Well, the heatwave is here. Today is linen trousers, thin socks and one of the 100% cotton popover tops I get from from a manufacturer in Tibet, which are remarkably durable.
Today begins a much less connected season, in a way. I managed to read the top ends of four newspapers and four news/magazine sites this morning. (If anyone’s keeping up, the current stack is: The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Le Monde, The Economist, BBC News, Politico and Foreign Policy.) I am gathering up the print objects that have gone unread so far this year, and last night I started catching up with the Times Literary Supplement and The Wire after I squeezed a litre of organic orange juice. (The Zulay (UK) (US+) is the best squeezer I’ve ever had.)
Less-tech summer: a 1950s Swiss watch.
TELEMETRY:
(link)
The honest response to all this, for someone like me, isn’t to write a manifesto. It is to build something small, and then to use it, and then to invite a few other people to use it, and to see what happens. Not a revolution. A tree.
That is what Tuhat is. Tuhat is Finnish for one thousand, and the rule is exactly that — every post must be at least a thousand words. No notes. No threads. No hot takes. No algorithm sorting writers into winners and losers based on how often they post or how spicy their headlines are. You get a page at tuhat.net/u/you, and your readers find you the old fashioned way, through a URL, an RSS feed, or an email subscription you actually own and can export as a CSV.
The constraint is the point. A thousand words is enough room to make an argument, tell a story properly, or sit with something difficult without rushing to a punchline. It is also enough friction that nobody publishes here for the dopamine of it. If you don’t have something you genuinely want to say, you won’t bother. That is by design.
John Coulthart:
a further evolution of a form of digital drawing I’ve been developing, a process in which you draw a portion of the picture then copy and paste it to a new layer, distort it slightly using one of Photoshop’s Distort filters, then draw over and around the new section until it blends seamlessly with the rest. This has the effect of creating unpredictable forms that underly the work as a whole, rather like the Surrealist techniques of frottage, grattage, decalcomania and so on. The Surrealist processes were all the product of physical materials but the impulse is the same whatever technique you may use: the introduction of a random element that might evade the conscious input of the artist and the habitual strokes made by the drawing hand.
However bad a writer you think you are, you are not worse than AI. But you still keep letting it do your writing for you, as if I won’t be able to tell. Listen: I can tell. I can always tell. You think I won’t notice, but I will. There’s no hiding from me. If you let AI do your writing I will find out, and I will kill you.
OPERATIONS: am behind.
STATUS:
I have taken my FitBit off, because the app was “updated” to Google Health and now it hallucinates bicycles.
I have just taken delivery of two cases of ale from Williams Bros brewery and a case of wine from Flint Vineyard. Flint is a Norfolk vineyard that makes an exceptional sparkling, and William Bros is the home of the Fraoch heather ale and a remarkable summer ale called Birds And Bees.
Four phone calls before noon suggests that this is going to be a difficult day for focus.
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: SUPER-HEAVY HAMOAZIAN REVERIE, Urthona
LAST WATCHED: SCARFACE (1983), because you always drop the remote when SCARFACE comes on. Also, THE RUNNING MAN (2025), and finished watching THE BOYS, and did two episodes of British period crime show LEGENDS.
DRINK: found a 25 year old Lagavulin in the back of the cupboard
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
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