Plant your garden 🌱 pic.twitter.com/88COH2VbFk

— Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) January 20, 2025

Chuck Wendig, writing at his site, on how to handle today and the future.

It’s just the first of the weird bad days.

And if we’re being honest, it’s not even the first of them, it’s just another in a long line of weird bad days where the weird part and the bad part are spiking simultaneously, like an outbreak of a particular kind of illness. It’s not just turbulence on a flight, it’s a turbulent flight, from start to finish, snout to tail.

But we can get through it, we can land the plane.

This country is a mess, it’s always been a mess, always will be a mess, but it’s our mess. We’re with it, in it, and have often helped to make it, and that’s not defeatist, that’s not apathetic, it’s just realist to see that we’re a fucking goofy nation that has stumbled and staggered up and down some big hills and into some mucky fucking ditches. Just try to remember we need to climb the hills to see the beautiful views, you know? And first we gotta get up and out of the damn ditch. Beyond that? I think at the end of the day the people we’re with, that we surround ourselves with — that matters. It’s the people we love and care about and who care about us in return. I think it helps me to remember that it’s not like we’re some shining castle in the clouds. We’re a messy place full of messy people and I think it’s good to recognize that, and to see that we can still make motions to make it better than it is, even when it fights us like a bucking, sweat-foamed horse.

Then again, I don’t know shit about shit and might feel different tomorrow. Don’t let anyone chastise you for feeling sad or upset. Toxic optimism isn’t going get us through shit. We feel how we feel and those worries, those concerns, they’re valid. It’s okay to see that shit’s gonna be hard.

Take care of yourselves. Take care of others. Be taken care of when needed.

CJ Moore, writing for The Athletic, did not like the officiating during the Illinois-Michigan State game.

I was disappointed when Jakucionis fouled out in only nine minutes of action against the Spartans. Illini coach Brad Underwood was in the same boat. “The best player in the game played eight minutes,” Underwood said at his postgame press conference. “You saw just a little bit of what he can do when he’s in. Just controlled the whole game with pick-and-rolls and passes. Unfortunately today, he didn’t get to play. … There hasn’t been one team in the country that has guarded him with any success. He’s a maestro. He is completely different than anybody else. You saw the little three-minute stretch he went on that he did play; every bucket was easy. He got a layup. He is that dude now. Don’t make any mistake. If he’s not the best point guard in the country, he’s very close and he’s 18 years old.”

As for the fouls: “I don’t know. I’ve got to look at the film.”

I did. And I don’t love commenting on the officials, but every single one was on the questionable side. (I have much more to say on the interpretation of the fifth foul, when Frankie Fidler jumped into Jakucionis to draw a whistle, but I’ll save that for a column down the road.) It’s a lot easier to slow down the film and critique, but it was frustrating officiating for anyone who just wanted to see the best players play in a great matchup. Luckily we get to see a rematch on Feb. 15. Fingers crossed no one fouls out.

I got in trouble in my house because I was yelling at the TV a bit too much. The Big Ten and maybe all of Division 1 basketball has got to be more consistent across the board.

Plenty of pundits, who had no skin in the game, commented on how obvious it was that Illinois had been hosed. It looked so bad that I actively wondered if the fix was in.

That’s got to change.

I could not care less about TikTok and would consider it an upgrade to the Internet if it were removed from the US and, frankly, everywhere else. Of course, I watch plenty of Reels, so my opinion is eye-roll-inducing.

Anyway, John Gruber has all the details about TikTok and the roller coaster of the last few hours if you need a deep dive.

Between 1996 and 2002, VH1 had a show called Pop Up Video which paired music videos with trivia and jokes that “popped up” on screen, mostly without controversy. Most of it is unavailable today, but the Internet Archive has a number of episodes taped off televion. Here is a list:

Episodes 1, 2 & 3, featuring these videos: Tina Turner, “Missing You”; Sheryl Crow, “Leaving Las Vegas”; Los Del Rio, “Macarena”; George Michael, “Freedom”; Olivia Newton-John, “Physical”; Tom Petty, “Walls”; TLC, “Waterfalls”; Counting Crows, “Round Here”; John Mellencamp, “Pink Houses”; David Lee Roth, “California Girls”; Celine Dion, “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”; Alanis Morissette, “You Learn”; Rolling Stones, “Love is Strong”; R.E.M., “Losing My Religion”; Culture Club, “Karma Chameleon”. Episode 4, featuring: Toni Braxton, “You’re Makin' Me High”; Blues Traveler, “The Mountains Win Again”; Janet Jackson, “Runaway”; Pat Benatar - “Love is a Battlefield”; Madonna, “Express Yourself”. Episode 5, featuring: Jewel, “Who Will Save Your Soul”; Mariah Carey, “Fantasy”; Meat Loaf, “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)"; Bruce Springsteen, “Glory Days”. Episode 9, featuring: Sting, “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying”; Hootie and the Blowfish, “Let Her Cry”; Joan Osbourne, “One of Us”; The B-52’s, “Love Shack”; Lionel Ritchie, “Hello”. Episode 10, featuring: Melissa Etheridge, “Nowhere To Go”; U2, “One”; Sting, “If I Ever Lose My Faith”; Blind Melon, “No Rain”; Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. Episode 17, featuring: Babyface, “Everytime I Close My Eyes”; Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car”; INXS, “Never Tear Us Apart”; George Michael, “I Want Your Sex”; The Bangles, “Walk Like an Egyptian”. Episode 37, featuring: Jamiroquai, “Virtual Insanity”; Hootie & The Blowfish, “Only Wanna Be with You”; Miami Sound Machine, “Bad Boy”; Van Halen, “Hot for Teacher”; Cyndi Lauper, “Time After Time”. Episode 40, featuring: Bon Jovi, “Midnight in Chelsea”; Mariah Carey, “Always Be My Baby”; Aerosmith, “Cryin'"; Devo, “Whip It”; ZZ Top, “Gimme All Your Lovin'”. Episode 42, featuring: Lisa Stansfield, “Never Never Gonna Give You Up”; The Proclaimers, “(I’m Gonna Be) 500 Miles”; Natalie Cole, “Unforgettable”; Dire Straits, “Money For Nothing”; Men at Work, “Down Under”. Episode 47, featuring: Meredith Brooks, “Bitch”; Gin Blossoms, “Allison Road”; Madonna, “Take A Bow”; Milli Vanilli, “Girl You Know It"s True”; Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. Episode 48, featuring: Michael Jackson, “Stranger in Moscow; The Rembrandts, “I"ll Be There For You”; Robert Palmer, “Addicted to Love”; The Clash, “Rock the Casbah”; Blondie, “Rapture”. Episode 55, featuring: Texas, “Say What You Want”; Spin Doctors, “Two Princes”; Michael Penn, “No Myth”; Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight”; Billy Joel, “Uptown Girl”. Episode 63, featuring: Janet Jackson, “Together Again”; 10,000 Maniacs, “These Are the Days”; Tom Jones, “If I Only Knew”; John Fogerty, “The Old Man Down The Road”; Dexy’s Midnight Runners, “Come On Eileen”. Episode 97, featuring: Sugar Ray, “Fly”; 4 Non Blondes, “What’s Up”; Elvis Costello, “Veronica”; AC/DC, “You Shook Me”; Pat Benatar, “Shadows of Night”. Episode 136, featuring: R.E.M., “Shiny Happy People”; Sheryl Crow, “A Change Would Do You Good”; Madonna, “Nothing Really Matters”; INXS, “I Need You Tonight”; Kylie Minogue, “The Loco-motion”. Elton John special episode, featuring the songs: “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”, “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues”, “Nikita”, “Candle in the Wind”, “I’m Still Standing”. Songs from movie soundtrack, featuring: Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You”; Los Lobos, “La Bamba”; Bryan Adams, “(Everything I Do) I Do For You”; Tina Turner, “We Don’t Need Another Hero”; John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John, “Grease Megamix”. Songs from 80s movie soundtracks, featuring: Ray Parker Jr., “Ghostbusters”; Kenny Loggins, “Danger Zone”; Madonna, “Into the Groove”; Psychedelic Furs, “Pretty in Pink”; Michael Sembello, “Maniac”. 80s songs about dancing, featuring: Men Without Hats - “The Safety Dance”; The Hooters, “And We Danced”; Herbie Hancock, “Rockit”; Wang Chung, “Dance Hall Days”; David Bowie & Mick Jagger, “Dancin' in the Street”. 80s songs about the Cold War, featuring: Frankie Goes To Hollywood, “Two Tribes”; Culture Club, “The War Song”; Sting, “Russians”; After The Fire, “Der Kommissar”; Genesis, “Land of Confusion”. One hit wonders, featuring: The Outfield, “Your Love”; Tom Cochrane, “Life is a Highway”; Martika, “Toy Soldiers”; EMF, “Unbelievable”; Neneh Cherry, “Buffalo Stance”. Rock n' roll hall of fame part 2, featuring: Fleetwood Mac, “Hold Me”; Santana, “Black Magic Woman”; Eagles, “Hotel California”; David Bowie, “China Girl”; John Lennon, “Nobody Told Me”. Metal Mania part 3, featuring: Judas Priest, “Breaking The Law”; Metallica, “The Memory Remains”; Ratt, “Round and Round”; Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again”. Rock n' Roll Heaven, featuring: The Doors, “Break on Through”; Bob Marley, “Could You Be Loved”; Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Crossfire”; Roy Orbison, “You Got It”. Rolling Stone special episode, featuring the songs: “Start Me Up”, “Going to a Go-Go”, “Undercover of the Night”, “Has Anybody Seen My Baby?” Songs about social issues, featuring: Ben Folds Five, “Brick”; Stevie Wonder & Babyface, “How Come, How Long?"; Aerosmith, “Janie’s Got a Gun”; Rod Stewart, “Young Turks”. Greatest Artists of Rock n' Roll, featuring: Rolling Stones - “Start Me Up”; Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got To Do With It”; U2, “One”; Prince and the New Power Generation - “7”; Paul Simon, “You Can Call Me Al”. Greatest Dance Songs, featuring: Cher, “Believe”; Dead or Alive, “You Spin Me Round”; Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive”; Paula Abdul, “Straight Up”; Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean”. Big 80s part 1, featuring: Duran Duran, “Rio”; Culture Club, “Karma Chameleon”; Billy Idol, “White Wedding”; Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”; Olivia Newton-John, “Physical”. Big 80s part 2, featuring: A-ha, “Take on Me”; Pat Benatar, “Love is a Battlefield”; John Cougar, “Jack & Diane”; Lionel Richie, “Hello”; Van Halen, “Hot For Teacher”. Big 80s part 4, featuring: Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car”; Thomas Dolby, “She Blinded Me with Science”; Billy Joel, “Keeping the Faith”; The Jacksons, “Torture”; J. Geils Band, “Centerfold”. There are no more whole episodes on the Internet Archive, but here are 332 individual songs in a big Pop Up Video playlist. Finally, here’s an interview with show creators Tad Low and Woody Thompson.

HT: Metafilter

I recently read about a couple of would-be Instagram competitors out. Flashes (based on BlueSky’s protocols) and PixelFed seem to have been created at least in part as a response to Facebook’s decision to stop most content moderation.

Personally, more power to them. I won’t be joining either of them.

Ray Ratto, writing for Defector, gets it right. Bob Uecker was just the best:

He was the face and voice of baseball cinema, the man whose line-reading made “Ju-u-u-u-st a bit outside” so good that “iconic” doesn’t remotely cover its impact. Even if you’re not a seamhead, you likely came across Bob Uecker and smiled.

So Thursday’s announcement that Uecker has died at age 90, due to small cell lung cancer, came as a blow. Nine decades is a good long run, but there was never a sense that he was running out of material; Uecker was still a joy to hear on Brewers broadcasts even in Year 54 of being the voice of Wisconsin baseball for two-and-a-half generations. The reaction to his passing was unanimous in the same ways and for the same reasons that the response to Vin Scully’s death was unanimous — it was an outpouring of both sadness at the loss and gratitude for all the time we got to spend with him. In an epochally angry time in America, at a moment when it isn’t hard to find even anti-puppy polemics with a keystroke, Uecker gets a pass from most everyone. Yes he defined baseball, but he also managed to become more than merely Mister Baseball. From the moment of his first appearance on Johnny Carson’s definitive version of the Tonight Show, which Uecker earned merely by mastering the tripartite arts of comedy writing, unabashed self-deprecation, and martini-dry humor, he was recognizable as that rarest of Americans, the guy you’d sit back down to listen to even if you were already halfway out the door. Put another way, Norm Macdonald thought he was one of the funniest men he ever met. Beat that with a stick.

MLB.com has a fine obituary that includes a slew of links and videos. Uecker, 90 years old, was on the call for the Brewers right up until the bitter end of last season, when they fell to the Mets in the 9th inning. His final words as a broadcaster: “I’m telling you. That one — had some string on it.” So does this one.

The nickname “Mr. Baseball” was coined by Johnny Carson during one of his appearances on the Tonight Show. If you want lose a few hours in laughter, head down the rabbit hole of Uecker’s 100-some appearances on Carson. Here’s the first one that just came up for me now, a 1976 appearance where Uecker, utterly deadpan as ever, makes Mel Brooks spit out his coffee.

He appeared in many Miller Lite commercials. “I must be in the front row” He starred in the movie, Major League. He was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. He was also known for his comedy. His classic line about catching the knuckleball, “I let it roll until it stops and then I go pick it up.” One of my favorite clips is Norm McDonald on David Letterman telling stories about Bob.

I am quite sure that when he gets to the Pearly Gates he will be placed in the front row.

Charlie Warzel, writing in The Atlantic, has some good advice for those still clinging to the chaos that is modern social media.

To watch the destruction in Los Angeles through the prism of our fractured social-media ecosystem is to feel acutely disoriented. The country is burning; your friends are going on vacation; next week Donald Trump will be president; the government is setting the fires to stage a “land grab”; a new cannabis-infused drink will help you “crush” Dry January. Mutual-aid posts stand alongside those from climate denialists and doomers. Stay online long enough and it’s easy to get a sense that the world is simultaneously ending and somehow indifferent to that fact. It all feels ridiculous. A viral post suggests that “climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you’re the one filming it.” You scroll some more and learn that the author of that post wrote the line while on the toilet (though the author has since deleted the confession).

Call it doomscrolling, gawking, bearing witness, or whatever you want, but there is an irresistible pull in moments of disaster to consume information. This is coupled with the bone-deep realization that the experience of staring at our devices while others suffer rarely provides the solidarity one might hope. Amanda Hess captured this distinctly modern feeling in a 2023 article about watching footage of dead Gazan children on Instagram: “I am not a survivor or a responder. I’m a witness, or a voyeur. The distress I am feeling is shame.”

When Twitter was still good, it told the stories of disasters or near disasters. It was information immediately. The news right now. Not always accurate, but without it there was a feeling of “Fear of Missing Out.” What do you mean you don’t know about this thing that’s happening right this very second!

I decided, in the last couple of years, that learning about someone who I haven’t seen in person in over a decade just got a new dog is a waste of my time. So, I consciously don’t go on Facebook much anymore. It’s the same feeling with Instagram. I don’t need to do that much anymore, but I have become slightly addicted to Reels. I recognize the addition, so the next step is to do something about it… probably deleting it from my phone.

Then there’s Twitter. I had it perfectly curated into lists. I used Tweetdeck and other apps. I never saw the For You tab. Now, it is intolerable to use. I migrated to Threads and Bluesky, tried to build that same curated digital garden, but now it seems like so much work and I’m not getting much out of it personally.

I’m finding I don’t need social media. I’ll keep my accounts, but I simply don’t go there anymore.

Today, I’ve moved all in with RSS and Inoreader for the kind of news, articles, and similar types of content I might have found or been directed to through social media. Curating my RSS feeds is far better than trying to curate the social media platforms. The sites and writers I want to read have been added to Inoreader through RSS feeds either included in their design or created by me.

I follow like The Atlantic and New York Magazine via RSS, but mostly I follow individual writers. It allows me to curate who I read or at least who I see to read. Inoreader has a place for to follow specific Bluesky accounts, so that’s a plus too.

Every day I go through my RSS feeds and newsletters. I use the Read later feature a lot as I go through new additions. I also use the Tags feature if there’s something interesting I want to add to the blog or save for other nefarious reasons. That’s it.

I’ve curated my digital garden to be exactly what I want. It might work for you too. In any case, it’s far more healthy than doomscrolling through a half a dozen social media feeds.

Pulling back from the social media pull is difficult, but not impossible. I’ve replaced it with something better. Maybe you can as well.

Joey Einerhand, writing at his blog, has an interesting post about social media and RSS.

I waste too much time scrolling through social media. It’s bad for my health, so why do I keep doing it?

Because once in a while, I’ll find a post so good that it teaches me something I never knew before, and all the scrolling feels worth it. But I’ve stumbled upon an old piece of free and open source tech, relatively unknown today, which is THE solution of solving the problems with modern media without sacrificing accessible, good content: RSS.

Reddit, Facebook, Twitter — platforms built for engagement, not efficiency. Instead of showing you high-quality posts upfront, they pad your feed with memes, spam, and astroturfing. There is only so much ‘good’ content created in a day. By padding your feed with trash, they make the limited amount of good posts “last longer”. These sites want you to spend more time scrolling on their website, so they feed you scraps which makes the occasional great post feels like a jackpot.

That’s a good bit of insight. For a long time, I did both. Today, I’m using social media less and less and upping my RSS feeds from less than 100 to more than 200. Much easier to curate and go through. I’m in control not the other way around.

Until 2020 Diamond Comic Distributors had a decades-long near-monopoly as supplier of comics & merchandise to the North American direct market. This changed following the arrival of COVID-19 when many of the biggest publishers signed deals with new distributors. Yesterday Diamond announced that it had filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.

Over the years Diamond has been criticised by creators, retailers, consumers, and publishers for the power it wielded over the market. However, the exodus of major publishers, led by DC, also sparked concerns from retailers, including San Francisco’s Brian Hibbs, about the affect weakened Diamond would have on North America’s approximately 2000+ comic retailers.

Supplemental Links
How Do I Comic Shop? Everything anyone would need to know about buying comics by Matt Brady, 2022
ICv2’s Comics Direct Market 50th Anniversary, a stonking collection of articles and interviews, 2023
Comic Stores and Diamond Distributors Clash as Industry Reopens, https://bsky.app/profile/graemem.bsky.social">Graeme McMillan, 2020
Should Comics Keep It Direct? by Brigid Alverson, 2024
3-hour Comic Industry Insiders interview with Brian Hibbs, YouTube/Podbean, recorded just before Diamond’s announcement

Supplemental FPPs
The Rise and Fall of the Comic Industry’s Direct Market and Other Stories
15-year-old FPP by some handsome guy presenting a history of the direct market by The Comics Journal. Most if not all of the links are dead, but the comments are great. Archive.org scrapes of the primary links:
Part 1 Fine Young Cannibals:How Phil Seuling and a Generation of Teenage Entrepreneurs Created the Direct Market and Changed the Face of Comics
Part 2 Black and White and Dead All Over
Part 3 Suicide Club: How greed and stupidity disemboweled the American comic-book industry in the 1990s

[Before Carol] People Were Making Change Out of Tackle Boxes Remembrances of Carol Kalish, whose 1980s tenure as Marvel Comics' Direct Sales Manager made an indelible impact on the industry

H/T: Metafilter

I haven’t seen any of the previous series. I really need to catch up.

Patrick Rhone –

The problem of learning the turn of your favorite authors personal lives is that it becomes impossible to read their work without reading into their work.

Might as well take the ones I have yet to get to and throw them in the bin knowing I likely wont be able to read them now.

Sad.

Will Leitch, writing for the Washington Post, has an in-depth story on how R.E.M. quietly quit.

At the height of its popularity, R.E.M. regularly played before more than 100,000 fans. It was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. But because the band is so self-effacing and because it has resisted nearly every temptation to do the sort of nostalgia maneuvers that keep retired rock acts in the public mind, if you weren’t around to listen to R.E.M. during its prime, it’s quite possible you’ve never heard of it. The band has, essentially, disappeared from American culture.

I’m glad I grew up when R.E.M. was an active band. They never were my favorite, but they are inexorably linked to my teenage years.

David Brooks, in his opinion column for The New York Times, outlines what has happened to expertise, intelligence, and why this new administration wants figureheads and not qualified people in important jobs.

We live in a soap opera country. We live in a social media/cable TV country. In our culture you don’t want to focus on boring policy questions; you want to engage in the kind of endless culture war that gets voters riled up. You don’t want to focus on topics that would require study; you focus on images and easy-to-understand issues that generate instant visceral reactions. You don’t win this game by engaging in serious thought; you win by mere attitudinizing — by striking a pose. Your job is not to advance an argument that might help the country; your job is to go viral.

Pete Hegseth is of course the living, breathing embodiment of this culture. The world is on fire and what’s his obsession? Wokeness in the military. I went through high school trying to bluff my way through class after doing none of the reading, and in Hegseth, I recognize a master of the craft. During the hearings Hegseth repeatedly said he was going to defend the meritocracy. In what kind of meritocracy is being a Fox TV host preparation for being secretary of defense?

He goes on later to write about how things should be.

We don’t want to live in a populist paradise in which expertise is suspect and ignorance a sign of virtue. Nor do we want to live in an elitist world in which technocrats try to rule the world…

We need to settle upon a place where experts are respected and inform decision-making, but civilians make the ultimate calls. In a healthy democracy people revere great learning on substantive issues; they understand the world is too complex to be captured in bite-size slogans; but they also appreciate the wisdom that comes from concrete experience and know that most hard calls have to be made in light of the deeply held values that have made America what it is.

All of this has been corrupted by the war for short attention spans.

We do not live in a healthy democracy and that’s heartbreaking.

Indiewire’s chief film critic, David Ehrlich presented his annual, and expertly edited, montage of his 25 Best Films of 2024.

Sundays are for playing on your phone and unquenchable existential dread

— Jonathan Edward Durham (@thisone0verhere.bsky.social) 2025-01-12T20:23:51.581Z

Steve Schmidt, writing in his Substack newsletter The Warning, has some eloquent words regarding the horrifying fires in Los Angeles.

Like the Great Fire of London in 1666, the Great Fire of Los Angeles will be recalled for 500 years.

The scale of the conflagration is biblical. These epochal fires will join Chicago and San Francisco atop an infamous registry of American destruction.

The fires are still spreading, still growing. There is no precedent, and no similar event by scale, cost or damage that has ever occurred in America. None.

The “Big One” came, but it wasn’t an earthquake that triggered the inferno, it was January winds that brought with it a storm surge of fire.

The worst case scenario has arrived, and don’t let anyone tell you that it was unforeseeable.

The conflagration was entirely predictable, and ultimately, inevitable. In fact, it was destiny. I don’t say that lightly.

The winds have brought Armageddon, and a brutal judgement upon the genius and arrogance of mankind’s building on a Garden of Eden, tempting the wrath of creation.

This is why I have written about Titanic so often. The lessons are enduring — even if the learnings have been fleeting.

“The problem with common sense is that it isn’t all that common and many people think they have way more sense than they really do.” – Patrick Rhone