“Height is so socially valuable and so utterly outside of our control that it feels like God invented it to demonstrate the folly of meritocracy.” Freddie de Boer on being weird

weird

My interest today is to carve out some space that barely exists in our narrative culture: weird, but not lonely.

"... what one regulator thinks about bitcoin is irrelevant. I am celebrating the right of American investors to express their thoughts on bitcoin by buying and selling spot bitcoin ETPs." Commissioner Hester M. Peirce on the recent SEC decision:

SEC.gov | Out, Damned Spot! Out, I Say!: Statement on Omnibus Approval Order for List and Trade Bitcoin-Based Commodity-Based Trust Shares and Trust Units

Out, Damned Spot! Out, I Say! : Statement on Omnibus Approval Order for List and Trade Bitcoin-Based Commodity-Based Trust Shares and Trust Units C...

"The truth hidden below the surface of the story is a hard one: Nothing makes any sense. We do not get what we deserve. If we are lucky, we get more. If we are unlucky, we get less [...] That's the system." Roger Ebert on the one thing we all talk about https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/13-conversations-about-one-thing-2002

"I will never understand why our culture grew so obsessed with mental illness and depression and so contemptuous towards people who wanted to put those things into art, to give everyone a way to feel them."

An Ode to "I Hate Myself and I Want to Die"

“I Hate Myself and Want to Die” is the name of a Nirvana song, first released (funnily enough) on the big Beavis and Butthead compilation album.

“I don’t need to do anything to deserve the truth. The truth is not deserved. That is not how the truth works.” Freddie DeBoer about the price of being ostracized

What Purpose Do I Serve in Your Life?

Recently I wrote a piece about the cramped cliches that afflict so many female characters in movies and shows, mostly written by men.

'[The] screenwriting lacks a shade in clarity, but then, so do the lives of these characters.' Roger Ebert about Bellflower, a mumblecore rom-com with flamethrowers https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bellflower-2011

“They’re looking out so far in the distance, they don’t even see the blood or corpses." Ted Gioia on the dangers of effective altruism

Why I Ran Away from Philosophy Because of Sam Bankman-Fried

Or how flawed thinking can make $10 billion disappear

Some wisdom from Jeff Smith's Bone

An unrecognizable Ricky Gervais, back when he was a musician

"Or maybe it's a tripleheader: Maybe the environment is poisoned, and the group is phony, and Carol is gnawing away at her own psychic health. Now there's a fine mess." Roger Ebert on Todd Haynes' "Safe", a subversive take on our modern illnesses https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/safe-1995