Another Sunday, Another Naive Weekly — Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
It was Sunday. We had slowness in our bodies and fog in our minds. Even after the second brew of morning coffee, the loose afternoon plans with friends didn’t seem alluring. So we cancelled. I’m always uncomfortable cancelling plans. To the extent where I once went overnight hiking in deep snow and -15 degrees Celsius wearing sneakers and carrying a warm weather sleeping bag.
Our friends immediately responded to our cancellation with two short and sweet messages that took away the guilt. ‘No worries’ and ‘take care’, and no need for further explanation. Later the same day we received another text message from them saying that there was a care package standing on our doorstep waiting for us.
Dear Kate, Leo & R, thank you for the dal, coffee beans, and friendship.
With care,
Kristoffer
VISUALLY PLEASING
Kotok Toys. (extra credit for the webdesign)
READER INTERVIEW
Miriam Stimpfl is a content creator who shares her observations, cat stories, and book recommendations on her Instagram. She creates spaces out of rooms and bakes the finest lemon cake. Her dream is to wander Southern European streets, listening to the sound of the waves and collect treasures for her future ceramics museum.
K: What stones do you carry in your bag?
Miriam: Oh, just call me Gretel of „Hansel and Gretel“ and think of stones instead of bread, because there are a few. I wish I could say I was someone who has this „let’s get it done“ personality, but I’m rather someone who is (very) keen to procrastinate. Repressing important and necessary stuff to huge rocks, is definitely one of my weaknesses.
Since I’ve always been very good at distracting myself with 37 different things, to not have to think about the *one* thing, I should actually do or remember, there’s nearly at all times some doctors appointment I should make, some bureaucracy I should get to or work I should do, sooner than later. Currently in my collection: ophthalmologist, taxes, veterinarian.
K: What do you have saved in your bookmarks?
Miriam: My bookmarks are always a reflection of the many personal phases and preferences I huddle through in my life (and there are many, I’m an Aquarius after all) but they did change even more than usual over the span of the last year.
When before there were mostly long lists of various articles I wanted to read later, youtube videos about how to start working with clay, the best websites to buy specific teas/candles/shortbread, recipes of cakes I wanted to bake someday, loads of moodboards and inspirations for my work and the website of a new bakery that just opened in Berlin; there can now be found mostly foreign places, streets, hidden beaches and little cafes I desperately want to visit and amazing Airbnbs I want to stay at as soon as it is possible again.
Sometimes when I look through this huge selection of just-not-in-Berlin-spots (as I do way more often, than I’d like to admit) I can feel the fernweh even ache in my belly, as I’m drawing nearly all of my inspiration and motivation from traveling and visiting places I’ve never been to before.
K: Where do you escape to when your internet is crashing?
Miriam: There’s only one answer for me: books. Reading was my first true love and still is, especially because it’s also the only constant interest in my life I never got bored of after some time.
As the genre of books I enjoy change(d) a lot over time, I realized 4 years ago that I mostly read books by (white) male authors, which kind of shocked me. So I pledged to myself to only read books by female authors and BIPOC + queer male authors for a whole year. In hindsight, I should have done this way sooner, because it improved my motivation to read a LOT and it also made/makes me more self-aware about various aspects in my own life, which stories by male writers not that often do.
K: What was your first internet handle? Where did you use it?
Miriam: I’ve been a relative late (internet) bloomer, because my parents were afraid that I would behave as irresponsible on the internet as I sometimes did in my youth. So we only got the internet when I was 12-13 years (I think). I still remember and sometimes even crave the sound of the router logging in, which is definitely one of the most formative sounds in my life and whenever I hear it now, it beams me right back into our „computer room“ in our basement, in between loads of random folders, winter coats and fresh laundry, as it was at the same time our „ironing-room“.
My (nearly; there was another one I can’t remember which I used very shortly on Uboot, a social network for Austrians, Germans and Swiss people) first and most beloved internet handle has been „notforsalehoney“ which is a song by one of my favorite bands — CocoRosie — with a „honey“ squeezed in at the end of it. I used it first on Myspace and later on Tumblr, what will always be the 2 best social networks ever (fight me!). I became addicted to the possibilities of meeting new people worldwide very quickly, sneaking into the basement at 2am with my parents sleeping above, to trade secrets with my new found friends on Myspace and to simultaneously send cheesy lyrics to my best friend on ICQ, hoping he feels the same as I do (he did).
It was the time of horrendously high internet bills, which lead to „internet-bans“ and lots of dramatic fights, but I miss it dearly, because it also led me to some of my most cherished memories and most important friends. I would truly love to choose just one more song (Looking for Knives by DYAN!) for my Myspace and not being able to fall asleep over the right colour-choice of my site.
K: How would you start a letter to a frog?
Miriam: Dear frog,
I hope your hibernation is going well and you found a cozy and warm place, hidden in between reeds and not-so-frozen leaves to sleep winter away. We all know how exhausting it can get after months of dark- and coldness, but I think it is now safe to say, that we nearly made it and you can soon get back to winning jumping-competitions and singing your favourite tunes together with your friends, all while sitting on lily pads. I can remember them clearly, as they were the soundtrack of my summer nights, when I was still living with my parents and sleeping with open windows. Please never change them.
(…)
PS: sorry I tried so hard in my past to turn you into someone else, without realizing you already are exactly what I was looking for.
ROADSIDE FLOWERS
Hear Kandinsky’s Yellow-Red-Blue.
Make your own Magritte. (just change the URL)
INTERNET STORIES
A magician never reveals his secret. But if I’d ever write a guidebook of the roadside flowers, it’d overlap with this post by Sad Girl Online. The rest of the website is worth surfing too.
I adore the style of this text and hyperlink-based presentation in the browser by Min Guhong. The presentation is for a - poetic - web development school, so in case hand-made websites and html code is outside your interest, just focus on the form. Albeit it is always about the content; “assuming the web is an orchard, a website is a fruit.”
Every digital photograph is an ocean of metadata. This beautiful digital essay unfolds how algorithms use the metadata to augment and flatten the photo. Concluding that the human and machine reading of a photo will never be the same.
INTERNETMEZZO
Single question survey by Sam Lavigne.
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly — Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
Last week this letter was sent to 734 people. Thirtyfour are crazy enough to chip in every month/year to support me making time to write. Logo by Studio Hollywood. Print by Luka. Photograph by Ana Santl.