Notes from Vannotes - A Return to Longform Blogging
It's unfortunate that a return to the art of blogging must be precipitated by the death of another platform. Yet hasn't it been hypocritical of me to roll my eyes constantly at microblogging while simultaneously engaging in it voraciously? As I slowly dissect a spreadsheet of @s, trying to determine who I'll follow on another platform, I realize how many small pleasures a website like Twitter provided. Over the last few months, how many times did I relish the latest update from Gigan Pics Daily - https://twitter.com/GiganPics - a strange repository of content squarely aimed at fans of the cyber chicken kaiju.
Perhaps Elon Musk is doing the world a favor by tanking micro-blogging through his incompetence. Maybe he's saved the collective consciousness of humankind by making spur of the moment and irrational communication unsavory. Considering the level of addiction to the platform, it seems unlikely unless he's truly banished it to MySpace levels of infamy. Until suckered into wasting my precious hours to it again, I'll focus on elaborating on the most trivial subject matter here.
What I'm Reading - Niche Alan Moore
For some reason, I can't get enough of Alan Moore's less polished or "quarter bin worthy" work. I've been hunting all of it down on eBay, grabbing a WildC.A.T.S. trade here and a complete set of 1963 issues there. There's something hellishly riveting about seeing one of the greatest comics minds in history writing stupid action figure comics, while also knowing that it's bankrolling the creation of artistic triumphs like From Hell and Lost Girls. There's certainly diamonds in the rough, like this dialogue balloon from Spawn/WildC.A.T.S. which might be the most stupid genius thing I've ever read.
What I'm Watching - The Vow Season 2
I love a good cult documentary and though The Vow often feels a bit jumbled and disorganized, the subject matter never fails to be fascinating. Having Nancy Salzman act as an anchor this season seems to have been a double edged sword. Once introduced, you never want to stop hearing her narrate the justifications for her actions, no matter whether they seem earned or not.
What I'm Listening To - Midnights by Taylor Swift
Similar to the above panel by the esteemed Alan Moore, Taylor achieves a miraculous feat of writing the so-stupid-its-amazing line of, "Sometimes I feel like everyone's a sexy baby." What does that even mean?
I still don't know and I've listened to it over and over again on several late night drives, the absolute perfect setting for a repeated listening of a Taylor Swift album.
What I'm Playing - ...
I'll leave that to a future installment of Vannotes on Videogames! Returning soon!