Just a brief tiding on this peaceful night to remind all of thee that I appreciate your readership and support. To make up for my recent lack of productivity every subscriber to Magination will be comped a 90-day paid subscription (except those of you who paid for an annual subscription, who are being comped a full year).
comped: short for “compensated”? I don’t know. But check this out…
perq: short for “perquisite.”
Did you know that’s where the misspelled term “perks” comes from? As in “that’s one of the perks of the job”? I didn’t know.
My hands have slowly been healing, to the point I can now type for over an hour.
I’ve been gearing and reconfiguring for expansion onto more platforms, and into video.
To study a subject I believe will be on everyone’s mind soon, my latest geographical relocation is to an area I would normally consider too cold for my desert-ready blood. By accident, I acquired a studio coach here who insists on teaching me professional video-making skills, which I am told I lack.
And one town away will be an isolation booth I have access to, for better audio recording.
Lo, by seeking to be close to a subject I have wanted for months to complete a research essay on I find myself surrounded by resources to launch a hundred other latent bottlerockets, far away from the busy streets and tall buildings I’ve made my many residences betwixt—Tehran, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Dallas, Denver, et cetera—and do you know what this city boy is enjoying the most in these cold, small towns?
The politeness.
Wait. Did you guess? I should have given you time to guess.
This is Gao Yaojie—may she rest in peace—a doctor and citizen of China who did what doctors and citizens are supposed to do, totalitarian self-censorship be damned. She is one of a growing list of Chinese folk who inspire me the way only Iranians used to.
This is a new network being started by a man I used to call “that #@&%er Carlson.”
For the humility he has displayed in his about-face turn away from the narratives he used to lend his voice to, and the honesty he has modeled for disaffected liberals and a now rowdy and growing populist Right (since being trapdoored from FOX News last Spring), I now respect Tucker more than anyone in mainstream media okay that’s a low bar never mind.
And this is Pickaxe, a new blogging and podcasting platform dedicated to staying uncensored, launching early in 2024. Its plan prices are very good, so spread the URL (pickaxe.media) if you know anyone who might be interested, because it’s already being challenged in search engines by an AI-powered video platform with the same name, and because we need more american media in America.
american: adj. of, or pertaining to things or people considered American in origin, or culturally typical to the United States of America, but not referring to their legal citizenship. “That american Canadian author fled Canada ever since it changed to the WEF’s Cashless Constituency of Canadia. I hope he doesn’t act canadian once he gets his American citizenship back. That would undercut the legacy of all that american-ass cyberpunk he used to write.”
I’m convinced by the many political commentators who worry 2024 may be the year that a growing number of populists and independents clinging to the dangers of free speech overthrow “our democracy.”
I’ve also recently heard it called The Year of No Excuses.
Together then, let’s…