Sonder, September 28, 2015
Sonder “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.”
After about three years of being without an iOS device, I purchased an iPod Touch last month. Primarily, I bought the thing so that I could have an Rdio app that worked (the one on Windows Phone is really sad) and access to Overcast, the great podcast app by Marco Arment. And there were apps I missed using, none more so than Instapaper, the offline reading app. I got by with Pocket, and enjoyed its integration with my Kobo and Windows Phone (Poki is an example of a truly excellent WP app), but Instapaper has a polish Pocket never had. I’ve been reading with it a lot more, and by doing so remembered that I used to have a category on my blog called Sonder that I use to share interesting links.
Instapaper is different from reading fiction, as I mostly find myself saving “longform” articles. I’m as guilty as anyone of “saving” an article that I “should” read in my que forever, only to flush it after it’s perhaps lost some relevance. But when I do read them, I often want to share them.
I noticed other people doing similar things: collecting a week or two’s worth of their favourite links (these are still my favourite). Through their links, I don’t necessarily feel like I’ve learned about them as people, but I have a great sense of their taste. And there’s something nice in appreciating someone’s taste, while stopping short of being a creepy lurky person that I honestly try to be as not as often as possible.
Anyways.
The Secret of the Apple’s New San Francisco Fonts
What have impressed me about San Francisco fonts is the way colons (:) are displayed. Basically, a colon will be placed right above the baseline, so it’s not vertically centered if it is placed between numbers. San Francisco fonts, on the other hand, will make it vertically centered automatically.
How a Literary Magazine Editor Finds New Writers
That’s all editors do sometimes. Read the slush. Tell the ones we meet to try. Listen to a writer’s supporters.
I want beautiful friction, I want it to never end until I die, either in the game or in real life. I want to feel good when I’m in control. That’s basically all it comes down to. And at its best, Super Mario Bros. 3, steeped in lore, big and bulky and bubbling and never lumbering, offers pure kinetic motion of a more psychologically thrilling level than any game before or since.
Nom De Vie: Literary Social Media in the Age of Ferrante
The cause of the “unlikable character” has been popular to champion in recent years but as of this writing, there is no room for the “unlikable author.” Perhaps until now. Because Elena Ferrante does not care if you want to be her friend.
Hannibal Redefined How We Tell Stories on Television
No series, Twin Peaks included, has quite managed to be as deadly serious but also as winkingly ludicrous, so that you can’t easily separate one mode of presentation from the other. The show is an outrageous joke that’s not funny at all, and a horror show that’s very funny, at the same time, without contradiction.