Converge Newsletter
Browse all 200 links from 22 issues.
Single
Currently on a loop while I'm working is Industry (Green Light/Fun Night Breaks Mix) by Nathan Micay.
Newsletter platform
Like Explore in the last issue, PencilBooth looks like another example of a nice upcoming platform for creative folks. It’s is a micro-newsletter service built for artists, where you share weekly updates of four images and news of what you’ve been up to. I’ve just popped myself on the waitlist.
Game for iOS and Android
I’ve been playing this game from Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger for a while now and I’m still hooked. It’s a smart sort of mash-up of crosswords and Boggle where you have to find the right words by working out where they to fit into the grid.
Website
A nice little site gathering some ideals and values that motivated Steve Jobs throughout his life. Also with the lofty ambition of “building programs, fellowships, collections, and partnerships that reflect Steve’s values and carry his sense of possibility forward.”
Design studio
Staggeringly good 3D / animation work from this Barcelona design studio, featuring imaginary, dream-like worlds.
Bypass paywalls
Prepend their web address to the URL of any paywalled web page, and 12ft will do its best to remove the paywall and grant you access to the article. Without dwelling on whether this is fair or right, this has been very effective and useful for me so far.
🔗 12ft.io
Flash player emulator
Appreciate that this is only likely to be useful to a small minority of you as it’s a bit of a niche use case, but I still think it worth including, as it was recently a real godsend for me.
Website framework
I’ve had a bit of a hiatus from building websites in recent years. This is driven in part because I don’t like the deluge of over-engineered JavaScript frameworks that push you to build sites bloated with unnecessary JS. They’re often a very enormous hammer for quite a small nail, or at least in my case.
Film
This has been on my watchlist for a few weeks and I finally got round to it. It didn’t disappoint and it’s absolutely bananas. Such a fun, energetic film with mind-bending multiverses and a magic blend of sci-fi and comedy.
🔗 youtu.be
Stand-up comedy
Stewart Lee is a bit like Marmite, but I’m definitely a lover not a hater. In this hour, he offers his usual brand of deconstructive, acerbic comedy, tackling cancel culture, free speech, identity politics, and being woke. All from the position of being a self-confessed nowflake.
TV Series
For transparency on this one, I’m not a football fan. I don’t have a team and I’m one of those people who just watches the odd World Cup game, or bits and pieces of the Euros.
EP
I’ve loved Jacques Greene‘s stuff for a while, first picking up on it with the sublime Another Girl back in 2011. The Canadian DJ / producer’s latest EP, Fantasy came out earlier in 2022 and also does not disappoint.
Non-Fiction
Like most folks, I’ve become really tuned into the urgency of action needed to deal with climate change. But also I feel totally numb to all the doom-mongering and negativity – it’s just too much to bear day-to-day.
Single
Can’t get enough of this 2020 tune from German producer, Ludwig A.F.
3D Printed Homeware
UAU Project is a design studio creating and selling incredible, sustainable homeware. The Warsaw based duo experiments with 3D printing and high quality materials to create environmentally sound, beautiful products.
Interactive Learning
Learn about synthesisers in this magic site from Ableton. Play with a synth in your browser and learn all the different features to create your own sounds. This is an old favourite I’ve lost quite a bit of time to.
Online Guide
A nice little online catalogue of user interfaces that captures some key moments in the history of human-computer interaction.
TV Series
We just finished this four-part BBC series and thought it was both brilliant and unbearable in equal measure. I recommend it with some trepidation as it won’t be for everyone — the pace and tension are so excruciating as to be almost unbearable. But there’s also a lot of humanity in there and we found it worth sticking with. And it has Sean Bean, so there’s that too.
🔗 youtu.be
Film
With all the talk of Thirteen Lives recently (about the Thai boys that got trapped in the cave), I was surprised that a lot of folk I’ve spoken to hadn’t seen The Rescue on Netflix. It’s an incredible documentary on the same subject by Free Solo directors, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi.
🔗 youtu.be
Album
I can normally take or leave most of Max Cooper’s stuff without the accompanying visuals, but Unspoken Words from earlier this year has really stayed with me – it’s got great pace and tempo, a proper vibe. Exotic Contents and Symphony in Acid are such good tunes.
Album
One of my favourite bits of pop culture to come out of the lockdown in 2020/21 was Bo Burnham’s Inside (very worth a watch on Netflix first if you’ve not seen it). Assuming you have already, this recently released playlist is a collection of audio outtakes and previously unreleased stuff from the production.
Book
I’m a latecomer to the work of Jon Ronson having only been vaguely aware of him, but never having dipped my toes into any of his books. I’ve discovered I quite like his brand of journalism.
Single
I’m a big fan of Ryan West AKA Rival Consoles. He’s a bit of a master of layering up beautiful, melodic and percussive soundscapes that build and recede. This recent one, Echoes is no exception – a total beaut.
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