On my personal e-mail, I have a small set of unopened messages. I am normally a ruthless trimmer of digital archives. No need to keep what is past expiration and utility.<\/p>\n
I suppose I am like this in other facets of life, as well. I do not have a large collection of clung-to nostalgia. I frequently trim my collections of books and clothing, particularly after events from which I garner more. I am known, among friends, family, and colleagues as a somewhat emotionless recycler of basements, cabinets, shared spaces, and classrooms.<\/p>\n
Hell, I am the antithesis of a supply-hoarding teacher. I may have moved into my first classroom after two women who retired in consecutive years, leaving me with their 54 years of collected debris, but I keep almost nothing. I spent four days disassembling and recycling their years of nostalgia (left, rather non-nostalgically) but I spend less than ten seconds dragging each year’s accumulated digital files from my lessons into the trash.<\/p>\n
I have no interest in re-using what does not need to run again.<\/p>\n
I do, however, keep the aforementioned e-mail messages in a file labeled “Notes,” as the collected messages often have links to the kinds of rabbit holes into which I like to tunnel.<\/p>\n
From Jason Kottke<\/a>, Austin Kleon<\/a>, and more, these messages help me explore many areas, mostly of interest, while trying to avoid echo chambers, about which Austin Kleon has me thinking a lot lately.<\/p>\n A few of my recent favorites are:<\/p>\n Choir, Choir, Choir<\/a><\/p>\n I watched the tribute to Sinead O’Connor, which was so beautifully done, I followed it to a link of a group of 1000 Irish people doing the same.\u00a0 That had a connecting link to David Byrne singing “Heroes” with a crowd of Choir, Choir, Choir-trained people in tribute to David Bowie. Though it was odd to hear Byrne instead of Bowie, seeing Byrne’s face transform when he realized what a touching moment he was inside of, was worth the watch. I stopped my trail upon viewing their rendition of “Karma Police<\/a>” because watching that many people transformed with emotion was getting me emotional.\u00a0 (Though, I will admit, while writing this, I dipped back into that river to watch them perform “Wish You Were Here<\/a>.” I wonder if all of these are as well done?)<\/p>\n Neal.fun<\/a><\/p>\n This one is quirky as hell, yet a dangerous time-consumer of numerous rabbit holes for the unprepared. Neal.fun lives up to his billing, as almost every click on his Substack page is worth a look and a few laughs.\u00a0 I was horrified by the Baby Map<\/a>, intrigued by the Life Stats<\/a>, and found myself shaking my head at the Internet Artifacts<\/a>, especially because I was in school for almost the entirety of what I would consider the pre-internet age yet, to browse the history, could see I was just missing out. Probably being a poor college student with limited means to do much outside of our shared apartment played a key role.<\/p>\n