pronolagus.com

Tag: creativity

  • Re: Missed Newsletter Post and Some Stuff About Outsourcing (yarr!) Content Storage

    I neglected to put it into the general feed, but the most recent newsletter went out, and it currently lives here:

    https://pronolagus.com/but-this-is-wondrous-strange-24-03/

    I think I should make a page and/or folder for these, to keep them organized and consolidated. Buttondown has been great, but best practices for futureproofing one’s own work—from enshittification, if not loss of that work—would demand keeping at least copies of everything in-house. Cory Doctorow has answered queries about him not being on Bluesky (or Threads, etc.) with a corollary principle:

    I poured years and endless hours into establishing myself on walled garden services administered with varying degrees of competence and benevolence, only to have those services use my own sunk costs to trap me within their silos even as they siphoned value from my side of the ledger to their own.
    ~ Cory Doctorow, Fool Me Twice We Don’t Get Fooled Again

    It’s also just simpler to maintain things with most of it centralized. Syndication is getting to be somewhat easier (I’m working on it but it’s still rather opaque to me), and I’m no Hank Green, juggling multiple social accounts and tailoring a lot of it to each platform. My ADHD is not conducive to time management of anything but the most rudimentary routines and processes. I have to take my creative work successes where I can get them, meager as they may be.

    My site belongs to me, I control its rules and posting and archive policy, beholden only to my peripatetic whims and passions. Lord knows they come and they go.

    ———

    NOTE: IYKYK, but the title is a reference to this Mike Rugnetta video: https://youtu.be/Upbxf2zJvBw

  • It’s the Artist, Not the Tools (so much)

    It’s a trope, a cliche, an idiom even, that expensive tools don’t make the work better by themselves, but in the hands of a pro—read: experienced, or ‘master’—they can work wonders. I can think of few groups where the argument over the worth or quality of the tools is fiercer and more divisive than among guitarists. Pricey gear doesn’t mean better music, but arguments rage over brands, year of manufacture, and even factory location.

    In a great player’s hands, though, even a cheap or lower-grade instrument can produce good music. So it seemed to me while I watched Zakk Wylde glide through Black Sabbath’s “N.I.B.” on a Hello Kitty themed, mini acoustic guitar. And it’s more than just his playing skill, he’s bringing thoughtful musicianship to the task. The sotto voce delivery was the perfect complement to his careful, quiet strumming. Almost like he’s singing to himself. The original isn’t diminished by the smaller scale, it’s evoked, memorialized, honored.

    Zakk Wylde – “N.I.B.”
    https://youtu.be/rwhvFLHIlBs

    This humbled me a little bit. Zakk (can I call him Zakk? He seems like the type to eschew formality), despite a well-documented penchant for goofballery, takes the task seriously. He doesn’t play it for laughs. Sure, the situation as a whole is silly, but by approaching it sincerely, he elevates both the music and the means of making it.