You're still allowed to use computers like it's 2007

Born a blogger, die a blogger

Somewhere behind us, Joan Baez is about to sing “America the Beautiful.” | Photo by Adam “Speedy” Ayres

Over here, I’m getting ready for Avrom Farm Party and blogging.

Avrom Farm Party is the small music and food festival that my friends and I have run in Green Lake, Wisconsin, since 2018. This year’s fest is headlined by Indigo De Souza, Frankie Cosmos, and NNAMDÏ. And by the delicious food we cook. There are less than 100 tickets left. More info here!

I’ve never really stopped writing on my own website (whether it was Observations, or O.G. WordPress before that), but I’ve escalated lately, because I’m also reading more blogs. Via RSS. 🤓

When Google killed their RSS reader in 2013, I think it made the world think that RSS was over.¹ But it never really went away. And it’s still a fun/easy way to keep up with things you want to read. Even better, NetNewsWire is simpler, more reliable, and as free as ever. So I’ve been getting all my prog’rums that way, and writing more as a result.

I like being part of a worldwide ungoverned network of absolute fuckin nerds sounding off on things they think about. With no one between you and another heart out there who wants to check up on you every day. That’s still as cool to me today as it was in 2007. (Here’s a simple way to start your own.²)

I read Ftrain, Aquarium Drunkard, Daring Fireball, Stereogum, Unsung, kottke.org, Simon Willison, and many more.

(My favorite writers on Substack, by the way, are Cecilia O’Mara, Meaghan Garvey, Zoe Keziah Mendelson, and Anne Kadet. And of course Casey, my uncle Danny, pseudo-cousin Kerry, and my dad.)

I’m here: web / RSS. You might find solace in an old technology that won’t subtly poison your brain with things you never asked to see in the first place, or sell you wiener pills in the margins.

🎶 Basil in a bag, Basil in a bag 🎶 | Photo by Casey Ryan Vock

Denis Johnson

Offline, I’ve been reading Denis Johnson all year. I’m in love with his writing. I went Tree of Smoke, Train Dreams, Seek. (In high school, Jesus’ Son and The Largesse of the Sea Maiden.) I’d describe his books as sturdy, sensitive, and gripping. A hard-ass who’s not afraid to cry. (And boy, in Liberia, does he cry.) I love that he was an acid-burned reformed ex-hippie skeptic, but not an egoistic raconteur dickhead. He was dark and self-effacing, and honest about his flaws and selfishness, but didn’t elevate his flaws to the point where he thought he was a more interesting subject than the world around him. I think he uses pain maturely, not cheaply. The grieving of the protagonist in Train Dreams, for example, feels very realistic.

Tree of Smoke takes a long time to get chugging but it clicked for me. Then there’s a lot to chew on. It’s horrifying and tragic but I still finished it with warm feelings because you can’t help but love Colonel Sands and Skip Sands—even the young James Houston, turned into a tunnel-hunting monster, Kathy, Bill, Hao—all of them, real people, going up in flames in one of the most incomprehensible periods of human history (the Vietnam War).

I had read Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon earlier in the year—which isn’t a brag, it’s not an inaccessible tome like Gravity’s Rainbow, which I’ve never read; and I still only understood about half of Shadow Ticket; I mostly let the 1930s-speak wash over me, without paying attention to who was speaking, appreciating the lyricism—and I like Johnson’s straightforwardness more, sorry. Pynchon throws so much color and bizarre syntax at the wall that you can’t help but laugh sometimes. I never get tired of it, because it’s fun to see how he manages to make something simple, like a character walking across the room, into a cosmic event. But I appreciate Johnson’s ability to make an impact without dazzling fireworks. I wish I had examples of Pynchon’s abilities on hand. You gotta read it for yourself.

But all of Johnson’s prose is poetry, in regular words. If Pynchon is like a googly-eyed sailor manning a photoplayer, Johnson is like Richard Thompson playing a Strat.

Before you go admiring me for reading a book, know I’ve also spent 1 million hours on Instagram, sludging my brain, and have shamefully procrastinated on some of my biggest responsibilities, a bed I’m now just about to have to sleep in.

I hope you’re as well as can be. See you in the RSS-verse or at Avrom Farm Party.

Spencer

Poster by Clare Byrne.

1. If you don’t know, “Really Simple Syndication” is the web technology that lets you pull posts from many websites into one reader app—of which there are a million, and you can choose your favorite—without extra ads, algorithms, etc.

2. I use Jekyll, and my source code is public. IndieWeb has more resources.