It’s my birthday on Tuesday! So I have been doing ‘birthday things’ this week.

On Friday we went to the Royal Opera to see La Traviata – the opera i’ve probably listened to the most – it was *amazing*

I’ve never seen La Traviata staged. Wow. Blown away. What an experience. Sure, we were up in the gods, but every single second that someone was onstage was riveting. What an art form. We Londoners are so lucky to have the ROH on our doorstep.

Yesterday we went to Hakkasan in Mayfair with my parents and had the vegan tasting menu.

Here’s a gratuitous food porn photo dump:

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And today we had a lazy morning, then went to see some friends in the pub. Hung out, and had a few drinks in the sunshine.

Which was nice, as it’s raining for 10 days from tomorrow. lol.

Permanently Moved

Photo 365

The Ministry Of My Own Labour

• WRITING, SO MUCH WRITING.
• Work call/workshop
• Made, compiled and posted SSRZ006
• Filmed some stuff in the woods for youtube visualisers for our EP launch next month
• Lots of thinking and notes on ‘tutorials’ and rituals of welcome

Terminal Access

Haven’t seen Juliet IRL in quite a minute but she wrote a great piece for Novara Media about George Osborne and Ed Balls new podcast.

The restoration of this chummy status quo could be predicted between the 2017 and 2019 elections, when Britain’s liberal centre put a premium on friendly disagreement. This insufferably smug Observer article about “cross-party pals” from the Labour right and Tory left, who set aside their clearly surmountable ideological differences to be mates, summed up this tendency perfectly

The ZK/Web3/Autonomous Worlds development team over at Aperture Labs recently posted two long essays which are flags in the ground / statements of intent for their project.

Two research quests for onchain games

To be a builder of fully onchain games is to feel as if one is boarding a spaceship. We are embarking on a voyage to an unknown world far from the familiar fields of Earth. Our destination promises to be more weird and more wonderful than we can conceive.

Dipping the Stacks

WORLDBUILDING: Multiplayer collaging the future — RADAR

So, we do that type of pattern a couple times a week and on Fridays we imagine a world 10 years from now where our theme of the week has manifested in some way. We do this by making Worldboards together. Worldboards are a collection of images, ideas and imagined ‘headlines from the future’ that give texture to speculative futures.

The unconference toolbox | devonzuegel.com

This blog post will be a quick primer on what an unconference is, and then we’ll share some tips on how to make a session excellent, both as the host and as a participant.

MrBeast Attacks the Chocolate Monopoly

Last week, a fierce new competitor to Mars and Hershey, James Stephen Donaldson, went on a popular YouTube channel and attacked the chocolate duopoly for bullying rivals and buying up shelf space.

The internet is for 12-year-olds – by Max Read – Read Max

One thesis of the Read Max newsletter is that a huge portion– much more than you might imagine–of content produced on the internet’s big social platforms is consumed by 12-year-olds.

Why haven’t internet creators become superstars?

But the striver aspect of internet stardom also means that we assume they are self-made “nobodies” rather than “chosen ones” who won over gatekeepers.

Reading

I finished Kasrkin by Edoardo Albert. It passed the time. Fodder really in terms of the wider publishing line up, it feels like it was written to spec. But a cool set of characters. I really liked the ending.

Moved straight on to another Warhammer book The Martyr’s Tomb by Marc Colins. I *really* enjoyed his crime novel Grim Repast so we’ll see what he does with a full mainline 40k novel.

I’m currently chipping away at Spirit Possession and the Origins of Christianity by Stevan L. Davies. Been reading a few pages before bed. I’m 100% onboard with the thesis.

Sigur Rós – Átta

I listened to the new Sigur Rós album and I can’t belive i’m going to say this but .. I don’t like it. And I know why – It’s their first new album for a decade, and I’m a decade older.

I listened to the whole album on a walk in the sunshine along the Thames this week. The album is beautiful. Epic. Wonderful even. But to me, now in 2023 in my late 30’s Sigur Ros’ music has a certain kind of self indulgent, main character, energy – which I just don’t vibe with any more.

Shame.

I’ll keep listening to my first pressing Ágætis byrjun I guess which I bought because I liked the cover when I was 14 lol.

Remember Kids: