This Omnibus is brought to you by The Soaring Twenties Social Club. Everything you want to know about our community and why you should join is contained within this post ⬇️⬇️⬇️
Letter From The Founder
The obvious topical point to touch on with this weeks opening letter is the death of the Queen of England. But other than to say ‘RIP’ I am not going to say anything else, because what else is there to say (no matter your opinion, politics or nationality) that hasn’t already been said by this point?
The aim of this Omnibus is to showcase work that is (or is aiming to be) timeless rather than timely and to have a continuing resonance and a long shelf life rather than be a quick attention grabbing take on the topic of the day.
And that is what we have to offer here today. We have many of the regulars here as well as one or two new faces putting in great work. Everyone is excelling and the atmosphere of healthy competition and genuine encouragement over at the community seems to be paying dividends.
That’s all there is to say. The work speaks for itself so I will step aside and allow it to do just that. Enjoy.
Until next week,
Live well,
Essays
Heroes, Dragons, and Other True Myths by James
I’ll hold up my hands here. For whatever reason I kept on forgetting to include this piece by James. This is the third Omnibus issue, the third chance I have had to post this. But it is here at last and it is worth the wait. Apologies to James and I hope that reading this moves a few copies of his beautiful children book.
In memory of Gorbachev by Yardena
Requiem for a car called Mikhail Gorbachev. Lovely descriptions of the late Gorb and a certain time and place. Very evocative stuff here.
Fictitious vol.15: Buy a game, come to Lithuania (or vice versa) by Oleg
Lithuanian point and click games, overly complex month names and Navajo code talkers. Man, where else are you going to find a miscellany as interesting and diverse as this? Fantastic.
weekly digest: a very bad movie, and much worse reality by Maryann
I know I say it again and again, but the amount of work Maryann puts in as astounding- and it always high quality. Her Substack is essential reading for every cinema fan- whether hardener cinephile or casual moviegoer.
My Anti-Rules of Storytelling by Edward
I was not the sexy wild-cat-domesticated-cat hybrid that costs a fortune, I was a mule. The thing is, sexy hybrids do the sexy but mules, they carry a lot a long way.
A good rule for life it to only follow advice from actual skin in the game practitioners. And Edward is most certainly in this category when it comes to writing. Read this, it might just change your mind on your approach to the craft.
Freedom Beside the Waves by Pr0ph3t
A lively, highly informative discussion/ juxtaposition of Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Davidson and Rees-Mogg’s Sovereign Individual. A seemingly odd pairing but once you have read this it will all make sense. Extraordinary stuff.
The Secret of the Magician's Hat by Trilety
In a basement bar with a doberman for a doorman, I learned a life lesson. Never be the first to throw your hat in the ring of secrets.
I’m a sucker for a good opening (couple of) sentence(s). So I was hooked from the start by Trilety’s latest. Another great piece in what is growing to be a pretty formidable body of work.
A Visual Treat: The Baron Empain Palace by Samantha Childress
Our correspondent in Cairo is back with another combination of words and gorgeous photography. And she has hit 100 subscribers, which despite being a fraction of what she deserves shows that people are starting to cotton on to her talents.
Movie Recommendation: Timecrimes (Los Cronocrímenes) by D.B.
If D.B. recommends it, I make a point of adding it to my ‘to watch’ list. It’s that simple. Recommendations from practitioners are way, way more valuable than those from algorithms.
Curious Realizer - monochrome was the palette of the unreal, envy and nostalgia by Mark
A man out of time who grew up watching far more black and white tv than would have been considered normal at the time. I feel as if Mark wrote this one for me personally. A fantastic piece.
The real benefits of programming by Andrew
Another skin in the game practitioner talks about what he truly knows about in a persuasive, authoritative and entertaining manner. This seems to be a real theme of the STSC. Always nice to see a post from Andrew.
bookmark #520 by Deepansh
there is no other way i would want to live. there is no other way i would have wanted things to go.
There is always true wisdom in Deepansh’ work. They are always a brief, but genuinely powerful aesthetic experience. And as I have said about several other writers here, they need to be compelled into a book that can grace my (/our) bookshelf.
Rotten Art by Charles Schifano
This is- as far as I am concerned- the definitive piece on Maurizio Cattelan duct-taped banana. That’s all that needs to be said. A fantastic essay.
Reflection #12 by Clint
Brief, poetic, resonant- this could describe all of the pieces in Clint’s on-going reflection series, and it certainly captures the feel of this latest instalment. A lot of power in a short space here.
Unschooling a Masters Degree by Timothy
Play, unschooling, deschooling, radical education, radical parenting, children’s rights, the politics of schooling, anthropology of learning, and the neuroscience of learning are the kinds of things that I have been reading about, thinking about, and discussing with other unschooling parents and children for the last seven or eight years.
Timothy is truly doing great and radical and necessary work here. I believe every parent (and every autodidact) should thoroughly investigate and consider what he has written throughout this publication. Vital stuff.
Travel Diaries #32 - Going Back by Gavin
Of Revelstoke and time travel. Simply put, Gavin is one of the very best travel writers working today as far as I am concerned. A man who has found his medium, his voice and his topic. Intrigued to see how his body of work further develops.
On Student Blocks by Thomas J. Bevan
In which I consider all of the construction currently going on in my adopted city and what it could possibly mean.
10 Things I Appreciated This Week by Luke Burgis
Now I could have linked to Luke’s continuing series analysing Thiel’s Zero to One from a Girardian perspective but I was drawn to this instead. I am usually ambivalent to list posts as long time readers will know- but the anti-mimetic, life-appreciating work that Luke is doing here is essential and I hope that this will be the beginning of a long running series.
Naming vs. Knowing by Charlie Becker
Charlies had me at the subtitle ‘On the Striving Without a Goal’. A short powerful statement of where our man is and where he is going with his writing. Also it goes without saying you should read Charlies latest edition of his Thought Bananas newsletter.
Fiction
Portrait of a Rose by Sajan
Newcomer Sajan debuts with a real gem of a short story. Delighted that talent like this is still being drawn to join this collective. Read this and then give our man a sub.
Words Unspoken by Vanya
More audio delights from one of the absolute pillars of this community of ours. And word on the street is that he is going to start publishing chapters from his new novella soon.
Observitude, Part One by Craig Burgess
All of that collaborating with Vanya seems to have rubbed off on Craig. Wasn’t sure what category to put this in, but what I am sure of is that this is a hell of a lot of absurdist fun.
Walk | Don't Walk by Yuelian
To put so much style and meaning into something that is literally a one minute read takes an awful lot of talent and craft. Enjoy.
Poetry
She flashed me the ugly hard, I did not know her by James Maynard
Infinite by Adam Kozak
I travel ways among the blackened stars,
Galactic deserts are as home to me,
A restless trav’ler wand’ring all unscathed
By novae. I am incandescent fire
And flying faster through the vacuum cold
I burn up nebulae to feed on plasma.
Stars shift course, fearing resolute advance.
Born in a crucible of gas and heat,
Timeless I neither end nor age nor die,
Somewhere an end in space but not in time.
What am I? You will not see me but you
Will know my presence, light and heat and flame.
Podcasts
Mushy Peace (The Thursday Audio Part 2) (The Wednesday Audio #70) by Craig Burgess
We were worried he was ill (and not in the hip hop sense) but it turns out he’d just had a week off work. And went to visit a spa. Now he’s all at peas with himself. Give this a listen and say hello to the at-one-with-himself Craig. Yeeees?
TJB Film Recommendation
Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)
D. Ossie Davis
W. Ossie Davis, Arnold Perl, Chester Himes
S. Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, Calvin Lockhart
I have no idea how I came to see this film. Legally I mean. See, I remember at the beginning of my foray into film watching going to the video shop on my high street and renting whatever weird and wonderful thing caught my eye. I was early teens at the time, pre streaming, pre youtube, pre internet at all virtually (I had a Nokia brick in my pocket and an unreliable dial up household computer at home).
Without such a surfeit of information I would rent titles based on who the director was, or the lead, or- as was often the case- how cool the cover was. And Cotton Comes to Harlem was up there in the cool cover hall of fame. And the video shop for some reason let my ~14 year old self rent this gritty ‘Blaxploitation’ classic.
And thank God they did. Because this Ossie Davis (gonna take a second to mention Bubba Hotep here, which you should definitely see) directed picture led me to a tom of other Blaxploitation which in turn led to Shaw Brothers Kung Fu pictures, soul and funk music, boom bap hip hop, Chester Himes crime novels and possibly a dozen other tributaries of cool cultural excellence. Cotton… was hugely innovative in that it prefigures Shaft and Superfly as well as the buddy cop genre which went on to help define pop culture a decade or so after this film was released.
Cotton… holds up pretty well- I’m pleased to say. Maybe my 14 year old self was on to something. Maybe we should mourn the lose of video shop serendipity a little more than we currently do.
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.
Also I can again confirm that after a brief hiatus Craig and I definitely will be recording a new episode of the Tragedies of Modernity at the one-off time of 1pm GMT tomorrow. We’ll host it and record it live from the STSC community and then post it via this Substack immediately afterwards.
If you want to join us live and listen in and post questions/comments/heckles in the podcast channel chat you are more than welcome. You simply have to sign up to the community first.
I look forward to seeing you over at the Social Club.
Cheers!