Category: Aesthetics

  • Incursions of Memory

    A delightful podcast provoked three unexpected memories and a think about the differences between coincidence and serendipity. Let me start with a PSA: if you have any affection for or curiosity about Shakespeare, then don’t miss the delightful book Shakespeare: the Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea, which is part discussion about…

  • Can You Only GenAI Your Way to the Middle?

    Should we take seriously a recent study that shows people like AI-generated poetry? And what are the broader implications? A few days ago, La Profesora sent me an intriguing link to a Poetry Turing Test set up by a couple of philosophers at the University of Pittsburgh. The test is a simple Google Form that presents the…

  • Tempest on a Toy Box

    Mattel printed the wrong URL on the back of the boxes of toys for the new “Wicked” movie, which was not good, but just how bad was it? Lady Sneerwell in Sheridan’s School for Scandal observes, “There’s no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature: the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes…

  • Are There Unpersuadable People?

    In this election season when we’re all getting hundreds of daily messages attempting to persuade us, most aren’t effective. I return to earlier work about persuasion with new thoughts. I’ve been writing about persuasion for years, long before the birth of The Dispatch. Back in August of 2023, I tried to decant a lot of my…

  • Serendipity Engines

    In commerce, there’s an incalculable difference between search and discovery. Discovery requires serendipity, and there’s no better source of serendipity than independent bookstores. Wednesday, I was in Eugene, a small Oregon city a couple hours south of Portland. I dropped into the legendary Smith Family Bookstore, where I found a $4.00 copy of Violent Spring by Gary Phillips,…

  • 13 Ways of Looking at Brands

    Brands have different functions in our lives, some easy to understand and some that deserve extra pondering. A few days ago, my friend Om Malik reached out with these questions about brands: I am thinking about something and wanted to get a better idea of what it means to be a music artist or a media company…

  • Cheating at Wordle

    In which I confess to a weak moment that also has some interesting implications, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. Bless me, Reader, for I have sinned. La Profesora and I aren’t competitive when the stakes are real, but this mutual support does not apply to vicious games of Gin Rummy or to…

  • Time Travel, Analog and Digital

    The right stimulus makes the present disappear, but how are analog and digital moments of time travel different? Typically, we imagine time travel as deliberate, if often improvisational: Marty jumps into the DeLorean to escape the bad guys; the Enterprise crew kidnaps whales from twentieth century California; Sam Beckett puts right what once went wrong,…

  • Jokes, Puns, Politics, and Other Nonsense

    Why do we laugh at jokes but groan at puns? And what does this have to do with politics and Experience Stacks? (Issue #109) Here’s a puzzler: why do we laugh at jokes but groan at puns? I admit this is an overgeneralization. Not every joke is funny, and not every pun is groan worthy, but it’s not a…

  • Experience Stacks and Matthew Perry (R.I.P.)

    When social media surfaced a clip of the late “Friends” star on “The West Wing,” it activated crashing contexts that explain how Experience Stacks work and why they can be powerful. I am more aware of Matthew Perry after his premature death last October than I ever was while he was still alive. In part…