In my opinion, this shot and this one from The Godfather focused on Michael’s eyes are two of the best shots ever committed to film.

They just so happen to be in my two favorite movies of all time.

Seth Godin –

It’s a way to offer connection or acknowledgment.

It’s a recognition of feedback and the time it took someone to consider us.

We can use it after we share something important, or someone shares with us.

More than the end of an exchange, it can be the beginning of a relationship.

“Thank you” helps someone feel seen and understood.

It reminds us that we’re not alone.

Most of all, it’s a chance to be kind.

Seth Werkheiser –

Instead of posting something on social media tonight, email an old acquaintance. Text someone a photo or link. Tell them about a book you’re reading. Send an email to someone you admire. Ask someone how they’re doing. Write a letter. Call your bestie.

In getting away from the algorithms and the walled garden of social media DMs, we return to a wide open world of possibilities.

Dave Winer –

Analogously, Trump is Kennedy and Biden/Harris is Nixon.

And the social web is, in 2024, what TV was in 1960.

Trump has mastered the new medium. To a large extent, he created the new medium, and the resulting network formed around him.

So when Carville says he wants to figure out how to communicate the way Trump did, he can’t because our way doesn’t work in his universe. We have to create our own.

Analogously Nixon might have said about TV in 1959 – how can we get into that? If you have to ask you can’t get there. You have to fit like a hand in a glove, like Kennedy or Trump.

The next Democratic candidate to win the presidency will have to be a media creator. They must create a medium that’s perfectly adapted to the communication interests of the 50 percent of the electorate that voted for Harris and the other 20 percent who would if they just knew who she was.

Look at the picture of Kennedy and Nixon. Did we elect Kennedy over Nixon because he had better policy? No. We elected him because he has better hair. Because on TV what counts is your hair. A friend who was a TV news person told me that.

So if you want to win, create an internet farm system. A network with everyone who wants to run for office nationwide on the Democratic ticket. And let’s see how they work in the new medium. We get to know them like we knew Archie Bunker. And let’s get some people we get to know who also tend to tell the truth (though they can screw up and we’ll forgive them, remember the gotchas are over).

Jim Abrahams, a film director and writer behind hit slapstick comedies like Airplane!, Hot Shots!, the Naked Gun series, and more, died Tuesday, his son Joseph confirmed to Variety. He was 80.

Niklas Göke –

There is no magic thought that’ll solve your life forever, but there is always the right word at the right time.

“Calm.”

“Go.”

“Stop.”

“Breathe.”

“Think.”

“Speak.”

“Accept.”

“Sleep.”

Usually, the right word is a simple one. Perhaps one of the first 100 you’ve ever learned. We panic about complex issues, but panic itself is also straightforward. When in doubt, fear, or anxiety, go back to your first-grade vocab book. Chances are, you’ve known the answer all along—you just have to spell it out.

imagine being such a huge dork that an entire thriving web site and community exists simply because you suck

— Ygrene ([@ygrene.bsky.social](http://ygrene.bsky.social)) November 26, 2024 at 12:39 PM

Seth Werkheiser –

A client who has worked with some big names wanted to build their email list, and I gave them this idea:

Think of the amazing people you worked with throughout the years, and think of all those stories you shared, and the memories you’ve made. They’ve got to have dozens of those stories to write, right?

So write that post, with that one person in mind. Then email that person a link to the piece.

This gets you around sending a boring email to “all your contacts” saying, “hey, I have a newsletter now, you should subscribe.”

Write a post that will resonate with the person you’re emailing. Yes, even if it’s just that one person. Email the person the link. Maybe they subscribe, or at least reply and you two catch up, and who knows where that leads?

It’s not always about striking it rich and getting 100 new sign ups. Sometimes the right message to the right person at the right time is all you need.

[handing mixtape to doctor] please, my beats, they're very sick

— Ygrene ([@ygrene.bsky.social](http://ygrene.bsky.social)) November 24, 2024 at 10:24 AM

Dave Pell –

The notion that you need to know about world events right when they happen is a marketing creation of media brands. And yet, those news stories mingle in the same lock screen with the personal reminders and calls from your mom. The stuff that has something to do with you is now almost impossible to distinguish from the stuff that doesn’t. Trust me, that news alert can wait until later. Like most things on the internet, it can wait until never. You’re not Batman. You’re not going to do anything about the news alerts, so they can wait. As a general rule, you don’t need to be immediately notified of any breaking news that’s happening more than about eighteen feet from where you are right now. At most, your alerts should only cover your locality. Even Bruce Wayne only covers Gotham.

Kelsey McKinney, writing at Defector, provides an insightful breakdown of our current political landscape.

The second Trump Administration will surely be just as annoying and slapdash and dangerous as the first, and I cannot sit here with my LED light mask on and make fun of cabinet appointments again. I cannot watch 18 effectively identical ghouls shuffle through the press secretary job again. I cannot read the same articles about Ivanka’s involvement, and who is attending the White House Correspondents Dinner, and critique bad newspaper headlines. I cannot do this shit the same way again. And I will not do it while the same Democrats hold the same positions of power they did the last time this happened and refuse to do anything different.

I am tired of hearing that the other side is worse. They are; I already know this; that is not enough. I am tired of watching the people who are supposed to represent us roll over in front of Republicans every time they have the majority and then hesitate or capitulate when the Republicans refuse to do the same. I want the fucking moon to fall. I want something to change. I want the future to be different than the past, and I want that to start now.

Instead of licking our wounds, I want an outcry. I want us to believe not only that a better future exists, but that we deserve it and should fight for it, and then I want to do that. I want us to take this massive heaping misery of a country and transform it into something better for everyone.

It is important to remember that the Republicans in power do not hate the Democrats in power. They hate us—the electorate, the people. The policies they are passing are made to hurt us. And if the Democrats we have elected to fight on our behalf won’t do it, they should be relentlessly reminded of what it means to be an elected official, of who exactly they work for and what their job is. And if that means that their positions of power are less enjoyable and more difficult to do, good. They failed to win what they billed as the election that would determine democracy’s fate; they failed, very obviously, to take it nearly as seriously as they encouraged us to do. Every day that they continue to do that, they continue to fail us. It is our job to remind them of that.

Volvo posted a 3 min and 46 second ad on Instagram, shot by Hoyte Van Hoytema, the cinematographer of Interstellar and Oppenheimer. It goes against every single rule you can think about as a social media spot. Length. Format. Over-produced.

It is one of the best advertisements I have ever seen.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Volvo Cars (@volvocars)

Nicholas Bate –

1. Stories will transform your presentation from a list of bullets to something which engages heart and soul.
2. Stories embed values and principles deep in a child’s brain. There is far more to Goldilocks and those Three Bears than porridge.
3. Stories help your customers understand what life will be like once they commit to you.
4. Stories of the right kind (empowering, resourceful and pragmatic) motivate us to do our very best. Homer knew exactly what he was doing.
5. Stories use language not just words;** it requires an engaged brain to use a story**. And the latter is an increasingly rare commodity on a conference call.
6. To write a story, be it a scenario for a product or one for your children requires you to give 100% attention to the task in hand.
7. Stories require beginnings and middles and ends. Sometimes we realise we are having problems as one or more is missing.
8. A great story is never forgotten.
9. Stories need sensory rich descriptions. That requires us to look up and notice life.
10. One well-written story is worth a 1000 e-mails.
11. To be a great story-teller is to be a magician.

Will Leitch, writing for Intelligencer, thinks all this noise about athletes doing the “Trump dance” after touchdowns or goals is much ado about nothing.

But in the same way that I do not believe that every person who voted for Trump explicitly wants the return of fascism and chickenpox, I’m pretty sure doing the Trump Dance isn’t the same thing as donning a MAGA hat or screaming for mass deportations. Pulisic — who, it should be said, has shown Trump-friendly tendencies before — said he decided to do the dance because, “I saw everyone doing it yesterday in the NFL, I saw Jon Jones do it. We’re just having a bit of fun, so I thought it was a pretty fun dance.” This is how information spreads among young people (which athletes are, remember), and particularly the so-called “low-information” voters who delivered Trump back into office. They saw a dance, they thought it was funny, they repeated the dance. When you strip the context away — which you shouldn’t do, but is exactly what they’ve done — it is a funny dance. That’s why we all made fun of it in the first place.

I sincerely don’t care. I’m not a fan of athletes or coaches wearing political paraphernalia during a professional sports match, but otherwise do what you want.

Last week, bible scholar, author, vlogger (and owner of one of the finest t-shirt collections in town) Dan McClellan posted a video asking the question Did God choose an adulterous man to rule his nation? Apparently some viewers took issue with Dan’s message, so he immediately posted a followup video, On the intersection of some of my research & politics making abundantly clear what he meant.

I find Dan to be intelligent, calm, and reasonable. His videos are always interesting.

HT: Metafilter