Newsletter v.3.2 | Semester is Over!

Hello members of [S][J][P],

I've got a few items of surplus jouissance to offer up to you all in today's newsletter.

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My Stuff: Semester is over

The spring of 2021 semester is now behind me, classes are done, and my grades are in. Now I've got to turn my attention to getting ready to teach the one class I'm teaching over the summer, which will be a seminar on doing individual therapy that is psychoanalytically informed, and completing all the tenure stuff.

The summer course is going to start with a seminar style reading of Mari Ruti’s book The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory’s Defiant Subjects, which I’ve never taught before. To say I’m excited to teach this text would be a massive understatement!

I've been avoiding doing the tenure stuff because it makes me very anxious and because it is damn hard to get enough uninterrupted time to work on it when I'm teaching three classes, facilitating a Lacanian reading seminar, and caring for two small children. Alas, the time has come where I must now give it my tie and energy. The first set of stuff I need to write and turn in is due on 5/15, and the next step is due on 6/15. (Wish me luck!)

Podcasts: New InForm with Todd McGowan

The episode of InForm: Podcast where we interview Todd McGowan, is now out. If you listen to it, you'll hear that I had some trouble performing the task of hitting the record button. (You'd think after making as many podcasts as I have that I would have figured out how to press record, but nope, that gave me some problems this time around.)

Be that as it may, I think Todd, Jared, and I all had a good time talking and making the episode.

I also made a new title card for InForm: Podcast. When you look at the card, I think you can see the influence of mid-late 1990s industrial music album covers and Swiss design on my aesthetics.

If anyone feels inclined: leaving a review of the show will help it be more findable.

[S][J][P]: Coming together

When I would send out an email newsletter on either Substack or Convert Kit, I would get an open rate of about 50-60%, which was pretty good. The newsletter I sent out last week via Ghost got a 77% open rate! That's, like, an impressive open rate!

I'm still messing around with Ghost and trying to figure out how to best configure the look and functionality of the [S][J][P] website. When I (soft) launched it last week, it was a simple basic skeletal form of formation. I've been doing lots of minor tweaks and changes over the week, and now it is in a much nicer configuration. If you have not taken a look at the site, I hope you will find some time to check it out soon.

Writing:

I've been writing and posting to [S][J][P] regularly. Here are some groups of things you can take a look at:

• Things & Stuff: This is a tag I use as a sort of “show and tell” for all sorts of interesting stuff I find online.
• Imageography: This is a tag I use for photos and other still image/graphical stuff I make.
• Notebook: This is a tag for things I read or hear that I would have written in a notebook (if I used a physical notebook as opposed to a digital one). It’s sort of my version of a commonplace book.

Early in the week I wrote some sort blasts about the social ownership of football (soccer) clubs, and some thoughts on the effects of said social ownership.

I also wrote about his 188-page report of The International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States.

All the writing that I’ve been doing has been more flow (short form and ephemeral) rather than stock (longterm legacy) sorts of things.

Tools: RSS & RSS Feed Readers:

Like most people who lived through what the Web2.0 period of the internet, I’m a massive fan of RSS feeds as a tool for consuming the content that people produce and post to the internet. When Google had a free product called Goodge reader lots more people used RSS, but since that got killed off it seems RSS usage has really gone down.

Nowadays, it seems to me that only tech-nerds use RSS, which is a shame because if you use RSS effectively you can curate an experience of the internet that is very anti-doomscroll.

Regarding my use of RSS: I use inoreader in combo with NetNewsWire on my Mac and Unread on my iPhone & iPad. Reeder is another excellent Mac & iOS app for RSS feeds.

If you do want more of a blog experience of [S][J][P], you should use the RSS feed in a good feed reader.

Fin:

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading. Damn the demand safe the desire & make glorious mistakes.