I’m Christian Payne, autotelic, photographer and writer. I also very much enjoy playing with audio, typing up papery journals from years ago and sending you this weekly dispatch where I seek out novelty, explore the relations between things, plus where we might be going.
Thanks for being here.
#TheAction
I came back from France to a rip roarer of a cold and a parcel from a friend at Apple.
Top tip: Never ever get a new phone and then delete all the content on your old one. The migration can take days. It has for me. In fact there are still things on my old phone I need to manually migrate across. New phone means new camera though, as well as the trickle down effect of the other phone being passed on to family. So it’s all worth it.
The massive news here though is that after of 14 years making a home here in Cambridgeshire we have just put the house up for sale. Those of you supporting subscribers in the Discord already know this. Some who read all of the subscriber emails will also know where we are hoping to move to. But the whole process is more than a little challenging/stressful/fraught with potential catastrophe. I will save that chat for less public feeds or not at all. After all we are about to enter the holiday zone where it’s ok to do absolutely nothing but consume, share, hibernate and all the other things that are ultimately optional as we await the new year.
So, for the time being it will still be ‘Greetings from the shed’.
#ThePictures
With the new Captain America movie out in the next couple of months I thought I should really play catch up with some of the older ones I’d missed. It was my first watch of ‘The First Avenger’ and I felt it was a decent beginning to the life of Cap. 3/5
I could share this same video link every week and you’ll not see the same thing twice.
Nothing christmassy about this freaky little NSFW short.
#TheWords
I read these words on Dense Discovery this week.
Modern luxury is the ability to think clearly, sleep deeply, move slowly, and live quietly in a world designed to prevent all four. – Justin Welsh
Peace, clarity and a slower pace of life certainly sound like luxuries only the privileged can attain. But I feel these are things we should all be striving for.
This might mean making the time to meditate, killing the doom scroll, prioritising sleep, walking or cycling places, decluttering and focusing on what truly matters.
When put like this, they are more than luxuries. They sound like essential ingredients to creating a more balanced life. Easier said than done, but every step in the right direction is a step towards reclaiming our well-being.
I’ve had fun catching up with some of my student’s work from the classes I assisted in Paris. I’m sharing this one because they kindly included me in it ;-)
#TheSound
I swear I had not been drinking when I recorded this brain fart. Yet again more evidence of why a script can sometimes help. If i’d had one, this might only have been three minutes long.
And so as per the live fully human recording above that you really should listen to for the following to make sense... here is some AI generated content below in for form of an audio clip made from some searchable online content featuring me.
[AI generated content starts…]
[AI generated content ends.]
Every time I hear these voices in the machine speak about authenticity I have to smile. They have no idea who they are right now. But I’m starting to think that they will one day.
“Never underestimate the power of authenticity.” - AI Bot quoting Christian Payne
99pi do great mini stories. This one looks at punny motorway signage, Jane Fonda’s activism, a stunning brand/marketing move from the Merchant of Death and what it means if you second toe is longer than your big toe.
Another great podcast from the BBC world service and ‘Lives Less Ordinary’. If this story doesn’t move you I’d go see someone. It’s about a guy brought up in a cult and what he did when the world didn’t end. But it’s so much more than that.
Melanie Safka is a marmite artist for some, but having heard her many times while in the womb I have a soft spot for her. I was sad to not get to take my mother to see Melanie live, but I was glad to have got to tell Melanie face to face what her music meant to us.
The track Leftover Wine for me is about incompleteness and faded love. But it might also be about not having anyone to share the last of the wine with.
#TheConsumed
The most interesting beverage I have experienced recently came from Ross Dargan who sent me a sample of a 2016 St. George 7 Year Old ‘Experimental Malt called ‘The Heart Cut' #9’.
It can’t legally be called a whisky in the EU as it began with distilling a 100% malted coffee stout which was then matured in a new American oak cask.
But wow what a strange and wonderful tipple. Floral malty meat and pickled jalapeño on the nose, with a mouthful of the same plus flapjack leading to a fruity creamy flat-white finish. Certainly a talking point and one of the most interesting spirits I’ve had the pleasure of sampling in a long time.
#TheBody
I know some of you will not want to hear this as we enter this period of over indulgence, but i’d really like you to make it into January where you can start all those new fitness related habits.
If you search alcohol deaths there are masses of fresh reports like this one documenting how 55-75 year olds are the heaviest-drinking age group but most deaths are among men, who are dying early (before the age of 75) - from alcohol-related liver disease.
The jury is still out in regards to if a little booze is more beneficial than no booze at all, but in studies nearly one out of four male modest drinkers gained 0.94 of a year in life over a non-drinker and had 8% reduction in adjusted all-cause mortality. (A modest drinker has one drink a day.)
Regular drinkers had a 43% increase in overall mortality and shortened life by 6.9 years. More details on these stats here.
So that’s why we keep hearing the phrase ‘please drink in moderation’.
#TheThings
The era of open voice assistants has arrived.
This video asks why Leica?
I might have some ‘things’ for the next email but we are having a simpler Christmas this year, so I also might not. :-)
#TheThanks
The paying subscribers that support my time here keep this dispatch free for everyone. And you can be one of them.
Moving into the new year I’ll be locking things down and removing any subscribers that I’m not sure are human. I’ll also be sharing mostly behind the paywall which will allow me to talk more freely about the changes afoot and also make it a little harder for the scrapers to create content out of my musings... Or just scrape.
So please consider upgrading to become a paid supporter and get full access to words, audio and video moving forward. There is also the Discord should want to chat more with me or others.
If you don’t like subscribing and prefer PayAsYouGo you can do that via PayPal and Monzo. Send what you can and I will credit you full subscription and some bonus time.
For those that would like to support with a subscription here is a Yuletide special offer that will be good for a few days.
And of course, thank you for reading, sharing, liking and connecting.
#TheWeb
Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
Greetings mysterious person in Chatham who added yourself to the Documentally community map.
It’s interesting to see the minor flaws in this deepfake scammer being explained after it has already conned a woman out of £17K Not long before we are all fooled.
I’m only just getting used to this internet and we are talking about building a quantum one. I can’t wait to get delivered parcels before I’ve even see the 3d quantum popup advertising it to me. Only to then see it collapse the moment before I think about returning it.
Some of my other places include Letterboxd, Flickr, Strava, my audio RSS feed, Swarm, LinkedIn, Mastodon, or search ‘Documentally’ on Signal Wire, Birdsite, or Bluesky.
I don’t have Steam on my Mac but this Indiana Jones game has me really wanting to get involved. Or do you think I should play it on a console?
Blessed be the cheesemongers. Utah sees an increase in lookalike Jesus models. This article reminded me of one night in Weston-Super-Mare in the early 90’s. Me and my friend Richard were in Hobbits Nite Club and met a guy dressed in white, with long hair and a beard. I commented he looked like Jesus and he told us that he was. Then added in the most believable and earnest way that his parents were called Mary and Joseph and really didn’t think there was any other option for a name.
#TheEnd
Thank you for spending this time with me. Let us do it again sometime.
Wishing you Yuletide warmth, some quality downtime and hoping your home is filled with love and happiness. Be it from others, or from a screen, like right now.
“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.” - Neil Gaiman
So mote it be.
See you out there.
Over…
