Chad Comello

Tag: writing

  • Mundane is magic

    Gracy Olmstead is back with another excellent issue of her Granola newsletter, this time on mundanity, the mind, and AI:

    While doing the mundane, we lose ourselves in process and place. The mundane roots us in the present, stubbornly refusing the demands of clock or calendar. It will take as much time as it requires. And so we pull at a thread of argument, uproot weed after weed, or sweep every nook and cranny until the room is clean. We sink into a new experience of time and place, in which everything diminishes but the now and here. Ironically (and sometimes, maddeningly) we may have to do it all again: Sit down to rewrite, hone, edit, and polish. Return to the nasty weeds that pop up day after day. Tackle the dust and grime of another week.

    Yes, the mundane is not always pretty. What these experiences shape is not always a finished product that we can hold up and boast about. Sometimes, yes. But not always. What is always true is that these processes are shaping and honing us. They are showing us who we are, how to be, and what it means to think and live. The work of the mundane tethers us to place, to our bodies, to the people we love and live with, and—perhaps in a way I never realized before AI—to our minds themselves.

    If the mundane elements of our lives show us who we are, how to be, and what it means to think and live, then what will become of us when we outsource that being, thinking, and living to AI or other ideologies? We sacrifice those essential elements of existence and become their opposite: nothing.

    And as it becomes ever more evident that relying on AI degrades your critical thinking skills and cognitive abilities, putting your mind to work matters even more. But why? Olmstead nails it here:

    Because it’s the process of slogging through an argument—feeling out its contours and edges, remolding and reshaping them like a potter—that teaches us how to think. Strong arguments do not spring fully formed from the mind. They simmer and stew. They emerge half-formed, and have to be reshaped. Essays materialize when you start to write, and realize you did not yet know what you thought. In the process of verbalizing thoughts, there is room to grow, stretch, and challenge the mind. There is even room to change your mind. AI short circuits this opportunity—in giving us what we ask for, it in fact steals opportunities for growth. It cheats the process of becoming that the mundane offers.

    This really spoke to me in relation to writing specifically, whether for this blog or Cinema Sugar. Some writers bemoan the writing process itself, slow and tedious and frustrating as it can be. “I love having written something” goes the trite phrase. And it’s indeed satisfying to finally arrive at the end product. But I also love being in the weeds of the thing. Thinking and rethinking, writing and rewriting, arranging and rearranging, rinse and repeat—that time spent with my hands in the metaphorical dirt, in the mundane, is where the real magic happens.

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  • Tyrannies and typewriters

    Richard Polt typecasting about why we need typewriters in our age of AI and authoritarianism:

    When you choose to write with a typewriter, you are quixotically, nobly flying in the face of the assumption that good = fast, efficient, perfect, and productive. Type your gloriously imperfect, expending ineffiencient time and energy — and declare that you still care about human work, and that the process of creation and understanding still matters more to you than the slick products of the machines. …

    As for authoritarianism, it is happy to use digital technology to watch us, punish us, and entice us. A soft totalitarianism, with hard pain for those who aren’t pacified by easy consumption and pointless posturing, is becoming the new model of political control. …

    Again, typewriters offer one humble but real form of resistance. As in the days of samizdat behind the Iron Curtain, even in “the land of the free” there is a need to find words without compromising with the digital systems that are increasingly under tyrannical control.

    Tyrannies have always failed to contain lovers and writers. We must love to write, and write what we love — with the writing tools that we love.

    Read his whole piece, read the Typewriter Manifesto, then get typing.

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  • Blogging now and then

    CJ Chilvers:

    According to research by Neil Patel, 59.2% of traffic to blogs is driven by SEO. It’s the biggest single driver of traffic by far.

    Neil found that if your site is 10 or more years old, 44% percentage of the pages on your site could be considered “irrelevant” by search engines. The more irrelevant pages your site has, the more it suffers in search ranking.

    In other words, Google doesn’t understand what makes for good publishing on the web.

    My question is: irrelevant how, and according to whom? Google’s almighty black box of an algorithm that has already changed in the time it took to write this sentence?

    Imagine if your photo library was subjected to the same treatment. “Google thinks this cool photo I took is irrelevant, so I guess I’ll delete it even though it captures a meaningful moment in my life.”

    I’ve been blogging for 18 years and not once in that time have I considered the SEO implications of my writing. I don’t even look at view stats. I suppose that could be considered a luxury since my blog is not a business and I don’t have a large enough readership to capitalize on. I’m also fully aware that my full archive of 1,200+ posts to date are important to no one but me.

    Google is about now now now. That’s its business, but it’s none of mine. Blogging is about now and then. The experience of capturing what’s on your mind now and making connections with what’s come before.

    I echo CJ’s advice: 

    Don’t worry about what Google wants. It’ll change tomorrow. As will Google’s dominance.

    Post as much or as little as you want. It’s your place.

    Post whatever keeps you interested and publishing for the long term.

    Post whatever helps you build a stronger connection with your audience.

    Looking back at your archives helps you re-discover connections you’ve forgotten. It helps your readers do the same.

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  • The seven year etch, or why am I paper resistant?

    In what amounts to a positively glacial pace, I finally managed to fill up the small pocket Moleskine notebook I’ve been carrying around for seven years:

    It was given to me by my friend Jason, an artist who founded Geocommunetrics and gave it this unique cover design:

    It was tucked in my backpack for most of that time and proved useful here and there for personal and professional notes, checklists, and all the other miscellany these small yet mighty tools are good for.

    Why so long though? As much as I’d love to be a dedicated notebook person, I’m just more prone to using Apple Notes and other digital notetaking methods because my phone is always with me or nearby. Plus the ability to keyword search. Keeping a notebook and pencil within the same vicinity, accessibility, and consistency feels like a heavier lift—not to mention handwriting being a more time-consuming than quickly tapping things out.

    I say this as someone who deeply believes in analog tech and the preservation of tangibility, whether through typewriters or vinyl or indeed paper. I also understand all the psychological benefits of journaling and handwriting, and every time I look back at what I do manage to get down on paper I’m grateful for having that in my own historical record. But that hasn’t been quite enough for me to get over the cognitive hump of making it a daily practice.

    People who use paper consistently while also having a digital job: how do you do it? What methods have you found useful and why?

    Drop a digital comment with your thoughts!

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  • Writes and thinks

    Excerpts (though you should read the whole thing) from Paul Graham’s dissection of writes and write-nots:

    The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it’s fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.

    And yet writing pervades many jobs, and the more prestigious the job, the more writing it tends to require.

    These two powerful opposing forces, the pervasive expectation of writing and the irreducible difficulty of doing it, create enormous pressure. 

    Not anymore. AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both in school and at work.

    Is that so bad? Isn’t it common for skills to disappear when technology makes them obsolete? There aren’t many blacksmiths left, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem.

    Yes, it’s bad. The reason is something I mentioned earlier: writing is thinking. In fact there’s a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing.

    So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.

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  • On good and gobbledygook writing

    Rivaling Winston Churchill’s missive on brevity, this 1944 memo by Maury Maverick is the first known use of the word gobbledygook and dishes out some hard truths about good writing:

    Be short and use Plain English.

    Memoranda should be as short as clearness will allow. The Naval officer who wired “Sighted Sub — Sank Same” told the whole story.

    Put the real subject matter — the point — and even the conclusion, in the opening paragraph and the whole story on one page. Period! If a lengthy explanation, statistical matter, or such is necessary, use attachments.

    Stay off gobbledygook language. It only fouls people up. For the Lord’s sake, be short and say what you’re talking about. Let’s stop “pointing-up” programs, “finalizing” contracts that “stem from” district, regional or Washington “levels”. There are no “levels” — local government is as high as Washington Government. No more patterns, effectuating, dynamics. Anyone using the words “activation” or “implementation” will be shot.

    Via Daring Fireball

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  • Barbenheimer: screenwriting edition

    Well, not exactly, but Christopher Nolan’s recent appearance on the Scriptnotes podcast was excellent and inspired me to check out Greta Gerwig’s 2020 appearance for Little Women too. Both have really thoughtful things to say about the craft of writing and how it relates to moviemaking.

    Here’s Gerwig on the ache of absence in Little Women:

    I realized that once they’re all in their separate lives—like once Amy is in Europe, once Meg is married, once Beth is living at home but sick, and Jo is in New York trying to sell stories—they are never all together again. The thing that we think of as Little Women has already passed. And I think that ache and that absence of the togetherness and that absence of the sisterhood as being the way that we contextualize these cozy scenes brought out something in me that felt was inherent in the text.

    And:

    And then beyond that this relationship of Louisa to the text and me to the text, I think that what artists do is you write it down because you can’t save anyone’s life. I think that’s part of what the impulse is. I can’t save your life, but I can write it down. And I can’t get that moment back, but I can write it down.

    This idea is reflected in the exchange near the end of the movie:

    JO: Who will be interested in a story of domestic struggles and joys? It doesn’t have any real importance.

    AMY: Maybe we don’t see those things as important because people don’t write about them.

    JO: No, writing doesn’t confer importance, it reflects it.

    AMY: Perhaps writing will make them more important.

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  • A new home for ‘The Wedding Singer at NCC’

    Back in early 2011 I produced a photo documentary of the student-directed stage musical production of The Wedding Singer at North Central College, where I’d graduated the year before.

    I set up shop on Tumblr and documented the behind-the-scenes process over the 10-week period. It was fun to watch the show come together from the first rehearsal to the final bow, and I ended up with a nice audiovisual project for my portfolio.

    But when I saw the news that Tumblr was being left out to pasture, I wanted to find a new home for this project. So I created a fresh WordPress blog, transferred the posts and photos from Tumblr, cleaned them up a bit, and voilà:

    nccweddingsinger.wordpress.com

    It was fun to relive this journey as I set up its new digital home. I’m really proud of the shots I was able to get and the journalistic storytelling as a whole, which included cast/crew interviews alongside the day-to-day dispatches.

    Read it for yourself. I set up the posts chronologically, so you can start at the homepage and go from there.

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  • Cut the intro

    Robin Rendle preaching the truth:

    Here’s one way to improve the thing you’re writing: cut the intro.

    Writing about the symbiosis between trees and mushrooms? Don’t start talking about how humanity has depended on trees since the blah blah blah. Just jump right in! Talking about new features in your app? Don’t start with the fluffy stuff about how excited you are to announce yada yada ya – just tell me what improved.

    Boom! The text is lighter, faster, less wasteful.

    I get why folks feel the need to add a fluffy intro though. There’s real pressure to make a big deal out of whatever it is and turn everything we write into a thundering manifesto because we have to set up all this context and history, right? Well – no! We absolutely do not and often when we do our writing will mostly suffer for it.

    Couldn’t agree more. And no disclaimers!

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  • Write thank-you notes to your favorite authors

    Literally: find a favorite (not dead) author’s website and use their contact form to send them a message with specifics about why you like them.

    I’ve done this several times. The nice thing is they’re usually very accessible and responsive, maybe because they tend not to get the same kind of public praise as actors, musicians, and other more glamorous artists.

    Of course this does depend on the author’s level of fame. My favorites tend to be nonfiction writers with an approachable-enough profile to still be accessible by civilians, so if your favorite author is a Cormac McCarthy type then you’re SOL.

    You can do this over social media, but a mere “Love your work!” doesn’t have the same effect as a more detailed note, which both proves you’re actually a fan and gives them the fuel to keep going and making more stuff you enjoy.

    Anyway, try it sometime.

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  • 17 years

    Today marks the 17th anniversary of my very first blog post.

    Thanks to everyone who has read and shared my scribbles in that time. I’m very proud of the body of work I’ve made and hope you’ll continue following along.

    Wanna browse the archives? Check out my film and books pages, along with the various topics and passion projects I’ve touched on over the years.

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  • How to make time for art

    I noticed three writers posted about similar things around the same time, so I thought I ought to pay attention…

    Oliver Burkeman:

    In the end, the reason actually doing things matters so much isn’t because it’s the right way to raise a successful adult, complete a novel, or achieve some other beneficial future goal. It’s because you’ll be using a bit of your actual time on the planet to live how you want to live.

    Mandy Brown:

    It turns out, not doing their art was costing them time, was draining it away, little by little, like a slow but steady leak. They had assumed, wrongly, that there wasn’t enough time in the day to do their art, because they assumed (because we’re conditioned to assume) that every thing we do costs time. But that math doesn’t take energy into account, doesn’t grok that doing things that energize you gives you time back. By doing their art, a whole lot of time suddenly returned. Their art didn’t need more time; their time needed their art.

    Austin Kleon:

    The way I show up for myself, the way I discover who I really am, is to make an appointment every day to show up to the page. If I show up to the page, I show up to myself.

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  • Journalism is just the art of capturing behavior

    The opening monologue of the 2003 film Shattered Glass:

    Some reporters think it’s political content that makes a story memorable. I think it’s the people you find… their quirks, their flaws, what makes them funny, what makes them human. Journalism is just the art of capturing behavior. You have to know who you’re writing for. And you have to know what you’re good at. I record what people do, I find out what moves them, what scares them, and I write that down. That way, they are the ones telling the story.

    The irony of this is that the film is about the Stephen Glass journalism scandal and the speaker is Stephen Glass himself, an unreliable narrator if there ever was one. So while the surface-level meaning of the words is true and compelling, you can’t ignore the second meaning that is informed by the “people” Glass refers to—the ones that never existed and that he made up for the sake of a good story.

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  • A spoonful of Cinema Sugar

    I’m very excited to share a new thing I’m part of that’s now live on the internet: Cinema Sugar, a website/newsletter/social media destination for people who love to see, think about, and talk about movies.

    Our mission statement:

    We are not interested in celebrity culture. We are not interested in hate-watching, takedowns, or tasteless criticism. We believe movies make life sweeter.

    It started as an idea from my pal and Chicagoland singer-songwriter Kevin Prchal, with whom I love to nerd out about movies and movie culture. We’ve been building out the brand and website for the last month and a half or so, and are thrilled it’s finally out in the world.

    Each month will be dedicated to a different theme or genre, featuring top fives, interviews, curated playlists, movie night guides, personal essays, and so much more.

    For September’s theme of High School Movies, I have an essay on what I learned from high school movie parties, which were so alien to my own high-school experience.

    We’ve got a lot more cool stuff coming, so please check out the website, sign up for the newsletter, and join us on social media to talk movies with your fellow movie lovers.

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  • It’s Chadabout time

    Well, I done did it—I started a newsletter.

    It’s called Chadabout and it’ll be a monthly digest of my writing from this blog, plus other things of interest from real life and around the web.

    No spam, no ads, no algorithms—just words and links sent with love from your favorite librarian, cinephile, and typewriterist.

    A newsletter, huh?

    I know, I know: Another newsletter by a straight white dude?

    Let me make two things clear: it’s not on Substack (it’s on the minimalist Buttondown) and it’s fully free. Not free for two weeks then paywalled—100% free.

    My readership, as humble as it is, has been pretty spread out between WordPress, my various social accounts, and individual-post email followers. I figured this would be the best way to have a direct line to people who are interested in an occasional update on what I’ve been up to.

    Fear not: writing on ChadComello.com will remain my priority and labor of love, as it has since 2006. This newsletter is just a supplemental tool for spreading the good word of my work.

    I’m in, now what?

    You can read the first issue here. It includes the origin of “Chadabout” along with some links I enjoyed, a recommendation, a quote, and a question I hope you’ll respond to.

    If you follow this blog via email or WordPress you should have gotten the first issue already. If not, head here to subscribe via email or RSS.

    Regardless, thanks for reading my stuff, however you do it.

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  • Winston Churchill’s memo on brevity

    I’m reading Erik Larson’s latest book The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz and appreciated his spotlighting a memo Churchill sent out to his cabinet with the title “Brevity.” Highlights:

    To do our work, we all have to read a mass of papers. Nearly all of them are far too long. This wastes time, while energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points.

    I ask my colleagues and their staffs to see to it that their Reports are shorter. …

    Let us have an end of such phrases as these: “It is also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations…”, or “Consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect…”. Most of these woolly phrases are mere padding, which can be left out altogether, or replaced by a single word. Let us not shrink from using the short expressive phrase, even if it is conversational.

    Reports drawn up on the lines I propose may at first seem rough as compared with the flat surface of officialese jargon. But the saving in time will be great, while the discipline of setting out the real points concisely will prove an aid to clearer thinking.

    Despite being a fan of all things typewritten, I don’t envy all the poor secretaries who had to bang out said “woolly phrases” in countless memos and copies of memos and replies to memos—all of which would have required a lot more physical exertion than whipping out an email does today.

    The full memo:

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  • Lowercase truths

    Bret Stephens, in a column on the New York Times’s 1619 Project:

    Journalists are, most often, in the business of writing the first rough draft of history, not trying to have the last word on it. We are best when we try to tell truths with a lowercase t, following evidence in directions unseen, not the capital-T truth of a pre-established narrative in which inconvenient facts get discarded. And we’re supposed to report and comment on the political and cultural issues of the day, not become the issue itself.

    “The last word” is a specious concept that doesn’t exist except in fiction. (Besides, what if we’re wrong?) Everyone—not just journalists—ought to befriend lowercase truths, even when it’s hard. Or as Relient K puts it in “The Truth”:

    I’ll put the emphasis on the evidence
    Begging for the proof
    Sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth

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  • My favorite notetaking apps

    C.J. Chilvers wrote about the pros and cons of popular notetaking tools. Out of the four he features—Apple Notes, Evernote, Ulysses, and Bear—I have used two previously, and none currently. So, having already examined my favored podcasts and newsletters, here’s a look at the tools I do use and why I use them.

    Paper

    The once and future king of all notetaking apps. I keep a plain, pocket-sized Moleskine in my backpack for odds and ends, a larger journal as a daily diary and scrapbook (previously a Moleskine classic hardcover and currently a Zequenz 360), and a good ol’ composition notebook for my filmlog.

    WorkFlowy

    Dynamic, lightweight list-making with blessed few bells and whistles. Perfect for hierarchical thinking, tasks, and anything else you can put into a list. It’s built for marking tasks complete, but I use it mostly as an archive for reference, split between Work and Personal. Plus a To Do list at top for quick capture of tasks.

    Simplenote

    Good for taking quick notes in plain text. I often use it for first drafts of blog posts, taking book notes, and whatever else I need a basic text editor for. Helpful when trying to remove formatting from text you want to paste cleanly elsewhere—”text laundering” as I call it. Clean, simple, works well on the web and mobile.

    Google Drive

    For when Simplenote isn’t enough. Good for collaboration and as a document repository. Among other things my Logbook spreadsheet is there, as are lots of work-related docs, random files shared with my wife, my archive of book reviews, and my Book Notes doc filled with (at present) 121 single-spaced pages of notes and quotes from 108 books.

    Apple Reminders

    Used mostly for sharing shopping lists with my wife, because it’s easy to regenerate lists from completed items. Unfortunately it doesn’t sync well between devices without WiFi, which is a bummer when we’re out shopping.

    Google Calendar

    Google, don’t you ever get rid of Calendar. I mean it. Some former Google products had it coming, but you’re gonna ride or die with Gmail and Calendar, ya hear?

    Dropbox

    Essential for quick and easy file backup. Through referrals and other incentives over the years I’ve accumulated 5.63 GB in free storage on top of the 2 GB default. I’m using over 95% of it.

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