Chad Comello

  • Three principles for a pleasant inbox

    I open 100% of the (non-spam) emails I get, and enjoy doing so. Here’s how, and why.

    1. One inbox to rule them all

    Pretty much as soon as Gmail debuted the Promotions and Social tabs I turned them off, leaving me with a single inbox that almost always has close to zero emails.

    I understand the purpose of tabs, and more power to you if they benefit you. As I see it, all they do is snag emails that should go to the main inbox, multiply the work of managing email, and promote complacency and/or overwhelm. Especially for people—my wife being one of them—with 8,437 unread emails or some such unholy number.

    2. Unsubscribe, unfriend, unfollow

    I don’t get that much email to start with because I subscribe to only what I actually read and what provides consistent value. Everything else: unsubscribe. Without mercy or cessation.

    And I say that as someone who does email marketing for a living!

    Of course I want lots of subscribers and high open rates, both for my professional newsletters and personal one. But as an email recipient I’m very discerning about whom I let into my digital home, just like my physical home. (It helps that I’m not famous or otherwise destined to be unwillingly bombarded with emails.) Email senders need to earn their visits.

    This principle also applies to social media. On the Big Three (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), I relentlessly unfriend and unfollow enough (and turn off email notifications) to render my feeds pleasantly quiet and focused on what I actually want to see.

    3. Actual people > algorithms

    I use an RSS reader (Feedly for over a decade now) to follow most of the newsletters I’d otherwise be getting as emails. Combined with other blogs and sites of interest, it’s become my favorite digital destination—my own little curated corner of the internet. I call it my “fun feed” because it’s always a pleasure to peruse, probably because it consists of actual people, not algorithms.

    Whatever RSS service you choose, find sources that offer value and perspective from outside the frenzied news cycles of social media.

  • Links of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Reading a 2000-year-old postcard.

    3-D scans revealed gigantic Native American cave art in Alabama.

    Get Google search results in reverse-order to see the oldest webpages first.

    The White House has an official record collection thanks to Jimmy Carter.

    A breakdown of “the most insane comeback” in Classic Tetris history.

  • My son’s media of the moment

    A spinoff of an ongoing series

    Bluey. A not-small number of times after watching an episode I’ve thought, “Was that one of the greatest episodes of TV ever?” Hot take: the only TV shows a kid needs, really, are this and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood—the yin and yang of instructive, high-quality children’s entertainment.

    Picture books aplenty. A few he and I have enjoyed in equal measure lately: Creepy Carrots and Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds, Jazz for Lunch by Jarrett Dapier, and Up the Mountain Path by Marianne Dubuc.

    Our Planet. Gave this Planet Earth spinoff on Netflix a whirl with him and he was mesmerized. Nature is so metal.

    YouTube. An amazing learning tool. He learns about volcanoes in a book; check out this compilation of eruptions. He starts t-ball class but has never played baseball before; let’s pull up some highlights of a random game.

    The Okee Dokee Brothers. Always and forever.

  • My home screen

    The funny thing is this looks similar to the last time I shared my home screen, despite having gone through a few different iterations since then.

    But I landed back at the black wallpaper and (even more) minimalist layout for a few reasons:

    • My recent job change allowed me to delete several apps I didn’t need or want anymore, which inspired me to ditch the alphabetically grouped folders for one folder of my most frequently used apps.
    • The ability to remove apps from the home screen without having to fully delete them lets me hide the lesser used ones in the App Library.
    • Keeping most apps out of immediate sight introduces some friction into my device experience, forcing me to use search more often to find things.
    • I want to make my phone as uninteresting and unstimulating as possible in an attempt (perhaps in vain) to use it less.

  • Playground adventures anew

    The playground at the park near my parents’ house is getting renovated, which means the place as I knew it from ages 11-18 will be no more.

    I’m glad for the memories I have from there, many of which are shared with my childhood best friend, Tim, who also lived a block away from the park. We logged countless hours at the basketball court and amidst the playground, making up spy games and other shenanigans.

    The shenanigans have continued into the next generation, with my son and his cousin having romped around the same structures I did. Here they are last summer on the very old and rusty slide:

    They took many, many turns on the slide, engaged in a constant loop of climbing up, sliding down, and running around. The next time we visit that slide will be gone, replaced with another slide for adventures anew.

  • This is the bookend

    After nearly 7 years, today is my last day at my library job.

    It was my first full-time library position after a few part-time jobs out of library school, and for that alone I am immensely grateful.

    Whenever someone asks me how I like working at a library, I say I love it because every day is different. It’s been a blessing to be able to do so many things that were both personally and professionally fulfilling:

    • help patrons at the Info Desk, which inspired both the Refer Madness and Teach Me How to Dewey series
    • resurrect the library’s oral history project
    • shepherd a website/calendar redesign
    • edit the bimonthly print newsletter
    • manage the social media, which inspired my own recent “influencer” career
    • put together the weekly email newsletter, which directly led to my next role in email marketing

    Including grad school, I’ve been in the library world for over 10 years. And though I’m leaving it for the time being, rest assured I’ll remain an avid library patron and advocate. You can take the boy out of the library but you can’t take the library out of the boy.

    After all, as one of my t-shirts says:

    More of my library-related posts:

  • On ‘The Science’ and dedication to reality

    Alan Jacobs:

    There are many reasons why millions of America don’t trust The Science, including belligerence and ignorance, but if you ask me, I would say that the most important reason is illustrated by the stories above: Scientists are sometimes untrustworthy. If they want to rebuild our trust in them, then they should start with three steps:

    1. Practice the self-critical introspection that would enable them to perceive that, because they are human beings, there are some things they very much want to believe and some things they very much want to disbelieve;

    2. Acknowledge those preferences in public;

    3. Show that they are taking concrete steps to guard themselves against motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.

    One of the most transformative concepts I’ve encountered is from M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled. He talks about four pillars of good self-discipline, one of which is “dedication to reality.” (The others: accept responsibility, balancing, and delayed gratification.)

    Peck uses map-making as a metaphor for how we build and understand reality:

    We are not born with maps; we have to make them, and the making requires effort. The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be.

    This effort is really hard work. It means sustained, resilient dedication to updating our maps. But/therefore:

    What happens when one has striven long and hard to develop a working view of the world, a seemingly useful, workable map, and then is confronted with new information suggesting that that view is wrong and the map needs to be largely redrawn? The painful effort required seems frightening, almost overwhelming. What we do more often than not, and usually unconsciously, is to ignore the new information.

    This happens to everyone, not just scientists. Motivated reasoning and confirmation bias are baked into human psychology, which is why they’re so hard to overcome. Hence:

    A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged. The only way that we can be certain that our map of reality is valid is to expose it to the criticism and challenge of other map-makers.

    Which, again: really hard.

    Peck’s metaphor is based on the legacy medium of printed maps but arguably remains even more applicable today, given how Google Maps and the like allow for real-time updates and helpful added layers of useful information like traffic flow, accidents, construction slowdowns, bike paths, and so on.

    Similarly, thanks to the internet, it’s never been easier to encounter new information that either confirms or clashes with one’s existing map of reality.

    So the challenge remains: what to do with that information?

  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Jackass Forever. A dirty, cringey, gut-bustingly funny cinematic soul-cleanse. Bound for my end-of-year top 10 just like the other Jackass movies.

    Everything Everywhere All At Once. I think I need to see this at least twice to fully appreciate it, not for any plot reasons but because it really lives up to its title.

    Winning Time. I enjoyed this HBO Max show enough to keep watching, but not enough to stick with it after the first season ends next week.

    A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. Just started reading this and know already it will be a feast. More to come.

    Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood. Richard Linklater’s latest film synthesizes elements from two of his previous ones: the quotidian nostalgia of Boyhood and the rotoscope animation style of A Waking Life.

    Summer of Soul. The two words that came to me after watching this concert documentary: exuberance and excellence.

    Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan. Three stars for the book itself, five stars for the title.

  • Links of the moment

    An ongoing series

    A digital clock assembled from Google Earth views that resemble numbers.

    NYPL has started digitizing its collection of early 1900s wax cylinder recordings.

    Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid.

    My new favorite movie-based Wordle spinoff: Moviedle.

  • Please (don’t) clap

    Robin Sloan:

    Twitter’s only conclusion can be abandonment: an overdue MySpace-ification. I am totally confident about this prediction, but that’s an easy confidence, because in the long run, we’re all MySpace-ified. The only question, then, is how many more possibilities will go unexplored? How much more time will be wasted?

    Wishful descriptions of Twitter as “the de facto public town square” or “the closest thing we have to a global consciousness” sound, to me, like Peter Pan begging the audience to clap and raise a swooning Tinkerbell.

    You don’t have to clap.

  • The best parenting advice I’ve ever gotten

    The best parenting advice I’ve ever gotten was from my own parent. Per my mom:

    When all else fails, lower your expectations.

    Runner-up is from my other parent. Per my dad:

    Kids spell love T-I-M-E.

  • Come as you are, but be ready to change

    The slogan of the church I attended in middle and high school was “Come as you are”, which was fitting for a nondenominational church in the hyper-liberal, irreligious enclave of Madison, Wisconsin.

    I remember the senior pastor expounding on the slogan during one sermon. He added an addendum that I think transforms it into something even better:

    Come as you are, but be ready to change.

    Removed from a religious context, this sentiment embodies a yes-and approach to life that can translate to many other contexts:

    What’s yours?

  • Six movies at the end

    The small movie theater near me temporarily closed in March 2020 due to COVID, but then sadly never reopened. (The one movie I got to see there before the end was Knives Out—not bad…)

    Whoever closed the building for good clearly didn’t take a peek around the corner, because these movie posters are still on display over two years later:

    For posterity:

    • Minions 2
    • Invisible Man
    • F9
    • Trolls World Tour
    • The Way Back
    • The Hunt

    As a friend of mine replied after I sent a photo of this sad, sun-bleached time capsule of another era: “Not a single one I’d want to hang on my wall, otherwise I’d be making some calls!”

    If COVID had struck just a few months earlier, the posters for Parasite or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood might have graced these cases. But that’s March at the movies for you.

  • Favorite Films of 2001

    I’m creating my movie best-of lists retroactively. See all of them.

    We’re now over 20 years away from the films in question. This means my impressions of the ones I haven’t rewatched somewhat recently are encased in metaphorical amber, for better or worse. It also means I wouldn’t have seen a good number of them until years after they came out, which will grow only truer the farther I go back.

    Regardless, this year’s crop is quite top-heavy, with some all-time keepers landing in my top 4. Contrast those with some all-time stinkers (hello Corky Romano and Pearl Harbor) and it adds up to a notable year at the movies.

    On to the list…

    1. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

    Had to go with my heart on this one, my favorite and the best of the trilogy. (The #1 Trilly.) I’d only vaguely heard of the original books before seeing the trailer on TV. Once I did see the movie in theaters (probably more than once) I was hooked, reading the whole trilogy before Two Towers came out the following year. Because of that familiarity I had with the subsequent films, I especially treasure this one (and its Mt. Rushmore-worthy original score) for the pure cinematic experience it bestowed upon me like a gift from Galadriel. (See more LOTR posts.)

    2. Memento

    Making this #2 was an agonizing decision. Really, Fellowship of the Ring is 1a and Memento is 1b—a dynamic head-and-heart cinematic dyad with vastly different styles yet equally excellent stories and execution. It was my first encounter with Christopher Nolan, Guy Pearce, and the unique thrill of getting my mind blown by a film. (Note: this is listed as a 2000 film on the internet, but that’s when it premiered at a film festival and I only consider a film’s wide release date to be its official one.)

    3. Ocean’s Eleven

    One of the most rewatchable movies ever.

    4. Zoolander

    One of the most quotable movies ever.

    5. Enemy at the Gates

    This was one of a handful of war movies released around this time—along with Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot, and We Were Soldiers to name a few—that helped to define that genre for me, for better or worse. And this is definitely one of the better ones thanks to the performances by Jude Law, Ed Harris, and Rachel Weisz.

    6. The Royal Tenenbaums

    Peak Wes Anderson in the best way.

    7. Escanaba in Da Moonlight

    Written and directed by Jeff Daniels, a Michigan native, this small and delightful indie focuses on the peculiarities of hunting culture in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Read my review.

    8. Black Hawk Down

    Add this one to my aforementioned “war movie canon” as well.

    9. Monsters, Inc.

    Even second-tier Pixar like this is still first-rate compared to animated movies in general.

    10. The Mummy Returns

    What a year for Rachel Weisz! If Dagmara Dominczyk in The Count of Monte Cristo was my 2002 cinematic crush, Weisz in this swashbuckling (if kinda silly) sequel was my 2001 one—and not just because she’s a librarian.

    Honorable mentions:

    • Bandits
    • A Beautiful Mind
    • Shrek
    • Legally Blonde
    • Amélie
    • America’s Sweethearts
    • Rat Race

  • Fine free fate

    What happened when New York Public Libraries eliminated overdue fines last fall? Exactly what always happens when libraries go fine free:

    A wave of returned overdue materials came crashing in, accompanied by a healthy increase (between 9 and 15 percent, depending on the borough) of returning visitors.

    Since last fall, more than 21,000 overdue or lost items have been returned in Manhattan, some so old that they were no longer in the library’s system. About 51,000 items were returned in Brooklyn between Oct. 6 through the end of February. And more than 16,000 were returned in Queens.

    Any library that hasn’t eliminated overdue fees by now is either so strapped for cash that they can’t survive without the (negligible) revenue fines provide—or someone in charge (usually on the board of trustees) has dug in their heels against the mission of libraries. Either way they’ve got some explaining to do.

  • Links of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Abraham Lincoln and the telegraph (which he called “lightning messages”).

    Cruise around Google Maps with Driving Simulator.

    Framed is Wordle for movies.

    100 easy ways to slightly improve your life.

  • Long live the limited podcast series

    My recent experience with the Band of Brothers podcast made me realized I’m very much a fan of the modern trend of “official” companion podcasts released alongside limited series by the show’s creators—Watchmen and Station Eleven being two recent examples I enjoyed and appreciated.

    These are slightly different beasts from the popular post hoc recap podcasts of long-running sitcoms like Office Ladies and Parks and Recollection (two other favorites). Such pods return to their shows years after they ended and usually require a much bigger time investment, given the protracted length of traditional TV shows.

    A notable and early hybrid of these approaches: the Official LOST Podcast, hosted by LOST showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. It ran concurrently with the show from 2005-2010 and was probably the first podcast I and many others ever followed. Listening to it meant subscribing via iTunes and then syncing new episodes to my good ol’ click-wheel iPod.

    Regardless of the structure, all of these podcasts have the benefit of access to cast, crew, and behind-the-scenes insights you can’t get elsewhere. But you really have to love the original show and the podcast hosts to make them worth your while.

    (In that way they’re like modern iterations of DVD commentaries. Which, though eclipsed by the rise of streaming and decline of physical media, are still alive. And long may they live.)

  • Recent Views

    More photography here and on my Instagram.

    Into the tundra:

    A ghostly window creature:

    3 year old was “helping” me clean out the car on a warmer day by “fixing” a headrest with a wrench, but all you can really see is the reflection of the sun and clouds in the rear window:

    Among the pines:

    Stumbled upon this view (while walking on a bike path under a bridge), in which the sunlight hitting the dirty creek water formed an X-ceptional angle:

    More shapely, shadowy scenes on aforementioned walk: