Toyota Corolla
Toyota Corolla
Tiana Dueck, Logic, Katherine Yang, Max Bittker and a hidden URL Snake
Another Week, Another Newsletter — Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
Dear reader
When the silver 80’s Toyota Corolla with sharp lines blocked the road up to Philopappos Hill, I should have known something very unusual was happening. But instead, I got frustrated as the left front wheel of the stroller got stuck in my attempt to maneuver safely around the obstacle, and for a moment, I believed the car was a personal assault, parked only to disrupt my route.
For a flatland boy, it is a daily miracle to walk up the 147 meters high hill. In Denmark, there is a hill with the same elevation, it is called The Sky Mountain. So despite the sunny weather, my head was in the clouds when I witnessed the scene that had caused the disruption: two women, one pregnant and one elderly, were using a mattock to dig a hole in the rocky soil. It looked like exhausting labor and would take a while before their dead dog, which lay beside them, would fit in its grave.
With care
Kristoffer
Wilderness Land ft Tiana Dueck
Tiana Dueck lives life through the lens of love. It shows through the generosity and care she devotes to Volvox.observer, Sunday Sites and Warmly.bond. Tiana is a fellow map-maker, who recently relocated from Canada to The Netherlands and writes on Windy Days. It is an honor to have her answer a few questions and contribute a new territory to Wilderness Land.
K: How does Sunday influence the Sites?
Tiana: Working on the web throughout the week gets draining. It can be easy to forget that a website is a vast canvas, not just a capitalist tool. Sunday is a restful day. On Sundays, expectations evaporate and everything is done for pleasure. I find a lot of joy in making poetic websites — and so do the folks who come by SuSi.
K: Where did you browse to make bonds?
Tiana: Gossipsweb.net is a good starting point to find bonds. I think a lot about handing a little note with my email/number on it to strangers who have nice energy. I go through phases of following people who just seem cool on Instagram (and other social media sites) and slowly becoming friends. It's always nice to email someone who inspires you for advice, and form a sweet little bond that way.
Part of why I decided to move to the Netherlands was because I already had a few internet friendships budding here. Like with my friends at Extra Practice (who I found through Elliott), and Jonah of Fuse (we found each other over Instagram, with mutual followers and similar usernames). It means a lot to me to finally live physically closer to some of my once-only-internet friends! I’ve been reading An Apology for Idlers. At one point Stevenson says, “Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.” I feel similarly about internet friendships, as special as they can be in pixels, it really all begins when you meet in person.
K: Why should people make their own internet maps?
Tiana: A map of the internet from your own perspective is a tool for intentionally surfing the web. It’s grounding to creatively visualise the web as a world. What is your internet home, and what’s its proximity to other addresses? How close is the office? The mall? The park? What does your daily routine in this world look like? You might discover your own values about how you exist online — as you notice what you keep close vs at a distance.
For me, contextualising social platforms like Twitter and Instagram as if they are outlets in a suburban mall, and in contrast, my friend’s blogs as their apartments, helps me to think intentionally about how much time and attention I’d ideally put into these websites. I want to spend more time with my friends than at the mall. Yet, the mall has its perks too. There’s a subjective balance to find. I’ve found that having some imagined spatial awareness of the web helps me to see my smallness in the vastness of it, and having a map keeps me from getting lost on my adventures.
Roadside Flowers
Poem Garden is served from a little raspberry pi in Harriet living room.
Mailto is perhaps your opportunity to thank Max for all his web poetry.
Control is a web puzzle from Aidan’s cohort.
Field Notes
Logic: Pivot
In the shadow of the holidays, Logic published its 18th edition. It is a transitional issue where the founding editorial team transfers the leadership to Xiaowei Wang and J. Khadijah Abdurahman, making Logic the first queer Black and Asian tech magazine. I enjoyed the meta-interview about publishing, and the editor’s note points in directions closely aligned with Naive Weekly.
“We believed the opposite of hype was not pessimism, which could be its own kind of racket, but specificity. We wanted to pay closer attention to how things work and to the people who made them. Attention is a form of prayer, a philosopher once said.” — The Logic Editors
On Being Friends with Our Computers: An Invocation for Soft Tech
I prefer not to include manifests, so when I do now, it is because Katherine Yang’s words read as poetry. I’ve previously featured her roadside flowers Rivers and Every Element is an HTML, and wonder blossoms in every corner of her new website and its subpages, such as the Dedication and 404-page.
“Let us hand-make our websites. Gift-wrap <i>talics in <p>aragraphs in <div>isions in full-<body>’d documents. Stitch together pages with the blue thread of the anchor link underline. Become acquainted with the material feel of placing pixels on a screen, and in doing so, remember what pen and paper in the hands of every person does for power and culture.” — Katherine Yang
Collections
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly — Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
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