Joseph

I’ve barely touched a book in the last year. And now I’m voraciously reading.

It’s like this for me. Feast or famine. But it wasn’t always like this. I used to read for days, for weeks on end, for years. That has changed, in part, by the press of life. Also, the pandemic collapsed my attention span. I recently purchased a new Kindle, and that certainly inspired me to return to my pile of unheard books.

I’m currently reading Tragic Sense of Life by Miguel de Unamuno.

I was introduced to Tragic Sense of Life while watching an episode of Star Trek: Picard. One of the characters, Captain Cristóbal Rios, was pursuing the book. When asked what the book was about, Rios explained, “The existential pain of living with the consciousness of death and how it defines us as Human beings.” I purchased the book that instant. That was a year ago, and I’m just now reading it.

I’m only 40% of the way through Tragic Sense of Life (I know this because I’m reading the book on a Kindle), and Unamuno has arrived at the thesis of his philosophy, which is nothing short of immortality. Just what that means, I’ll learn in the remaining 60% of the book.

I have done so much writing the last few days.

I’ve written show notes for my ambient/classical/experimental/instrumental podcast. I followed up on several weeks of correspondence. I’ve written scripts for a webcomic. I took meeting notes. I’ve made notes for the webcomic and other projects. Finally, I sent out text messages to friends and family.

My tools have been Drafts and Ulysses.

Drafts is where everything begins. From there, I send the copy to wherever it needs to go. Now that I’ve committed to Ulysses as my writing environment, I send everything there. Once a week, I’ll go through my Inbox in Ulysses and sort what I’ve written into their respective folders.

Since I committed to using Ulysses (previously, I was using Ulysses and iA Writer), I feel I’ve been writing more.

I’m using a modified version of Matt Gemmell’s project structure for Ulysses. It seems to work well for me, and I’ll modify it as I see fit.

I just watched She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. She-Hulk has been part of the Marvel Universe for decades, so I was curious to see which iteration they’d adapt for a television series. To no one’s surprise, they chose John Byrne’s take on the character. No brainer. Byrne pretty much defined She-Hulk, including breaking the fourth wall. I anticipated watching the first episode and had a great time. I want Hulk’s pad. Tatiana Maslany does a great job as Jennifer Walters and She-Hulk. And She-Hulk looks incredible. If your FX team can’t pull off a convincing 6’7”, 650 lb gamma irradiated attorney-at-law, your series is sunk. I’m looking forward to the next episode. More importantly, I’m looking forward to She-Hulk becoming part of mainstream vocabulary.

Those “Weird Sisters,” who mysteriously know everything? They can foretell anything, instantly, like Google? Plus, the witches make it all sound really great—only, in real life, it totally sucks? Well, those “Three Weird Sisters” are the “Internet of Things,” they’re “Ubiquitous Computation,” they’re “Ambient Findability.” —Bruce Sterling, Gothic High-Tech