field notes april 📚☎️🎀
some great books I've been reading, cyberdecks keep trending and were you duped by byredo??
1. WATCH
This video is honestly so fascinating. Underskin deepdives on byredo, and how it ever became such a successful brand. This is despite numerous criticisms by critics (that I never knew about). I was one of the duped! I loved fragrances as memories. I thought Byredo was luxurious, but apparently the brands success was due to a number of factors: instagrammable packaging (being launched around the same time of Instagram); and the hotness of Ben Gorham. The video underscores that most of Byredo’s success and various expansions into different products have been based on Ben Gorham, with no real strategy at all.
I had a cosy movie night with some friends and watched Arco! A french animation that is both wholesome and gut wrenching at the same time. The story follows a boy (from the future) who ends up travelling back in time to find a girl who is lonely. They start up a friendship (my heart!!!) and adventure with the objective of getting him back to his timeline.
I know someone told me about this show before (It was Cody!): It’s Florida, man! But finally watched an episode on the plane and it was hilarious. The reenactments of some what real, and INSANE stories are carried out by actors like Jeremy Renner, Anna Faris, Randall Park and more. It also really makes you think that your life is not that crazy compared to Floridians.
Also watched Rental Family with Brendan Fraser was very heartwarming! I cried, and it had nothing to do with being on a plane (cry easily on planes), or feeling guilty of not spending enough time with my family when I was home!
2. BOOKS
Madeline Cash’s Lost Lamb was very witty! Cash writes from a place of curiosity about cults and collective mindsets, but also there is a surprising twist in there that could be too complex but ends up tying the story up with a neat little bow. I was confused though, because when I first started reading it was I confused by the random ‘g’s placed in words: “dognated” instead of donated, or explagnation instead of explanation. After reading into Cash, I realised that it was part of the story, to emphasize the gnats that were everywhere in the town, and spilling over into the text. “The grammatical conceit with the gnats: I wanted the town and the text to be infested. You’ll notice that the “gn” stops when the gnats are exterminated, but by that point, they’ve become gnatural in the text and, I’m told, part of the architecture of the book. You don’t even notice they’re gone.”
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte was so good!!! I cannot believe I have been putting it off! The book is a collection of stories from people who are misunderstood, and ultimately rejected from society. Dubbed the incel book, it explores the ways that people can be cast off, and the isolation cycle that follows. I found comfort in the stories, because this was like exposure therapy for all the ways that people are rejected. And makes you think that any rejection you’ll ever face probably won’t be as bad as these stories, or remind yourself of a sense of agency against this type of isolation (am i waffling?) “But rejection is a problem for which there is not really a solution. If you’ve narrowed down the scope of your happiness to: I’ll only be happy if this person accepts me – and then they don’t – then there is nothing to be done, right?”
I’m mostly here to enjoy myself is also SUCH A GOOD BOOK! A part memoir which follows a woman in her 40s who spends the summer in Paris. She is unmarried, and childless. Somehow this book touches on a lot of things I have been thinking about the last couple weeks. How women grow older into two camps: married and unmarried. With child or child-free. The book looks at how Gylnnis aims to reclaim and challenge the “ageist industrial complex”. Obviously, I am not 40, nor single, but I think it’s important that there be more narratives that are not in either/or camps. You are not a failure if you are not married and have no children. You are neither an offense to those who do have kids or are married. To place women in just these two camps without much else hope or direction is exhausting. (don’t worry, forthcoming field test on this subject! It will be my first paid post!!)
3. ARTICLES
The discourse on taste is never ending. Sublime’s founder adds: “What the discourse misses is that the hardest part of creating anything today is understanding oneself. Real taste is decision-making aligned with your own perspective. It faces inward before it faces outward. It answers to a different question: not what will win, but what is true to me?”
The rise of narrative economy or the age of authorship. This comes as a result of more people being able to make their own things because of vibecoding.
I may not have the biggest penchant for experimental music, but I do love when people cover underrepresented voices. First floor highlights the experimental sounds that are coming out of Lebanon. THIS IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT AS LAST NIGHT ISRAEL VIOLATED THE CEASEFIRE, KILLING 254 PEOPLE IN LEBANON IN ONE DAY. The country has declared a national day of mourning. I read this mornings news listening to Sary Moussa’s In Praise of Shadows. “Memory is a big part of his work, and though his music is informed by a certain degree of nostalgia, it feels less like the soundtrack to an overly idealized, long-lost version of Lebanon, and more like an ode to the beauty that has always existed among the country’s trials and tribulations.”
Patrick Kho reports on the end of soho house globalism. Seriously, finally. I don’t think I could be as articulate as him (although I aspire to be), but finally! The airspace that is soho house needs to end! “But the unnamable, formless blob grows less interesting to observe by the minute: Broccoli hair. Instagram face. Little top big pants. Accents that betray little to no cultural origin.”
paywall free article on sam altman being a sociopath by ronan farrow. just wild. “Altman purportedly offers the same job to two people, tells contradictory stories about who should appear on a live stream, dissembles about safety requirements. But Sutskever concluded that this kind of behavior “does not create an environment conducive to the creation of a safe AGI.” Amodei and Sutskever were never close friends, but they reached similar conclusions. Amodei wrote, “The problem with OpenAI is Sam himself.””
there seems to be a shift of opinion from people saying let’s not be online so much, to let’s just do it. this includes tech and social commentator Taylor Lorenz believing that screen time is the wrong metric to look at. I saw someone also talk about this, and how in fact its not about how much time spent online, but rather meaningful. Also seen in Amy Francombe: “But right now it feels like we’re stuck in this weird loop where people are still packaging the idea of “logging off” into something you can watch, like, engage with, share, etc, which is pretty ponzi-scheme-y. It feels icky to me that the value comes from naming the problem, only to turn it into more content that sustains the very system it’s critiquing. I just hope the next real shift isn’t another aesthetic or format, but actually posting less.”
4. RANDOM
The Cyberdecktok community continues to grow! And support each other! I love supportive communities!
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
More fun edutainment: Inspector Organ inspects piano organs one church at a time; Professor Diva teaches you about physics
This Japanese artist puts whimsy into everyday objects!
This is old (ish) news, but I made dates stuffed with butter the other day. And they were amazing. If you’re ever feeling indulgent, find yourself the best butter ever and stuff them into some dates.
Also, when I was in Malaysia, I visited Sentosa Janda Baik which is a multi-generational family home which features three galleries and a beautiful garden. I had originally found out about this place through social media, where people talked about staying at this peaceful retreat and talking about all the intentionality that makes up this home. I think about this place daily.
More in the year of the fire horse, draw a horse here!
I’ve missed reading your words!!