White Marble
White Marble
Jonah Grindler, Queer Computer, and a call for newsletter writers
Another Week, Another Newsletter — Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
Dear reader
Our staircase doesn’t lead to the moon, but it reaches our rooftop where we can see the sun set into the Saronic Gulf. Its steps are made from white marble, like the colour of the front tooth Uno broke last weekend.
What we always will have is what we lost: the bloodstained t-shirt, the wish for the day to end, the urge to shelter him like a yolk, the longing for the spring sun, and the gap in Uno’s smile.
With care
Kristoffer
Roadside Flowers
Pacman Poem is a snacked poetry game.
Together is a collaborative drawing playground.
Everything Can Be Scanned is a dedication to everyday beauty.
Field Notes
Holy Bingle
Happiness is the reappearance of a newsletter that was on hiatus, especially when its torch shines brighter than cherished memories. So I am pleased to announce that Queer Computer is back. Read the linked edition for the background story of the hacker who discovered America’s no-fly list while playing with unprotected airline APIs. It is the only newsletter about internet culture I haven’t detached myself from.
“I’ve been listening to their Soundcloud while writing this post and I feel sufficiently gay and ready to do crime.” — Joel Humphries
Perfect Sentences
Last week, the most clicked link was Read JPG, the well-curated images-only newsletter. So I assume I am not the only one clapping my hands when writers experiment with formats like Ingrid Burrington’s self-explanatory Perfect Sentences newsletter. Yes, email is old, but it remains my favourite medium for internet conversation. I’m tempted to arrange a small group of writers to make a meta-newsletter with the purpose of experimenting with formats. Write me if you want to join.
”Every Sunday, you get a collection of the best sentences I’ve come across all week. That’s pretty much the whole idea.” — Ingrid Burrington
Wilderness Land ft Jonah Grindler
Jonah Grindler is a web collector and shaper. He is thinking in time, a fellow migrator and co-founder of Fuse. It is a pleasure to have him extend the Wilderness Land with absurd YouTube videos and niche Vercel apps.
K: How do you spend your time?
Jonah: My life has a similar rhythm to breathing, where inhaling is learning and looking inward, and exhaling is outward, applying what I know, and constructing. I can only inhale or exhale for a limited time, so it comes as a cycle. These periods happen over months as well as years. I decided to put longer pauses in freelancing and attend design school in The Netherlands. At school, I'm making books, coding, learning type design, and doing studio photography. It is a big breath of fresh air, and I'm eager to exhale this knowledge in design projects when back in Canada.
K: What would you write in a heartfelt letter?
Jonah: Writing is such a nice way to reflect on why a person is so important to you. Sometimes we forget to tell the people we love what we love about them. I often think of a positive memory and try to express how grateful I am for having shared that experience and what I admired about them in that moment. Celebrating what a friend is naturally good at and their unique strength is rewarding.
K: Why did Fuse evolve into an archive?
Jonah: When Fuse started in 2017, we posted an interesting link every day, and each link had a "fuse" countdown of 7 days. Cole Perkins and I thought that having a limited selection encouraged visitors to trust the curation and maybe experience something they wouldn't necessarily think to choose. That also meant no image preview; we liked that it was a surprise. Evolving into an archive felt like the next natural step after we accrued so many links. It changed Fuse into more of a tool, something you can refer back to. That changed our curation to be collection-focused; it's our map of the internet (represented by the galaxy icon and header). Plus, it's hard to post an interesting link every day for six years!
Improve your feed with Jonah’s presence on Twitter, Instagram and Are.na.
Collections
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly — Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
Last week this letter was sent to 1387 inboxes. It will always be free for everyone, so I’m keeping it donation-based. Currently, twenty-eight people support me with a paid subscription. Logo by Studio Hollywood. Photograph by Ana Santl.