šš¦ The Objet column in Dirt is getting crazier by the weeks. This time, Amelia shared with us her relationship with The Fox Skull and brought us on the thin veil between who we are and who we could be.
š Patricia asked me great questions about the cities in my life and made me reflect on why San Francisco. Returning Home: Miracles and Ambition.
No-one can underestimate the global -and most probably long-lasting- impact of Facebook. 4 billion -with a b- monthly active users across Meta's family of apps -which includes Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. It's hard for the brain to grasp such numbers. The global population is around 8b. 3 billion -still with a b- daily active users! Can we imagine? It literally means 3 billion people log in and actively use at least one of these apps daily š¤Æ
Never in the entire history of humanity something -an institution, a company, a government- reached such penetration on a global scale. Now imagine, the company is only 20 years old.
šš” The last object I was expecting when we talked about an Objet column in Dirt was The Sanrio Machete. But Michelle did it and itās a banger.
āDo you feel badass with your machete?ā No, I thought, I feel like Simone Weil handling a firearm.
Ted Gioia -or The Honest Broker; which I highly recommend- posted a few days ago: Nine Predictions for the Future of the Music Business. First I'd suggest a 10th prediction: a new cohort of companies cooperatively owned by the artists themselves, the workers and/ or the community.
Two recent examples I'm very excited about:Ā Hearing Things -or the next cooperatively owned Pitchfork [i.e. music journalism]; andĀ Subvert -launching today; join me and many other artists, labels and supporters and become a founding member- or a collectively owned Bandcamp successor [i.e. online record store and music community].
This summer, I went to a nice space in SF named Founders, Inc. -in a quite amazing spot in the city by the way: Fort Mason; with a very 'San-Franciscan' view- listen to a live discussion between Ryan Hoover and Furqan.
Something Ryan said stuck with me since then: 'adjacent 2nd order impact'. As a non-human bot gently detailed it for us: "Second-order effects, also known as second-order consequences, refer to the indirect or ripple effects that occur as a result of an action or decision, which may not be immediately apparent. While first-order effects are the direct outcomes of an action, second-order effects are the subsequent changes that result from those initial outcomes.".
My mind started to wonder constantly about possible second-order effects around us. Two topics close to hearts -for obvious reasons- are: kids [I'm a father after all] and urbanism [I've lived all my life in urban areas and I'm a skateboarder, so my natural 'playground' are the streets]. Meanwhile, I was living this summer a kinda perfect suburban life in Berkeley, CA. Here are some behind-the-scenes pics and details by Mathilde if curious.
So when Steyn published his view on screen time limit -tl;dr: they've never enforced screen time limits on their kids [now 5 and 3 yo]- and then shared it on the #parent-lounge channel from the Sublime slack [oof] it occurred to me: kids screen time might just be an urbanism problem.
š Many things in this ā30 values, beliefs, and other ideasā by Jackson resonated: Things to Remember.
It all comes down to love and gratitude. Happiness is love, full stop.
š§š¦ Mathilde insisted I read that one and itās a must-read indeed. Freya dug into āour broken homesā and how it affected -more than we might think- an entire generation. The subtitle itself is powerful: āwe simply donāt believe anyone will stayā -it gives me goosebumps. As a young father of two who grew up in a very broken home -no father and a hard-working mum who didnāt have any bandwidth most of the time- that post feels quite special. The Age of Abandonment.
Throughout history our ancestors built customs and institutions to bind us together and then, one by one, we kicked them down. We killed God, we mocked marriage, we attacked the family, we uprooted neighbourhoods, we debunked every last myth and story. And we kept going and going, until we got here, with our sad little divorce parties. Until we got here, with a generation huddled, heartbroken, fearful of love, fearful of life, kicking away at anything that reaches out to help. We lifted the burden from adults, told parents to do what makes them happy, forgetting that those structures werenāt just limits on adult freedom; they were foundations for children to stand on, to step off from, on which they depended. We shattered them and now we wonder why a generation is falling apart. Welcome to the age of abandonment.
šŖ” š Last week was special with Objet -we threw our second soirĆ©e in SF on Friday and got lucky to see some great folks share the love.
What Saumya and Colt are building is so important. Check their work out: Build IRL Newsletter #22. And especially if youāre living in SF, they always share some cool events you can join. Thatās how I knew about the new IRL Movie Club for instance and got to watch the Join or Die documentary.
I canāt agree more with Caitlin and really liked her invitation to move from volume to value: Less Volume, More Value. I also agree with her āmedium-hot takeā: āvolume-based growth lacks imaginationā.
š š Dirt also introduced their new column -Objet- in collaboration with us. Theyāve asked five writers to write about a single object that is significant to them and will be publishing these essays in the coming months. For its first: Marlowe Granados on the cathartic potential of a second-hand bag: The Bakelite Bag.
I like to think of them [old things] as talismans of the past. I donāt just put them on display but use them as they were made to be used.
Thereās also a sense that whatever it witnessed through my ownership is just a minor chapter in the bagās life. It holds my secrets but also the mysteries of those that came before me. I can only hope to pass it on as the common thread between me and generations of stylish women.
San Francisco is great on all fronts but my personal writing. Objet nĀ°2 is coming on Oct. 4th. If you want to embed memories into your clothing, RSVP here.
ā³ Since weāre talking about memories, handle them with care. Julia delivered a banger on Reboot: A Strange Kind of Memory.
Our brains canāt store every observation, thought or perception that passes through and that isnāt a bad thing. Constraints and selections are what allow us to stay sane in a world of complete sensory overload.
ā³ Real long-term thinking is so underrated. Iād love to find a way to teach this skill to both our kids. Bill Gates framed it quite perfectly a while ago: āmost people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.ā. Kyle delivered a banger here. I felt invited to reflect on my own life while reading the piece: Decades.
Long-term thinking suddenly makes short-term thinking appear incredibly silly.
