🗂️ Open Tabs // 10.2-10.9
ATTN: Open Tabs is a new series I am trialing, where I publish unclosed tabs from my browser that week. My hope is it leads others down fruitful rabbit trails, helps me revisit unclosed loops, and serves as a crumb trail of ideas and “research”
😵💫 Strange Snack of the Week: Rotten Spicy Sour Gummy Cruncheez
- Rating: 7/10
- Will Eat Again: Unlikely
- Comment: Nerds Gummy Clusters, But If The Founders Were Half Latino
- Recommend To Try: Yes
🎨 In love with Bill Braun’s paintings. Yes, you read that correctly— paintings:
I don’t like to give an artist statement because it undoes the premise of my work, trompe l’oeil painting. Literally from the French, trompe l’oeil means “trick the eye”. An artist’s statement might undo the fundamental aim of convincing the viewer, at least for a moment, that what he sees are actual objects and not a painting.
🎨 In love with Bill Braun’s paintings. Yes, you read that correctly— paintings:
“I don’t like to give an artist statement because it undoes the premise of my work, trompe l’oeil painting. Literally from the French, trompe l’oeil means “trick the eye”. An artist’s statement might undo the fundamental aim of convincing the viewer, at least for a moment, that what he sees are actual objects and not a painting.” — Bill Braun
ℹ️ Hallelujah! I have officially migrated posts from my old Substacks to my blog. A lot of broken links and bad formatting, but I feel immensely relieved. It’s like finally moving furniture out of storage and into the home.
Here are some favs for old times sake:
💬 Raoul Vaneigem’s opening line in The Revolution of Everyday Life:
“I LIVE ON THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE AND I DON’T NEED TO FEEL SECURE.”
🗿 Was giving my family a tour of NYC last week and was privately embarrassed that I had forgotten the difference between a gargoyle and a grotesque. The eagle heads on the Chrysler Building are, in my estimation, some of the most exquisite examples of the latter.
💬 U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan II in Cohen v. California (1971):
“One man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric."
🖍️ New semester, new sketch notes. I’m rusty, but here’s snippets from my Corporate Turnaround and Change Mgmt. courses.
- It is easier to pull an existing strength out of a system than to try and instill a new one.
- Most people are still leading with a top-down model— and enjoying it!
- Listening to people on the front lines of your business is the best place to start asking questions.
- Running a healthy business means checking the metrics everyday— you cannot NOT check the numbers.
- Even when in crisis, your problem is not your customer’s problem, so don’t make it their problem.
🃏 New Joke Unlocked:
I asked my friend what she’s been reading lately.
"René Girard," she said.
“Why him?” I asked earnestly.
"Because I saw someone else reading him, of course."
🤣 Is this too niche? Let me know.
✍️ I have decided to publish the results of every personality test I’ve ever taken. But why?
I wrote a little about that, too:
“When you first step into this universe of personality profiles, it can feel like it widens your perspective, giving you new insights into people, personalities, and the self. The first thing you do is go home and share it with your partner, your friends, or your family. Everybody takes the quiz and you all talk about each other’s quirks, fears, and strengths, laughing (or crying) at the results. In my estimation, this is where these tests shine— at the specious level, facilitating conversation and cultivating curiosity about the other. Yet, this rabbit hole is almond-shaped. The first few steps are widening, the next many are constricting. The further you go, the smaller the world gets, until all you see, speak, and do is the framework."
ℹ️ I am making some much needed improvements to my website and my micro.blog. Thank you for being patient with me as I shift, correct, and trial many things (new pfp included).
I didn’t realize the gaps I had left in regards to some of the topics I am most passionate about. Gonna remedy this ASAP!
🎥 Wrote a short review of the phenomenal film ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ featuring Mahershala Ali // bradley-andrews.com
The tl;dr is that the film is really good and you should probably watch it. Way better than the Blade movie we won’t be getting!
✏️ New Word Learned:
Bailiwick: a person’s or organization’s area of expertise, authority, or responsibility
✍️ Most people spend their lives trying to escape the block they grew up on; I’ve gotten mine tattooed on me. New post out now// bradley-andrews.com
The (909) used to be called the armpit of California. It is a place of widespread institutional bankruptcy, brown poverty, below average education rates, and the most crime-riddled city on the West Coast. Even the milder locations have a strange and surreal underbelly which was depicted by David Lynch of all people. Growing up, the IE had the worst air quality in the entire nation and at times I wonder if people can still smell the smog on me.
🃏 New Joke:
Question: “What did Mario say when he saw one hundred and forty-four koopas eating out of Bowser’s trash can?”
Answer: “That’s a gross!”
IYKYK
🎵 Going on record regarding My Top Five MC’s // bradley-andrews.com
Anyone who is even moderately tapped into the culture will eventually be asked who the greatest rappers of all time are. There are no right answers, per se, but there are certainly wrong ones— and your answers say a lot about you. A person’s top five isn’t meant to be correct as much as it’s meant to force a discussion (and real fans will always discuss). Five is too small to encompass all the greats, but hip-hop is a sport as well as an art— and that means someone needs to be on top. Without that spirit, it’s not hip-hop.
💬 Bilbo’s birthday speech that was given after the final meal at Bilbo Baggins' 111st birthday party on the 22nd of September:
My dear People, My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks, and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots. Also my good Sackville-Bagginses that I welcome back at last to Bag End. Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today! I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am. I shall not keep you long. I have called you all together for a Purpose. Indeed, for Three Purposes!
First of all, to tell you that I am immensely fond of you all, and that eleventy-one years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits.
I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
Secondly, to celebrate my birthday. I should say: OUR birthday. For it is, of course, also the birthday of my heir and nephew, Frodo. He comes of age and into his inheritance today. Together we score one hundred and forty-four. Your numbers were chosen to fit this remarkable total: One Gross, if I may use the expression.
It is also, if I may be allowed to refer to ancient history, the anniversary of my arrival by barrel at Esgaroth on the Long Lake; though the fact that it was my birthday slipped my memory on that occasion. I was only fifty-one then, and birthdays did not seem so important. The banquet was very splendid, however, though I had a bad cold at the time, I remember, and could only say ‘thag you very buch’. I now repeat it more correctly: Thank you very much for coming to my little party.
I wish to make an ANNOUNCEMENT.
I regret to announce that - though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among you - this is the END. I am going. I am leaving NOW.
GOOD-BYE!
✏️ New Words Learned:
Spruik: an Australian and New Zealand slang verb that means to loudly promote, advertise, or pitch something
Scapegrace: an incorrigible rascal
Hornswoggled: to be tricked, cheated, or swindled in a clever or ridiculous way
💐 Goodbye summer, but long live flowers
