freddiedeboer-substack-com-srv3tk.txt (16065B)
1 [1][https] 2 3 [2]Freddie deBoer 4 5 SubscribeSign in 6 7 Share this post 8 9 [8] 10 [https] 11 Freddie deBoer 12 Freddie deBoer 13 What I'm Thankful For 14 Copy link 15 Facebook 16 Email 17 Notes 18 More 19 20 What I'm Thankful For 21 22 I do like things, thank you 23 24 [9][https] 25 [10]Freddie deBoer 26 Nov 27, 2024 27 330 28 29 Share this post 30 31 [12] 32 [https] 33 Freddie deBoer 34 Freddie deBoer 35 What I'm Thankful For 36 Copy link 37 Facebook 38 Email 39 Notes 40 More 41 [13] 42 48 43 [14] 44 Share 45 [15] 46 [https] 47 I’m not too cool to admit that I'm thankful to get to write books 48 49 Obviously, none of these are sponsored or whatever. 50 51 My girl and the little piglet she’s growing and my family and friends. 52 Self-explanatory but essential. I am frequently getting in a mess but I’m 53 helped so often by people who love me. 54 55 Thanksgiving. No commercialism or materialism. No overt religiosity. No stress 56 about getting the right presents. No pressure to find a cool party like with 57 Halloween. The weather of late fall, the natural rhythms of harvest and feast 58 before the winter, the pleasure of a holiday devoted to the concept of being 59 grateful. The football, the family, the food. The after-meal nap. The 60 wonderfully laidback nature of the whole affair. My favorite holiday. 61 62 The New York Times games app. Yes, it’s true. I am that which I mock; I am a 63 bourgie coastal elite stereotype. For I love the NYT games app. It’s a daily 64 delight. My favorite game is Strands, a kind of leveled-up word search, but I 65 like almost all of them. Perhaps a little too much; I have a habit of getting 66 lost in a crossword when I should be doing something else. My wife is into the 67 games too and every day we gab about the puzzles, maybe complain about a dumb 68 Connections category, share how many words we needed for the day’s Wordle. Call 69 me a brownstone liberal, baby, this app is delightful. 70 71 Bonjesta. It’s an anti-nausea pregnancy drug with the essential additional 72 effect of causing sleepiness; pregnancy insomnia is very real. The drug’s 73 safety for a growing fetus has been well established. If you/your partner gets 74 pregnant, just go ahead and ask for a Bonjesta prescription right away. 75 76 Maria Bamford’s Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult. I’ve always read a lot of books 77 related to mental illness, and with work on my next book now fully underway, 78 I’m reading even more. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve legitimately read Girl, 79 Interrupted like ten times. And yet I also find reading people’s first-person 80 experiences of mental illness to be kind of a scary business, destabilizing, a 81 little challenging. Someday I’ll be able to articulate my feelings on the odd 82 sense of possessiveness that many of us have about our disorders - there’s a 83 reason that group therapy so often feels like a competitive sport - but that’s 84 for another day. For now I just want to say that I really enjoyed the standup 85 comedian Maria Bamford’s book Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult. It is indeed very 86 funny, as you’d expect, and it’s insightful about the fundamental absurdities 87 of having a mental illness, how we treat them, and our various neuroses about 88 how our illnesses appear to other people. At times it’s quite raw, as they 89 inevitably say in regards to this kind of book, but Bamford’s tone and 90 self-deprecation ensure that the various intense moments never feel like 91 theatrics. She really takes you inside her very particular struggles with 92 intrusive thoughts and compulsions in a way that demonstrates how serious they 93 can be, even though she’s never serious herself. This is actually a great 94 choice for someone looking to read their first book about mental illness; 95 Bamford is an inviting and effective guide. 96 97 The Link to Windows application. A simple, free, bundled app to connect an 98 (Android) phone to a (Windows) computer, it does everything you might want it 99 to. 80% of the time I’m using it to text without picking up my phone, but file 100 transfer and copy & pasting between devices is handy too. Just a nice little 101 shot of “does just what it’s supposed to.” 102 103 Sheil Kapadia on The Ringer’s football coverage. I had never heard of Kapadia 104 until recently, but I’ve quickly grown to look forward to his appearances on 105 The Ringer’s podcast network and his columns on their website. He’s clearly 106 very knowledgeable, but more importantly he seems like a mensch and is a 107 pleasure to listen to. A lot of people in football media are trying to pull off 108 a charming regular-guyness, but with most of them there’s a fundamental 109 insincerity to the whole thing. Kapadia’s simple friendliness shines through in 110 every appearance. 111 112 Desktop computers. Stay tuned for an essay on this theme. Speaking of which…. 113 114 [16] 115 Elgato Stream Deck + 116 117 My Elgato Stream Deck Pro (as a non-streamer). Elgato’s line of Stream Decks 118 are, obviously pitched at people who stream - that is, people who play video 119 games for a public audience on Twitch or YouTube. But as someone who doesn’t 120 stream, I’ve found that the Stream Deck Pro is a very handy and practical 121 addition to my desktop setup all the same. These are, effectively, macro pads, 122 which means that they add extra buttons, knobs, and touchscreens to your 123 interface. Yes, it’s true that there’s nothing that you simply can’t do with a 124 mouse and keyboard that you can do with such a device, but the point here is 125 ease and accessibility. It’s all about setting up macros (key press 126 combinations) and assigning useful functions. For example, I will often put on 127 something to listen to while playing a full-screen computer game, and the 128 Elgato allows me to change the volume of what I’m listening to (or any other 129 source) independently, or to play or pause, without having to click out of the 130 game, which can be ponderous and annoying. It took some doing but I was able to 131 figure out how to control my monitor’s brightness with one of the dials, 132 meaning that I don’t have to reach behind for the little nipple device, press 133 it in, access the appropriate menu, and change it from there. It’s really a 134 cool little device that allows for a lot of convenience. 135 136 ENDON. Only the heavy and the avant garde can save us from total pop hegemony. 137 Nice when you have both in one package. 138 139 Bernie Sanders. Longtime readers will know that, while Bernie is as close as I 140 get to someone in my broad political circle who holds actual influence, I’m not 141 a Bernie Sanders fanboy. I have been critical of him in the past for kowtowing 142 to the Democratic line too often and for failing to really utilize his unique 143 position to carve out a new space in American politics. I have enraged many a 144 lefty by pointing out that the commies who said he would end up as a sheepdog - 145 that is, that when all was said and done, he would act as a force pushing 146 disaffected leftists back towards voting for Democrats - were proven right. (I 147 mean, objectively, that’s the role he’s played, as a kind of whip for 148 Democratic votes from the leftmost flank of the party.) But I still have a 149 great deal of respect for his vision and integrity, and I join the many people 150 who have seen him as the only link to sanity in the contemporary American 151 political experience. He’s in the twilight of his career, and I will miss him. 152 153 Melona ice pops. I use that term, ice pop, with some reservations; there’s 154 nothing icy about a Melona. What’s so amazing about Melona bars is their 155 incredible creaminess, even after a month in the fridge. I don’t go for 156 popsicles at all anymore, thanks to that awful icy texture they almost all 157 suffer from. (The thought of biting into one makes my teeth hurt.) Besides, the 158 sickeningly sweet popsicle taste isn’t what I’m looking for. But Melona bars 159 are remarkably milky and, in the fashion of East Asian treats (they come from 160 South Korea) they are never overbearingly sweet. There’s a ton of good flavors, 161 but you can’t beat the original, melon, though mango, banana, and pistachio 162 come close. These were once hard to find, but now they sell them at Costco. 163 164 [17] 165 [https] 166 167 Suavecito. Still the best cat, going on thirteen years old. A galactic pain in 168 the ass, deeply aloof, prone to biting. Biting me, his master! All part of the 169 full Suavi experience. He’s really gotten attached to Ami lately, which I 170 wouldn’t have predicted given his general nature. All in all, A+. 171 172 Psychiatric medication. The prominent position that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has 173 taken in the Trump transition is a symbol of a broader left-right tendency that 174 rejects many aspects of modern medicine. And within that world there’s always 175 been a prominent anti-psychiatry element, one which has been distressingly 176 effective; all kinds of people, often with no particular knowledge of the 177 subject, feel comfortable declaring all psychiatric medications to be poisons. 178 But in fact those medications have saved my life, as they have millions of 179 others. The side effects are terrible, but that just shows that we need better 180 drugs. I am grateful that I have been able to rebuild my life and take part in 181 a (more or less) normal adult existence thanks to the miracles of modern 182 neuropharmacology. 183 184 Substack. I shudder to put this here because there’s still a lot of discourse 185 going on. It’s getting a bit better; I think the Casey Newton-style 186 grandstanding - which, let’s be perfectly clear, has almost nothing to do with 187 Substack and everything to do with a certain kind of person’s weakening grip on 188 written commentary - has less purchase than it used to. But it’s still the case 189 that praising Substack leaves me feeling like I need to define exactly what I 190 do and don’t mean and who I’m not in league with and blah blah blah. I’ve 191 written about that before; I may write about it again. Today I just want to say 192 that I like the CMS and I’m grateful for how seamless the Stripe integration is 193 and I appreciate that this has all enabled me to make my living just as a 194 writer. No matter what the usual suspects say, Substack has dramatically 195 expanded the number of people making money as writers and deepened the 196 engagement of a lot of passionate and talented amateurs, and for that I’m 197 grateful. At some point the “own your turf” people have to recognize that the 198 vast majority just aren’t going to roll their own platforms and services, and 199 to insist that they do is simply to insist that a lot of voices aren’t heard 200 anywhere. 201 202 Empire Records. It’s not so much that Empire Records is a bad movie I love, 203 although I love it and I can’t in good conscience call it a good movie. Rather 204 than calling it a bad movie, I’d say that it’s barely a movie. So much of what 205 movies are supposed to do, on a basic level, are barely performed here. It does 206 broadly wave at some conventional movie types and tropes - this is, more or 207 less, one of those “one crazy night” teen movies, although it includes the 208 preceding night and mostly takes place at night. But nothing is consummated, 209 nothing is followed through with. Characters are introduced roughshod and in 210 bulk. The character played by Coyote Shivers - I have seen this movie several 211 dozen times and I’m not sure I could tell you a single character’s name, other 212 than Warren, whose name is a joke - that character wanders into the movie in a 213 way that’s so indifferent to basic movie sense, it makes you feel like there 214 must be a scene you missed. Liv Tyler’s character is revealed to have a 215 stimulant addiction in one scene, a point referenced in the next, then never 216 referred to again. Just absolutely and completely dropped, for convenience’s 217 sake. Another character announces “I got into art school!” literally in the 218 last five minutes of the movie, despite the concept of him wanting to go to art 219 school never having been established at any point. If you read plot synopses 220 they generally say that the story is about saving Empire Records with one big 221 party, but said party is only introduced with about 20 minutes left and even 222 then is performed in a desultory manner. But that’s OK. This is, obviously, a 223 pure nostalgia play for me, 90s teen that I was, and the whole thing is just a 224 hang, obsessed with music and out for a good time. I adore it. 225 226 CeraVe Acne Control Cleanser. Back acne is simultaneously one of the most 227 trivial side effects of lithium and one of the most aggravating. It’s painful, 228 it’s unsightly, and it bleeds, ruining shirts and sheets. This stuff works for 229 me. It’s a nice little weapon in my own personal war of attrition. 230 231 All of you. It’s cheesy, it’s sappy, it’s corny, but it’s true: my supporters 232 here enable me to live the life I’ve always wanted to live, and I am never less 233 than amazed and utterly grateful that you have decided to read my work and 234 support it financially. Thank you. 235 236 See you all next week. Happy Thanksgiving. 237 238 330 239 240 Share this post 241 242 [19] 243 [https] 244 Freddie deBoer 245 Freddie deBoer 246 What I'm Thankful For 247 Copy link 248 Facebook 249 Email 250 Notes 251 More 252 [20] 253 48 254 [21] 255 Share 256 PreviousNext 257 258 48 Comments 259 260 [https] 261 [ ] 262 [ ] 263 [ ] 264 [ ] 265 [25] 266 [https] 267 [26]Nick Fabry 268 [27]5d 269 270 Happy Thanksgiving, Freddie - it’s good to see you able to lean back and enjoy 271 it easily - and thank you, as always, for the writing. 272 273 Expand full comment 274 Reply 275 Share 276 [29] 277 [https] 278 [30]Slaw 279 [31]5d 280 281 The best thing about the link app is sending torrents of text to somebody who 282 was just expecting a quick message back. 283 284 Happy Thanksgiving. 285 286 Expand full comment 287 Reply 288 Share 289 [33]3 replies 290 [34]46 more comments... 291 Top 292 Latest 293 Discussions 294 295 No posts 296 297 Ready for more? 298 299 [49][ ] 300 Subscribe 301 © 2024 Fredrik deBoer 302 [51]Privacy ∙ [52]Terms ∙ [53]Collection notice 303 [54] Start Writing[55]Get the app 304 [56]Substack is the home for great culture 305 306 Share 307 308 Copy link 309 Facebook 310 Email 311 Notes 312 More 313 This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. 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