Jacob All Trades #307
Six Months In, The Cable Library, 8-Bit Old Lady, and Gruesome Claymation Death
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Wow. Time flies when you’re parenting two kids. I wrote my last newsletter from the hospital room while we waited out contractions. Our daughter is now six months old.
Several times during that absence, I’ve thought about this newsletter. I’ve written halves of posts in my head and asked people if they’d be okay with me including something they told me about in my newsletter – but an object at rest stays at rest. The longer you don’t do something, the easier it is not to and the more pressure you build up to do it ‘right.’
This pressure to get something ‘right’ is something I grapple with throughout my creative life. It’s been amplified during the pandemic as my exposure to other people is less frequent and the handful of projects that have taken up the bulk of my attention remain unseen.
One of the ways I try to hold myself accountable is to tell people about what I’m working on. That way – I figure – I’ve said it out loud and now I owe it to people to finish. It’s probably not a super healthy way to be creative.
I’ve recently heard the argument that telling people about projects lets you feel the dopamine hit of creating without doing the work and you should keep projects a secret until the desire to share them with the world compels you to finish and release them. I think that’s interesting too.
I’ll do a combination of the two and post cryptically below about some things I want to talk about in the newsletter. If you’re interested in any of them, hit me back up and I’ll write to you PERSONALLY about them… and use that email as a rough draft for a future newsletter :D
My thoughts on Be Real and How I “Invented” Instagram in 2007
Trevor the Cat and the Nextdoor Dogooders Who Made Things Worse
How I Failed To Potty Train My Son
What I’ve Done, What I’m Doing, What I Want To Do
What I’ve Learned About Privacy By Becoming An Amateur Private Investigator
On Puzzles, Peace, and Giving Your Hands Something To Do
Anyhoots and hollers, here’s a newsletter for y’all. Hope you’ve been well, and as always feel free to leave a comment or share the newsletter using the links below.
Party on,
Jacob
HERE’S AN IDEA: THE CABLE LIBRARY
I have so many cables. From the (proprietary Apple) Lightning bolt chargers that come with every iPhone accessory to dusty old FireWire 600 to 800 converters that I keep on hand in case I need to access a decade-old hard drive to ones that I don’t remember buying, using, or keeping — I’ve got a drawer full. Sometimes I swear they are breeding.
First, I truly believe I might need them one day. Second, I wouldn’t say I’m a hoarder (what hoarder would?) but I have a compulsion not to create waste. The European Commission estimates that 51 tons of waste are created by obsolete cables each year (which is why they’ve lobbied companies like Apple to use universal chargers).
In the meantime, I think libraries should have cable libraries. You can bring the cables you don’t need, and take any cables you do need. If you need them for a short time, bring them back – but if you need to keep them, keep them. I did a pilot program of sorts – posting on Nextdoor with all the cables I had but didn’t need. Over a few weeks, I had dozens of people contact me looking for obscure cables and I got rid of many of the extras I had. I even encouraged people to post their own #CableLibraries.
I think the next step would be starting a real pilot program at my local library, but I have to admit with two kids, limited childcare, and my own creative and career ambitions, it’s relatively low on my priority list.
BUT – I’m a big believer in investing in the library system, bulking up one of America’s coolest public resources. The idea of a Library of Things has been around for some time with tool libraries (which started in LA County this year), seed libraries, and craft libraries. Let’s do it for cables too, and save money, materials, and the planet.
CONSUMPTION JUNCTION
Three things I’ve seen, heard, or otherwise experienced recently and have been on my mind.
If you like movies The Mubi Podcast is likely the best podcast you’ve never heard of. Public radio veteran (and fellow preschool dad) Rico Gagliano guides you through the world of foreign film. The first season is about films that were famous (or infamous) in their home country but relatively unknown globally. The second season is about specific theaters that influenced film history or pop culture in general (like the theater that invented the midnight movie). Just listen to it. Trust me.
I love video games with huge open worlds you can explore for a lifetime… but (maybe even more), I also love video game novellas. Short stories that make an immediate and charming impact on your life. Ben Greene and Danny Mastrangelo have created a first chapter proof of concept of such a game: Video Gale. Video Gale is the adventure of an 8-bit old lady and it’ll take you five minutes to enjoy.
This is a great video of Ludwig Guoransson — who composed the music for Black Panther, The Mandalorian, and TENET — talking about his process and influences for those particular scores.
A QUICK AND (NOT)DIRTY CLIMATE SWAP
Pale Blue Earth makes USB rechargeable batteries that work. Batteries are toxic and in some places (like California) it’s illegal to throw them out because they are VERY bad for the environment. And we’re not even talking about the impact of creating and packaging the $50 billion dollars worth of batteries sold yearly worldwide. Oh, also, it’s expensive to keep buying batteries.
I’ve had the AA and AAA Pale Blue rechargeables for several months and have been very happy with how long they hold a charge and how quickly they recharge.
*As a HUGE caveat: Corporations are spending billions of dollars to make us feel like our individual choices are responsible for the climate crisis. Yes, we can help, but the biggest thing any of us can do is work to hold corporations and governments responsible. Also, I’m collecting all of these as a highlighted story on my Instagram so they’re all in one place.
I AM NOT ABOVE SHARING A VIRAL VIDEO
So, it’s come to this.
BEAUTIFUL DATA
Often, I share infographics, interactive charts, or other ‘rendered’ experiences where the data has been filtered through design. Today’s Beautiful Data is the raw data of Unequal Scenes by photographer Johnny Miller. Miller’s project uses drone photography to illustrate inequality, exposing the “scars within our urban fabric, so apparent from above.”
I am absolutely gobsmacked by the story these images tell, and how simply a change in vantage point articulates what is omnipresent but often obscured from street level.
I COULD WATCH THIS ALL DAY
I’ve become obsessed with Guldies – the work of Swedish claymation animator Alex Unger. Here’s a compilation of his clumsy clay boy that cracks me up:
Each of those vignettes exists as a (slightly) longer piece. When Alex posts them on his YouTube he also shows the BTS (behind the scenes) of how he made the sound, which is fun to watch:
Alrighty, that’s it for this week. Feel free to leave a comment or share the newsletter using the links below.
Party on,
Jacob
OK, I'm in, if only to be able to hear your view versus Heather's about parenting! But actually, your offerings make my head spin and make me (old person) feel included and absorbed into the zeitgeist again. Thanks for being all you can be! shirley
I can’t promise to be as articulate about parenting as Heather but I’ll try!