we allow systems to run without appropriate oversight. Granted, the circumstances which underly the story are unusual but even so, it seems bonkers that this could not be an easy fix.
Marie Le Conte takes us lefty types to task for generating the current crisis in policital and social dialogue. I refer you to the situation I found myself in at the top of the page. It’s really easy to poke and bray, without concern for the forward effects. Lord knows, I can be guilty enough of boorish behaviour online, and I’ve paid dearly for it.
This one is very long and very geeky, and certainly not the easy entry guide into jazz which I thought it might be. I’m not sure I’m any the wiser about a way through the undergrowth, but I’ll give Mark Sinker’s picks (when he finally gets to them) a try.
A history of arguably the most contentious word in the English language in the 2020s. Four letters, a thousand different interpretations.
FONT NERDERY AHOY. A dive into the typographical choices made for the first four Black Sabbath albums, released in a wild flurry of metal madness between 1970 and 1972. I love this sort of stuff. The processes used seem so far away now, and yet I was growing up as this work was being done.
Finally, as a corollary to the opening link, Ferhat Dirik of Mangal II, who I’m delighted to see writing again, talks about how guests to modern restaurants seem to have completely forgotten how to behave. It’s a sad and tiring situation, and completely unnecessary. Did Covid do that much of a number on our ability to interact with each other like normal human beings?
One last thought.
https://www.tumblr.com/cryptotheism/791175048956346368/if-i-say-magic-is-real-i-get-a-million-people-inLet’s have a bit of rockabilly thump and bounce to shake off the gloom which comes with consideration of the human condition. This booms and bams in all the right ways. Great to see a wildly incongruous bodhran tumbling the tune along too.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
