More distraction aggregation

More distraction aggregation - Feb 2025

It's been a while and I need to refresh some things starting with some more regular posts on here to replace some of the doomscrolling from elsewhere.

Audiobooks

I listen to a fair few audiobooks but often it's the same ones again and again to try and get me to sleep when I have about of insomnia. However I take on new ones which I listen to whilst doing chores and gardening so that I've heard them properly. There have been some new accessions into the collection which I can recommend. Both are noir detective type genre fiction but take a very different approach.

Nick Harkaway's work is something I almost always enjoy and he has some real strength in depth (ake on Gnomon if you want a real challenge). His book Titanium Noir is a lot of fun with some really great ideas in it. It's more sci-fi than straight detective fiction.

I've also been enjoying the Fetch Phillips stories by Aussie actor and author Luke Arnold (you might have seen him as Long John SIlver in Black Sails).

These take a look at fantasy when the magic runs out using the tropes of both genres to have fun with but also build out 3 really entertaining and, once you get attached to the characters (which doesn't take long), quite heartfelt and surprising stories.

Other media

Douglas Rushkoff and Grant Morrison talk to Gabriel Kennedy about his biography of Robert Anton Wilson.

This triggered so many thoughts I had to keep pausing to take notes.

This all seems a little too male then try this episode of Realms Unknown from comedian and writer Alice Fraser looking at sci-fi and fantasy fiction.

Comments

Time on my own

Time on my own makes me cook things, things I wouldn't normally cook with 3 vegetarians living in the same house. Slow barbequed brisket being one... ...and roast belly pork on tabouleh with improvised master stock being another. Other things time on my own seems to make me do is binge-watch old TV series and fall asleep on the sofa. Also, I make beer, as much beer as I have the capacity for in my system. Unfortunately what it hasn't done is provoke me to write any more or amend my habits around meditation or alcohol consumption. Clearly some form of cognitive intervention is going to have to take place for these. Bugger.

Not all Propaganda is Art

Don't ignore the spies' role in the creation of the media landscape of the late twentieth century. They used it to contain radical voices and maintain a dominant narrative that suited their strategic agenda. That's the chief lesson in this series, but it takes a while to really arrive and it takes many a digression through the lives of its three main protagonists on the way to it. A worthwhile listen if you have an interest in this era of history and culture. “ Not All Propaganda is Art ” tells the story of three writers who got caught up in the Cultural Cold War between the years of 1956 and 1960: New Yorker writer and “little magazine” champion Dwight Macdonald, British theater critic and “Angry Young Man” Kenneth Tynan, and legendary Native Son novelist Richard Wright, who at this time was living in exile in France in protest of American racism. All three collaborated with and were targeted by American, British, and French security agencies in Cold War propaganda battle...

Recent distraction aggregation

Thinking about Notebooks in B6 size. Hmmm, B6, you say? I don't have many of them, and there are lots of accessories I can obsess over? Perfect. This is all you need. Do not obsess over....oh. Don't do this... ...it will shit on you. Music A German Electro Pop Metal band? It seems unlikely, and yet... Stuck in my head The Prodigy make themselves sound like Daleks intent on destroying Middlesex General The Chemical Brothers and Beck, it was obviously going to be an earworm.

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