What I Read
I officially started my graduate certificate program in science communication, so now that I’m back in school, most of my reading is for class. I'm reading Ian Boyd’s Science and Politics along with essays and articles about the politicization of science and the scientization of politics. It’s fascinating but also mentally tiring. As a brain break, my fun reading has been pretty light this month. I picked up R.L. Stine’s latest installment in the House of Shivers series, The Last Sleepover, at the Library of Congress National Book Festival. I haven’t read the other books in this series yet, but I really enjoyed this one! Siblings Rory and Lily move into an old rundown home that their parents have spent months renovating and outfitting with all the latest technology, including a smart device called Mastermind that controls everything. But what happens when something sinister takes over Mastermind? Several years ago, Stine spoke about the challenges of writing scary stories in a modern world:
"You have to get rid of the phone when you’re writing the book. Everyone has a phone now and everyone can just call for help."
My middle grade WIP is a Black Mirror meets The Baby-sitters Club series, and the first book centers around a cell phone, so I found this advice a little discouraging. If The Last Sleepover is any indication, Stine has changed his tune and has leaned into the spooky stories we can tell with modern technology.
I also read Eric Colossal's newest graphic novel, Ghost Town. I've been reading more graphic novels lately and this is one of my favorites so far. It features a group of friends who investigate spooky happenings in their hometown. The friends use process and problem-solving, something author Jason Pargin talked about in a recent video, with trips to their local library and archive to solve the mystery.
What I Watched
Earlier this month the Brooklyn Academy of Music held its film festival, including a series called Paul Reubens Selects curated by Pee-wee as Himself director Matt Wolf. The series featured 16 films that inspired or influenced Paul. One of my favorite quotes by Japanese poet Matsu Bashō is "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought." In other words, study your fave’s faves. Paul is one of my ultimate faves, so getting a glimpse into the media that shaped him sounded incredible. I wasn’t able to go to New York to attend the festival, so I made a list of the films and sat down to watch them starting with Paul’s all-time favorite movie, A Face in the Crowd.
Boy does this movie pack a punch! Everyman Andy Griffith is at his most sinister with a warning about the rise of influencers and cult of personality, as well as what happens when the public turns on you. The parallels to Paul's own rise to fame and media-driven fall from grace in the 1990s are profound, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about the final scene. It’s streaming for free on Tubi, but I loved it so much I bought a physical copy from Criterion Collection, along with the preorder of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure which is due out in December!
What I Listened To
This is a little bit of a cheat since it’s something I watched as well as listened to, but earlier this month I cut the cord on my last paid streaming service. My two exceptions are a subscription to PBS Passport through an annual donation to my local station, and a subscription to Masterclass. I’ve subscribed to Masterclass for a few years and I love the abundance of classes led by some of the industry’s leading figures. Creativity and Filmmaking with David Lynch! Science and Problem-Solving with Bill Nye! Writing for Young Audiences with R.L. Stine!
Remember: seek what they sought.
Anything that allows me to step into the brain of some of my favorite thinkers and creative inspirations is worth its weight in gold. This month I listened to LeVar Burton’s The Power of Storytelling as well as Noam Chomsky’s class on Independent Thinking and Media’s Invisible Powers. My favorite thing about Masterclass is that it’s easy to turn on and listen to while working on other tasks around the home. Though, more often than not, I find myself sitting down in an armchair to furiously scribble down notes. Both of this month's classes helped with my non-fiction writing project to teach kids how to be curious and think critically. Click here for a guest pass which grants you a free trial for two weeks!
What I Thought About
I have a confession to make. I don’t really like social media. I love the Internet, but I think social media has generally done more harm than good. We saw the worst of it play out earlier this month with the shooting of conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of opinions about his life and death, there is no denying that social media impacted every single part of this story. From his rise among Gen Z youth by building his platform on short-form content and soundbites that algorithms love, to the alleged shooter being so chronically online that he engraved memes onto the bullets and confessed to the killing in a Discord chat, to the gruesome videos of the shooting that spread like wildfire across platforms with little to no content moderation, to the doxxing and firing of people who expressed negative opinions about Charlie online in the wake of his death. Lost in the noise is the scary fact that this is exactly the kind of content social media loves. Social media is at least partly to blame for the breakdown of civil political discourse by its very nature of rewarding inflammatory content and creating individualized echo chambers that trick us into thinking that what we see and value is what everyone else does too. Cal Newport put out what I think is one of the better assessments of this entire situation with a simple call to action – maybe now is the time to delete social media.
I don’t think social media is inherently evil, but I do think the systems that underpin it can be. Mark Zuckerberg might have started Facebook 22 years ago as a way to bring people together (he actually did it to rate the attractiveness of his female classmates), but it didn’t take long for it to morph into a data gobbling monster happy to sell our personal information to the highest bidder. That monster seems downright cute compared to the other ways social media has been used and abused in more recent years. Is there a way for us to engage with these tools that doesn’t actively harm our mental health, put our private information at risk, or contribute to the decline of civil society? I want to believe there is. Maybe it’s time to repurpose these tools for our own use and values. Maybe it’s time, like my new friend pagemelt said in their recent video essay, to become our own algorithm.
I don’t know what that looks like in practice or at scale, but it’s something I’d like to find out. In last month’s recap, I wrote that I’m trying to figure out how I want to exist and operate online. As a creative, there are things I want to share with the world. Social media lets me do that, but it’s subject to the mercy of their algorithms. Either I have to accept my fate and hope that the viral gods reward me, pander to their definition of high-engagement content by modifying my creative expression, try to game the system, or resign myself to the fact that I could spend hours on something (like this recap) only to have a handful of people see it. That’s especially true if I silo my creative output by hosting it independently on my website instead of someplace like Substack, which describes itself as "a new economic engine for culture." All the while, I’m asking myself a bunch of questions like why does my work need to be seen to feel validated? Isn’t it enough to simply put it into the world? What if I offend the wrong person? What if nobody cares about what I have to say? This constant swirling of thoughts and questions makes the entire process feel overwhelming, and as soon as I find myself doing something for engagement instead of creative fulfillment, I start to pull back from wanting to participate at all. There was a time when social media was fun, when it truly was a social space to share ideas, music, art, and more with likeminded people. I want to believe it can be that way again, but I don’t think that change will come from the top. It has to come from us.
What I Did
I attended the Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. for the very first time! Even though I’ve lived in D.C. for the better part of a decade, I’ve never gone to the festival. When I moved back to D.C. from California a few months ago for work, I decided to take advantage of all the unique things D.C. has to offer instead of complaining about what I was losing by leaving Los Angeles. I was absolutely blown away by the festival. There were thousands of people from all walks of life who showed up for a love of books and reading and learning. PBS was there and their table was swarmed by supporters. The Institute of Library and Museum Services had a reading road trip with booths from every state and U.S. territory offering stamps and swag. My favorite panel was called Seeing Is Believing? American Hoaxes and Scams with David Baron and Leah Sottile. They talked about the prevalence of pseudoscience and misbelief throughout American history, from belief in Martians and other little green men to the rise in New Age influence on American culture during the COVID-19 pandemic. I picked up both of their books to add to my TBR in October.
What I’m Looking Forward To in October
It is officially Fall AKA spooky season! The leaves have started to change colors, and the weather is finally starting to turn a little crisp in the morning. I’m looking forward to cooking some cool weather recipes, watching some scary (and not so scary) movies, and celebrating Halloween. I’m going to see R.L. Stine speak at a local library, which I'm really excited about since I missed him at the LOC festival. Maybe I'll get a chance to ask him about his stance on cell phones now!
Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment in my guestbook. P.S. Inspired by pagemelt, I've created an RSS feed for my blog! Copy this link https://kdkemp.com/main/feed.xml then paste it into your favorite RSS reader. I use Inoreader.
Boy does this movie pack a punch! Everyman Andy Griffith is at his most sinister with a warning about the rise of influencers and cult of personality, as well as what happens when the public turns on you. The parallels to Paul's own rise to fame and media-driven fall from grace in the 1990s are profound, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about the final scene. It’s streaming for free on Tubi, but I loved it so much I bought a physical copy from Criterion Collection, along with the preorder of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure which is due out in December!
What I Listened To
This is a little bit of a cheat since it’s something I watched as well as listened to, but earlier this month I cut the cord on my last paid streaming service. My two exceptions are a subscription to PBS Passport through an annual donation to my local station, and a subscription to Masterclass. I’ve subscribed to Masterclass for a few years and I love the abundance of classes led by some of the industry’s leading figures. Creativity and Filmmaking with David Lynch! Science and Problem-Solving with Bill Nye! Writing for Young Audiences with R.L. Stine!
Remember: seek what they sought.
Anything that allows me to step into the brain of some of my favorite thinkers and creative inspirations is worth its weight in gold. This month I listened to LeVar Burton’s The Power of Storytelling as well as Noam Chomsky’s class on Independent Thinking and Media’s Invisible Powers. My favorite thing about Masterclass is that it’s easy to turn on and listen to while working on other tasks around the home. Though, more often than not, I find myself sitting down in an armchair to furiously scribble down notes. Both of this month's classes helped with my non-fiction writing project to teach kids how to be curious and think critically. Click here for a guest pass which grants you a free trial for two weeks!
What I Thought About
I have a confession to make. I don’t really like social media. I love the Internet, but I think social media has generally done more harm than good. We saw the worst of it play out earlier this month with the shooting of conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of opinions about his life and death, there is no denying that social media impacted every single part of this story. From his rise among Gen Z youth by building his platform on short-form content and soundbites that algorithms love, to the alleged shooter being so chronically online that he engraved memes onto the bullets and confessed to the killing in a Discord chat, to the gruesome videos of the shooting that spread like wildfire across platforms with little to no content moderation, to the doxxing and firing of people who expressed negative opinions about Charlie online in the wake of his death. Lost in the noise is the scary fact that this is exactly the kind of content social media loves. Social media is at least partly to blame for the breakdown of civil political discourse by its very nature of rewarding inflammatory content and creating individualized echo chambers that trick us into thinking that what we see and value is what everyone else does too. Cal Newport put out what I think is one of the better assessments of this entire situation with a simple call to action – maybe now is the time to delete social media.
I don’t think social media is inherently evil, but I do think the systems that underpin it can be. Mark Zuckerberg might have started Facebook 22 years ago as a way to bring people together (he actually did it to rate the attractiveness of his female classmates), but it didn’t take long for it to morph into a data gobbling monster happy to sell our personal information to the highest bidder. That monster seems downright cute compared to the other ways social media has been used and abused in more recent years. Is there a way for us to engage with these tools that doesn’t actively harm our mental health, put our private information at risk, or contribute to the decline of civil society? I want to believe there is. Maybe it’s time to repurpose these tools for our own use and values. Maybe it’s time, like my new friend pagemelt said in their recent video essay, to become our own algorithm.
I don’t know what that looks like in practice or at scale, but it’s something I’d like to find out. In last month’s recap, I wrote that I’m trying to figure out how I want to exist and operate online. As a creative, there are things I want to share with the world. Social media lets me do that, but it’s subject to the mercy of their algorithms. Either I have to accept my fate and hope that the viral gods reward me, pander to their definition of high-engagement content by modifying my creative expression, try to game the system, or resign myself to the fact that I could spend hours on something (like this recap) only to have a handful of people see it. That’s especially true if I silo my creative output by hosting it independently on my website instead of someplace like Substack, which describes itself as "a new economic engine for culture." All the while, I’m asking myself a bunch of questions like why does my work need to be seen to feel validated? Isn’t it enough to simply put it into the world? What if I offend the wrong person? What if nobody cares about what I have to say? This constant swirling of thoughts and questions makes the entire process feel overwhelming, and as soon as I find myself doing something for engagement instead of creative fulfillment, I start to pull back from wanting to participate at all. There was a time when social media was fun, when it truly was a social space to share ideas, music, art, and more with likeminded people. I want to believe it can be that way again, but I don’t think that change will come from the top. It has to come from us.
What I Did
I attended the Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. for the very first time! Even though I’ve lived in D.C. for the better part of a decade, I’ve never gone to the festival. When I moved back to D.C. from California a few months ago for work, I decided to take advantage of all the unique things D.C. has to offer instead of complaining about what I was losing by leaving Los Angeles. I was absolutely blown away by the festival. There were thousands of people from all walks of life who showed up for a love of books and reading and learning. PBS was there and their table was swarmed by supporters. The Institute of Library and Museum Services had a reading road trip with booths from every state and U.S. territory offering stamps and swag. My favorite panel was called Seeing Is Believing? American Hoaxes and Scams with David Baron and Leah Sottile. They talked about the prevalence of pseudoscience and misbelief throughout American history, from belief in Martians and other little green men to the rise in New Age influence on American culture during the COVID-19 pandemic. I picked up both of their books to add to my TBR in October.
What I’m Looking Forward To in October
It is officially Fall AKA spooky season! The leaves have started to change colors, and the weather is finally starting to turn a little crisp in the morning. I’m looking forward to cooking some cool weather recipes, watching some scary (and not so scary) movies, and celebrating Halloween. I’m going to see R.L. Stine speak at a local library, which I'm really excited about since I missed him at the LOC festival. Maybe I'll get a chance to ask him about his stance on cell phones now!
Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment in my guestbook. P.S. Inspired by pagemelt, I've created an RSS feed for my blog! Copy this link https://kdkemp.com/main/feed.xml then paste it into your favorite RSS reader. I use Inoreader.
I don’t think social media is inherently evil, but I do think the systems that underpin it can be. Mark Zuckerberg might have started Facebook 22 years ago as a way to bring people together (he actually did it to rate the attractiveness of his female classmates), but it didn’t take long for it to morph into a data gobbling monster happy to sell our personal information to the highest bidder. That monster seems downright cute compared to the other ways social media has been used and abused in more recent years. Is there a way for us to engage with these tools that doesn’t actively harm our mental health, put our private information at risk, or contribute to the decline of civil society? I want to believe there is. Maybe it’s time to repurpose these tools for our own use and values. Maybe it’s time, like my new friend pagemelt said in their recent video essay, to become our own algorithm.
I don’t know what that looks like in practice or at scale, but it’s something I’d like to find out. In last month’s recap, I wrote that I’m trying to figure out how I want to exist and operate online. As a creative, there are things I want to share with the world. Social media lets me do that, but it’s subject to the mercy of their algorithms. Either I have to accept my fate and hope that the viral gods reward me, pander to their definition of high-engagement content by modifying my creative expression, try to game the system, or resign myself to the fact that I could spend hours on something (like this recap) only to have a handful of people see it. That’s especially true if I silo my creative output by hosting it independently on my website instead of someplace like Substack, which describes itself as "a new economic engine for culture." All the while, I’m asking myself a bunch of questions like why does my work need to be seen to feel validated? Isn’t it enough to simply put it into the world? What if I offend the wrong person? What if nobody cares about what I have to say? This constant swirling of thoughts and questions makes the entire process feel overwhelming, and as soon as I find myself doing something for engagement instead of creative fulfillment, I start to pull back from wanting to participate at all. There was a time when social media was fun, when it truly was a social space to share ideas, music, art, and more with likeminded people. I want to believe it can be that way again, but I don’t think that change will come from the top. It has to come from us.
What I Did
I attended the Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. for the very first time! Even though I’ve lived in D.C. for the better part of a decade, I’ve never gone to the festival. When I moved back to D.C. from California a few months ago for work, I decided to take advantage of all the unique things D.C. has to offer instead of complaining about what I was losing by leaving Los Angeles. I was absolutely blown away by the festival. There were thousands of people from all walks of life who showed up for a love of books and reading and learning. PBS was there and their table was swarmed by supporters. The Institute of Library and Museum Services had a reading road trip with booths from every state and U.S. territory offering stamps and swag. My favorite panel was called Seeing Is Believing? American Hoaxes and Scams with David Baron and Leah Sottile. They talked about the prevalence of pseudoscience and misbelief throughout American history, from belief in Martians and other little green men to the rise in New Age influence on American culture during the COVID-19 pandemic. I picked up both of their books to add to my TBR in October.
What I’m Looking Forward To in October
It is officially Fall AKA spooky season! The leaves have started to change colors, and the weather is finally starting to turn a little crisp in the morning. I’m looking forward to cooking some cool weather recipes, watching some scary (and not so scary) movies, and celebrating Halloween. I’m going to see R.L. Stine speak at a local library, which I'm really excited about since I missed him at the LOC festival. Maybe I'll get a chance to ask him about his stance on cell phones now!
Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment in my guestbook. P.S. Inspired by pagemelt, I've created an RSS feed for my blog! Copy this link https://kdkemp.com/main/feed.xml then paste it into your favorite RSS reader. I use Inoreader.
It is officially Fall AKA spooky season! The leaves have started to change colors, and the weather is finally starting to turn a little crisp in the morning. I’m looking forward to cooking some cool weather recipes, watching some scary (and not so scary) movies, and celebrating Halloween. I’m going to see R.L. Stine speak at a local library, which I'm really excited about since I missed him at the LOC festival. Maybe I'll get a chance to ask him about his stance on cell phones now!
Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment in my guestbook. P.S. Inspired by pagemelt, I've created an RSS feed for my blog! Copy this link https://kdkemp.com/main/feed.xml then paste it into your favorite RSS reader. I use Inoreader.
Current Music: "Spooky Scary Skeletons" by Andrew Gold
Current Mood: 
working
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