PicoBlog

Hi there, This is a special entry just for full subscribers — so thank you for being one! I appreciate your interest and support for my work… For the nation and the news, 2022 felt like another big year. Yes, I guess we say that a lot these days… Consider at just some of the major developments in the past, say, five years, and it’s a ton of undeniably important stuff (Trump’s election and presidency; his aides’ crime spree; resurgent hate and political violence; four new Supreme Court Justices; Covid; a Covid vaccine; mass protests; the insurrection; Biden’s election; the fall of Roe; and that leaves out a ton).

“Enthusiasm is contagious. If you act and talk enthusiastically, you’ll project that quality -- and your listeners will react in the same way.” -- Frank Bettger, How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling (1952) I’ve hung around the Ivy/trad internet long enough to know that you can’t win talking about Mad Men. Ivy fans vacillate wildly between hating the show for not putting every character in J.

If you’re a writer and you’re reading this, chances are you’re curious about Substack. If you’re already an experienced Substack writer, you can opt out of this video series in your subscription settings. Today’s video is a quick introduction to what Substack is, what it can do and why it’s useful for writers. Later in this series I’ll be getting into the nuts and bolts of how to use it: posts, threads, chat, Notes, podcasts.

On April 23th 2021 I posted a video deep diving into the accelerating trend cycle and microtrends that changed my life. If you watched it (it’s currently the only video pinned to my Tiktok page) perhaps it changed yours too. A question I am frequently asked is what happens next? Will we ever see anything new or is the trend cycle destined to repeat itself forever? The 2000s had Y2K, Mcbling, Logomania and Indie Sleaze, 2010s had Tumblr Girl, Internet Awesomesauce, and Athleisure.

Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.In my youth director days, working at a church and teaching students, I was often questioned about Heaven. The wisdom of children is in their curiosity, and there is nothing more indicative of that wisdom than their desire to know what life after death will be like. Adults–so used to life in this world–stop asking those questions even though they, ironically, are far closer to that great transition than the children are.

Update: I’ll be speaking at SXSW in March! If you’re there, be sure to swing by my panel, Is The Wellness Industry Well?  In other news: I’m trying out something new—separating out the news, trends, & deep drives sections as a standalone installment (with full access for paid subscribers). I personally prefer a meaty digest to print out and read, but I understand some folks prefer leaner newsletters, more often. Expect an essay later this week!

Disclaimer: This post is not about *current* conditions in Gaza, which has become a war zone and a hellscape. This post is about *pre-war* conditions in Gaza––the conditions that, according to some, provoked Hamas to begin this war in the first place. Like many people, I have been consuming lots of Norman Finkelstein content lately, including his book on Gaza. According to Finkelstein and other critics of Israel, pre-war conditions in Gaza were beyond hellish.

This time of year is slow at the cinema: the season for sludge that got shunted out of a proper release date but that studios weren’t willing to throw away to streaming. This appears to still be somewhat true this year, as evidenced by Wonka playing for what must be its twentieth week at my theater of choice. But don’t despair: there’s a surprisingly great crop of indie releases showing right now.

In English, we use “love” in many different ways. We “love” our husband or wife, we “love” the fall weather, we “love” our friends” and we even “love” pizza. It’s the same word, but obviously, there are slightly different meanings. Hopefully, we love our spouse more than we love our favorite food - although pizza is pretty good. In the ancient Greek language in which the New Testament was written, they had four different words for love - and all four words meant something different.