2024 in fragments

Another Luanqibazao Listicle

My tendency to screenshot, clip, and capture is nearer to pathology than habit. Unwieldy masses of JPEG, PDF and photo album froth accumulate on my computer and my phone like so much digital flotsam, evidence of a distractible and hoardsome and self-deceiving (I’ll come back to this! What if this comes in handy some day?) mind. Sometimes the crumbs I leave for myself are, upon re-inspection, baffling even to myself — why did past me judge it necessary to preserve this or that frippery in electronic amber? — but, on the too-infrequent occasions when I do delve into the endlessly replicating archive, the pickled memory is more often instantly and thrillingly tasted, just as it was when I decided it was absolutely essential that an amusing headline (“Kiwi mascots dancing to somber strings welcome New Zealand PM to Japan”, its merits bolstered by the more literal and less elegant summation of the same events by a rival newspaper: “Jacinda Ardern greeted by giant sad dancing kiwifruit during visit to Japan”) or a vainly kept proof of personal triumph (as when I scored the maximum 5,000 points in Geoguessr by pinpointing a location just 14 metres away from the correct answer, no mean feat) was kept forever by the simple act of command+shift+3. Not only that, but on the rarest of days when I roll up my metaphorical sleeves and decide it is time to at least weed the overgrown garden of screenshotted and right-click-saved images and words of yore, I discover that several specimens have evolved in my absence, and not only display the pixelated whatevers for which I originally added them to my collection, but contain also the faint and nebulous brushwork of the person I was when I clipped them for posterity — making them, of course, impossible and unethical to destroy.

All a preamble to say that for this last issue of this newsletter in 2024, I will be sharing some of my favorite screenshots from the past year.

In January, when my beloved M was laid up in bed with a debilitating flu, I spent the day alternately cooling his fevered forehead with damp towels and editing the Wikipedia page for Tristan da Cunha, which was sorely lacking in sources. This screenshot comes from the website of the island group’s sole hospital.

In February, my friends and I began reading Ossian, the dubious “author” of a cycle of poems once deemed the Celtic version of Homer. The whole thing is almost certainly a fabrication of a Scotsman named Macpherson but it is a good yarn nonetheless. Macpherson claimed to have discovered and translated Ossian’s manuscripts; knowing he is its true author makes his extensive and painfully detailed footnotes (here as you can see, the footnotes for just six opening lines have crowded the main text off the page) much funnier. Sometimes Macpherson throws doubt on the poems, disputing other translators’ (who don’t exist) choices, or wondering if later bards duplicitously amended the verse of Ossian (who, again, does not exist); Macpherson’s commitment to the bit is commendable.

In March, from one of my favorite Wikipedia pages, “List of Chinese inventions”.

In April, when we read the play Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo.

In May, when I was inspired by the bold prose style and existential vigour of a restaurant’s Instagram caption. (Plus, cold Meursault and a whole fish — the dream lunch!)

In June, in Italy, discovering the names of singing birds.

In July, reading Chinatown by Thuận, in Singapore, with R, A, and M.

In August, in Taipei, experiencing an earthquake for the first time.

In September, reading Paul Theroux’s The Happy Isles of Oceania. People rag on Theroux for his habit of phonetically rendering accents but I find it evocative and entertaining, as in the above dialogue with a citizen of New Zealand. Your Aussie’s an enemal!

In October, when we read the play The Cocktail Party by T.S. Eliot.

In November, discovering a perfect story in an Instagram comment. It has everything you need.

In December, Proust appearing in the lede of a USA Today article about Miller High Life’s bar-scented perfume; the tags at the bottom of a New York Times profile of Luigi Mangione; and lines from Voyage by Tom Stoppard, wherein Bakunin’s sister and father are discussing his worrisome endeavours.

Gingko Season giveaway

If you are in the US, you have until December 31 to enter a Goodreads giveaway for a free print copy of my novel, Gingko Season. Enter here!

Thanks for reading and happy new year!