Author: Dan Dickinson

Categories
Endured

So…

Edited December 2024 to reflect current reality.

I am, apparently, Twitter user #79,903. That’s almost 16 years on the hell site – out of what is nearing 30 years online – so it is easily the longest internet platform I’ve ever engaged with.

Like practically everyone, I don’t have much faith in what’s to come. I don’t expect it to fall apart overnight, but like most of the internet, nothing good can stay good forever. (And really, Twitter has been bad long before recent events. But it’s also had critical mass in a way few sites have.)

I don’t know quite what the future holds for Twitter. I will undoubtedly keep passively reading it and engaging when necessary. But my energy has already been going elsewhere for a while.

I’ll spare you a treatise examining years of my mixed feeling about social media and leave it at this:

A. The majority of my social energy these days in on Discord. I’m remyvja, although my privacy settings are such you’ll probably need to have a mutual server with me first.

B. I have a small, private Discord community of my own. I have no desire to cannibalize the other small communities I’m in. But if you want to join a small circle of folks that I’d vouch for, drop me a note wherever you normally contact me.

C. I’m on Bluesky at (surprise) @vjarmy.com. After some fits and starts this has effectively replaced Twitter for me, which is to say most of my short form daily nonsense is there. It’s also not lost on me this is perhaps the first social network I haven’t gone by some form of “Remy” on.

D. I’m still on a bunch of other places. The ones I’m most active on: Instagram, Steam, Foursquare/Swarm, Letterboxd.

E. Acknowledging I am not at all at the right age bracket, I’m on TikTok, and it’s mostly where my wrestling clips have been going.

F. I’m also on Cohost. It’s got a very non-serious vibe that I’ve missed. The longer, navel-gazing stuff will probably still end up here. RIP Cohost.

G. I’m also, as of March 2023, on Mastodon. I’m as surprised as you probably are. Mastodon never truly clicked for me and I’ve let the paid account I generated though Medium lapse.

That’s all for now. Good luck and do your best.

Categories
Reflected

Joe Pera Talks To You About Netflix’s Questionable Decisions

I don’t know what’s to be learned from Jeffrey Dahmer in 2022. I think the money should be given to people who want to build the world with a little imagination, and not just make the same Jeffrey Dahmer story over and over again.

Joe Pera
Categories
Happened Narrated

The White Cypress Bar

A man sits at the White Cypress bar, inside the Punchdrunk production "The Burnt City".

I find my way through Troy’s maze of alleyways and come in through the side door. To call the space small would be gross exaggeration; just four place settings fit around the tiny L-shaped bar.

With just a few other guests around, the bartender is cleaning up. I squeeze my way to the end, past a wall covered in cloth squares, past the main door, planting myself on a stool and giving my weary feet some rest.

He clearly has a routine, as though he’s cycled through this eternally: up come the plants, then the shot glasses, then the menus, then the trays. Perhaps I’m too late? He wipes down the bar with a damp cloth from end to end.

A fresh shot glass is pulled from underneath the bar. But rather than fill it, he places it on its side and gives it a spin. Through the windows we can still see the bustle of people passing by – perhaps to the larger, louder bar down the block – as we wait quietly for the glass to settle.

The bottom of the glass points my way. The bartender catches my glance, and beckons me to the center of the bar. We lean in as he takes out a napkin.

“When you reach the end, there are only two things that matter,” he whispers as his red pen flutters over the napkin. “The things that you regret. And the things that you are thankful for.”

He unfolds and refolds the napkin, creating two squares. He points to the one to my left.

“Something you regret.”

He holds his hands over the napkin as shelter as I take the pen and write. He folds the napkin over my writing, then points to the other side.

“Something you’re thankful for.”

Again, I scribble under his cupped hands. I return the pen as he folds the napkin back into a small square and smiles.

“We will take good care of this for you.”

I nod. He raises a bottle.

“One for the road?”

“Please.” It is the only word I’ve spoken in a while.

He pours the clear liquid into a measure, and the measure into the shot glass. I raise the glass in a silent toast, lower my mask, and down the…sake? Grappa? Pisco? Whatever it is lingers on my tongue for minutes.

He rounds the bar with my napkin in hand, approaches the wall covered in cloth squares, and pins it to an open spot.

There is nothing more to be said. The guests filter out; the bartender continues about his business; and after a moment, I take my leave – this time through the front door.

Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City is playing at Woolwich Arsenal in London for the foreseeable future.

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