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Letter From The Founder
I’m typing this on the train while travelling back home to see my family (highly fitting given that this months Symposium is on the topic of Home). The patchy internet (because of tunnels) and my inability to focus (because of the general noise, chatter and cramped conditions of this Bank Holiday weekend carriage) mean that I will keep this short and sweet.
By compiling this issue under such circumstances I can confirm for a fact that the Omnibus is the ideal travel companion. I’ve had a great time reading through (and listening) to this weeks offering in between sips of tea and periods of staring out of the window. If you are travelling, I recommend you do the same.
And if not I recommend- as I do every week- that you grab a seat, get comfortable, secure your provisions and dive in. A great way to while away part of a Sunday afternoon. Enjoy.
Until next week,
Live well,
Tom.
Essays
Memoir #2 by Huw
D.B. nails it in the comments section of this one:
Amazing as usual. I never can stop reading, because just when I get acclimated to the beauty of the words, the story takes a turn... and when I get acclimated to the story, a keen and insightful sentence draws my attention to the beauty of the words.
Huw does it again. And if you think this is good, the stories he casually drops in the community are just as great.
bookmark #494 by Deepansh
This weeks piece was hand selected for inclusion by Deepansh himself. And of course it’s a beauty. But it would be remiss of me to not use this opportunity here to also mention that since this piece our man has hit the illustrious milestone of publishing bookmark #500. Give him a round of applause. Huge achievement.
Creator Spotlight - Thomas J. Bevan by Mark
I’ve been doing the self promotional rounds this week. First of all via this excellent print interview with the ultra prolific Mark. I was honoured by the invitation and Mark proved to be an incisive questioner. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed being a part of it.
Stuck in translation by Simon
Simon has switched over to this Substack and you should 100% subscribe to it. This piece on linguistic ineptitude, Google translate and digital discourse sees him in top form. Check it out.
Reflection #10 by Clint
In vino veritas, or in Clint’s case in vino a pretext to go off on a charming and discursive reflection on wine itself as well as our previous selves who have drunk it earlier in our life stories. A lovely piece.
Anti-Mimetic Salon #3 with Thomas J. Bevan—Audio from Our Group Zoom by Luke Burgis 🔒
My second bit of promotional business. This time with the great Luke Burgis who proved to be an excellent host as we sat down and had a conversation (as opposed to a researched and pre-scripted podcast recording) alongside an audience of his subscribers. I had a fantastic time and I might have said the odd interesting/clever thing too.
More Than One Me by Trilety
What’s in a name? Well read this and find out. Lovely prose and storytelling as always. A pleasure to read.
The Scavenger of the Ship of Theseus by ?!
A second mention of Wittgenstein this week, after Simon’s piece above. This is ?! at his philosophical best here, probing and lucid and searching. Absolutely worth the effort of taking your time and diving into this one. Great stuff.
You don't learn to ride a bike, you just get on it one time and go. by Tim
A fascinating dive into the idea of unschooling from a man who very much has skin in the game with it. Theory is one thing, but theory from a practitioner is quite another. Looking forward to reading more of Tim’s insights into this topic.
Mansion Mystery Games by D.B.
Clue (1985), The Game (1997) and Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) all analysed and connected by the unique and always highly insightful mind of our resident film expert D.B.
The Travel Bug by Gavin
The chronic desire to go on journeys is a feature, not a bug, of the spirit. Though we should be careful where it takes us, as what we think we want is not the spirit's priority.
And that’s not even the main body, that’s just the subtitle. This is up there with the absolute best of Gavin’s writing to date, which is not something that I say lightly.
The Best Job I've Ever Had Started Me at $965/month. by Charlie Becker
Professor Becker tells us about the rewards and joys of what he does. Really inspiring stuff here.
On Tea and the Art of Doing Nothing by Thomas J. Bevan
I like tea. I like doing nothing. I like writing about why this is so. Enjoy.
External and Distant by Lyle
The ‘Hey Lyle’ letter format is back. Me personally, I love it as it gives Lyle a chance to stretch his wings and showcase that compassionate heartfelt authenticity for which he is known.
Scavenger Hunt by Paul
A new moon brings old wisdom told in a new way by an old soul. Textbook Paul in action here.
Fiction/Poetry
Reasoning With The Algorithm by Vanya
Just when you think Vanya can’t top any of his previous oddball stories for wonderful strangeness he drops this one. And just when you recover from that you realise that he has also released an audio version. The man is in a league (if not a universe) of his own.
Poems so old they're almost not mine by Oleg
Oleg dusts off some gems from his archive and proves that he has had poetry skills for a while. The question is, is just how deep is this archive and how much more gold can be excavated from it.
Podcasts
Joe Rogan Height Slander (and other SEO tactics) (Tragedies of Modernity #16) by Thomas J Bevan and Craig Burgess
From a mysterious scrap (or as I spelled it in the original show notes ‘scrape’) of paper with the words ‘Joe Rogan Height Slander’ written on it Craig and I managed to eek out another hour of content for you, in his words, not mine, ‘dirty listeners’.
This episode is brought to you (Wednesday Audio #67) by Craig Burgess
I mean I like a good laugh and a joke as much as the next guy but 39 minutes is taking it a bit too far now. How many more weeks before we cross the 3/4 of an hour Rubicon? Or even, I hasten to say it, the hour mark? This isn’t a podcast, it’s The Blob.
TJB Film Recommendation
Cocktail (1988)
D. Roger Donaldson
W. Heywood Gould
S. Tom Cruise Bryan Brown Elisabeth Shue
I think in recent years most people have come around to the idea of Tom Cruise being a great movie star (which is to say a great actor who sticks to what he knows how to do) and possibly the last Hollywood action hero. When he quits the business I don’t believe there will be anyone subsequent with quite the same name recognition and star appeal. Who after could carry a film like him?
But having said that I still feel like some entires in the Cruise canon are given short shrift, particularly Cocktail. I mean you’ve got peak of his powers cocky young Cruise in the lead, you’ve got his Aussie mentor in the bar trade Doug delivering to my mind some genuinely iconic cynical one liners (‘everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn’t end’ and ‘You see, there are two kinds of people in this world, the workers and the hustlers. The hustlers never work and the workers never hustle and you my friend, are a worker.’ are etched in my memory). You’ve got a sudden location change to Jamaica that somehow works, you’ve got Addicted to Love on the soundtrack while Tom flings cocktail shakers about, you’ve got the novelty of a story that is ostensibly about male gold-diggers preying on rich women.
Add it all up and you’ve got a Reagan era fairytale. Screw the critics and the Razzie panel, this film is genuinely good and I’m happy to defend it and vouch for it.
Thanks as always for reading/listening and thanks in advance for pressing all of those various buttons at the bottom which help the Omnibus spread further.
Finally, the Tragedy of Modernity podcast will be taking a week off while I attend to some family stuff but it will be back next Sunday at the same time, so check out next weeks Omnibus for more on that.
Until then thanks again for reading and I look forward to meeting more of you over at the Social Club.
Cheers!
"How many more weeks before we cross the 3/4 of an hour Rubicon?"
One day, probably episode 100, I intend to record a muti-hour monster that precisely zero people will listen to.
Everyone else's work is excellent, myself excluded. Truly a collection of the best stuff on the web.