Scribe

Yes.

All right.

No, no, I hadn't seen it. The advanced copy I got, like very, very early on, once we had settled on the COVID design, they sent mockups of the dust jacket on other books. So, which one of the photos out there, like to promote the book was, there was another book underneath as we were still finalizing the text, but then I had the actual book in my hand, which was kind of a surreal experience to like have the object itself and then still be working on the insides of it as a PDF.

So yeah, it's such a thrill. Yeah. When the, when the comps came in and then, um, there's a UK edition as well. And that, that box came in at the, at the same time. And so it was just like constant unboxing and excitement.

Because I'm all about pencils. I've abandoned fountain pens. I actually, I've not really, but no, because so I am really interested in analog technology and I'm a vinyl collector. I like to read physical books. I write by hand quite a bit, collect analog cameras, was really into film photography, especially instant film for a while as I just kind of fell down this rabbit hole of researching Polaroid and the company and sort of Edwin Land and his biography and everything. And and was just kind of fascinated at the repair community that existed before the Impossible Project really blew up, when there were just people kind of trading old parts and everything like that. So I was just kind of fascinated at analog tech, and I think that sometimes people put a lot of weight on one thing like that, on just writing by hand, or on choosing one little piece of friction that slows down, and they sometimes might say something like, well, this is the key to getting getting ahead in life. Like you're gonna do better at work if you write all your meeting notes by hand. And it struck me that that's sort of putting too much expectation on choosing one thing, on choosing one piece of analog technology, when there really is more of a, I think, a holistic or maybe just more of a systemic type of view to take to look at where friction has been reduced and what changes with that. If there are these studies that show benefits to writing by hand or any number of other things, What is all that saying about, about the needs that we have if people are so interested in, you know, is this old version of something better than the new version of it? You know, what are the needs that we've created that would sort of call for that kind of questioning and that kind of research?

Yeah, they are, and they are everywhere. It's wild to go into like the drugstore or the grocery store and see their pencils for sale.

So a lot of times, I think it's things that we might want to get rid of that we trade, and then it turns out actually we kind of needed that, or we needed some part of it. So something like trading, say, using an app to order instead of— I start off with the Starbucks app as one of the examples of the convenience where, okay, yeah, you don't want to wait line, you don't want to be in a crowded store, maybe so you can order on the app. It also gives you points and everything. It seems like you're saving a little bit of time and energy, maybe even money given the point system and everything. But then what ends up happening is the baristas get overloaded. The stores become really difficult to be in because they become more and more oriented around these sort of takeout customers. And it just starts to be a less pleasant experience overall. It's a little smoother in the sense of ordering is easier and getting your drink is possibly easier depending on how crowded the store is and everything. But we, it's so easy to sort of trade little things like that. And then the other one that got me was little things like headphones. You know, I love headphones. I'm kind of constantly listening to something out and about, but you can start to pile these little eases on into life to the point that you just almost never interact with anyone else, never, never interact with the outside world in a way that you can't as precisely as possible control. So I think that's one thing sort of in the more, I don't know, psychological or philosophical realm that we're giving up. I think also a lot of times this just means going to a big tech company for something instead of doing something maybe face-to-face or in a simpler way. So in that sense, you're giving up money for the technology, you're giving up privacy if there's ads and accounts and everything like that. And then there's also an environmental cost to shifting more and more things to a sort of constantly replaced, extremely complex electronic device.

Like DoorDash drivers and gig workers who have terrible jobs because, you know, And with something like Waymo too, it's not to put you on the spot or anything about it, but it is sort of, it's like a technology on top of technology that isn't working already. Like there's roads and streets everywhere. They keep widening roads and streets everywhere, but then is the solution, well, one, it's eliminating the driver, but also it's a full-size car that is holding, you know, one person. So it's sort of even more space dedicated to getting one person around and this huge amount of technology dedicated to getting one person around. Whereas, you know, if you were starting from, just starting from zero, is that really the way that you would end up building any sort of transportation system?

So it does seem like with a lot of this, uh, yeah, it's just like all like kind of taped together.

Yeah, it's like that, those humanoid robots that have just a person remotely controlling them. And so like they're unloading something in the dishwasher and yeah, and like breaking the dishes, dropping things and everything. And it's like, yeah, 'cause somebody, you know, halfway around the world is trying to control this thing that really has not even had like the sort of motor kinks worked out.

Yeah, so the two essays of his that I drew on were— the first one was Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer from the '80s, where he— it's a very short piece of just why he has decided not to buy a computer, uh, and why he doesn't want to use one in his writing. And he sort of leads into this list by mentioning he doesn't really like being enthralled to the coal-burning power companies in Kentucky where he lived, that he doesn't really need to be a faster writer. He doesn't see how using a computer is going to be any faster, or not any faster, any better. It's not going to produce better work necessarily. So he lays out this list of what a new tool must have for him to adopt it. And he writes that it needs to be purchasable nearby from an independent store. It needs to be repairable. It needs to do work that is better. It needs to not disrupt meaningful relationships or anything else that is good in life. And he puts those together. And he writes in that essay and then the follow-up as well. Sorry, that's the other side of it is often it's packaged with the follow-up essay that he did, which I think is called, is it Women: The Body and the Machine or Labor: The Body and the Machine or maybe Feminism: The Body and the Machine, in which the essay was published in a few places and then it ended up in Harper's. They got a lot of letters and they forwarded them on to Wendell Berry where a lot of people took issue with things that he had written, including the fact that he mentions, he writes, manuscripts by hand and then his wife would type them. And a lot of people assumed that he was basically making her work for free. And so he writes this— he writes this response saying, you're making a lot of assumptions here. We are working together in this literary enterprise, you know, the same way it's sort of a cottage industry coming from our home, the way that sort of pre-industrial industries would work. And he gets into a little bit of that. He talks about also This idea of using different tools, and he mentions how he doesn't chop all of his wood by hand. He uses a chainsaw. He doesn't like using a chainsaw. It's loud. It smells bad and everything. He knows somebody who chops wood by hand. He thinks maybe he's happier, but he can't do it. And what I really like about that is he's accepting, you know, there's certain technologies he would rather not use. He might recognize that he shouldn't be using under this criteria that he has, but he's using them anyway. Because that's sort of how his work is going, how his life is going, and just what he is capable of at that time. So I thought that was a really nice, humble, and human type of way of approaching this. And from the very beginning, I went into the book not wanting to outright condemn, not wanting to tell people, this is exactly how to live, here is a list of guidelines that you must follow, that sort of thing. And so when it came time in the writing to have my own sort of framework or anything out there, I went back to that idea of a list. I also quote the designer Dieter Rams, who had a list of elements of good design. And I really like the idea of sort of framing things as a list, which is convenient, let's say. And so I've decided to frame it as a list of questions to ask when a convenience comes along. And the questions, they all kind of boil down to, is this going to be worth it? Or is this worth it? But things like, you know, how would I stop using this if I wanted to stop using it? What am I going to be able— what problem is this solving for me? What am I going to be able to do that I couldn't do before? What am I going to do with the time and energy that this saves me? And just really kind of interrogating what promise a convenience makes and whether it's something that you do want to let into your life. Because I think that with so many things, you know, whether it is an app to serve a certain function or doing something online instead of in person, it's really easy to say, oh yeah, that's going to be easier. I'm going to do it and not really think through what all of the downsides are going to be. All the side effects are going to be.

I have a friend who is also a journalist in Kentucky at the same time who had carried on a really nice handwritten letter correspondence with Wendell Berry after an interview. She had interviewed him for a story. And then afterward they would occasionally trade letters back and forth, which was really great.

Yeah, that was— I had been thinking about that. I saw an interview with— it was Don Hertzfeldt, the animator, who had said we're all just farm animals being fed now. And I think his next slide was, no wonder everyone's depressed or something like that. And, and one— so I think a few things get lost with that, with just kind of having things drop instantly online. One, not having really an in-person event or not having that like physical need to go to a store or to even to like wait for a package to arrive. Because I think by the end you could order a new album and it might like arrive in the mail if you weren't living near a record store or something. Like it could arrive on that Tuesday, I think. But I think not having that sort of little bit of friction takes away some of the event of something coming out. And some artists you see maybe try to build that up by, you know, putting out countdowns or kind of constant promotions, that sort of thing, which happened with physical albums to a degree. But I think not having to do that little bit of extra work to get something makes it seem like maybe something that you don't even really have to get around to. And then I think there's also the kind of lack of, even if you didn't talk to anybody when you went to the store, kind of a lack of a bonding experience that can happen with that. Like I remember going to the record store I mean, sometimes waiting until midnight, like just staying up late on Monday and waiting in line to get a new album in college. And you talk to people, you kind of make an event of it and you, you know, you might listen to the album in your car, you might go home and listen really carefully and really think about it. And I think that not having that and not having that ability just to kind of be around other people who are sort of, you know, jazzed on the same idea is kind of a downer. Like it just kind of makes the music seem a little less special. Not having the physical object of the music, I think, can be kind of a bummer too. Like, it's just, oh yeah, here's a new list of things on my phone. The other thing that I think is— that I've been thinking about so much is when new music comes out, there's usually like reaction videos, and it's just people filming themselves allegedly hearing the song for the first time. And I thought, I don't know, that to me is— I don't think that's totally related to just moving the release date to Friday and making it all digital, but I think it is kind connected. Uh, and it's really strange to me then that, that, that sort of that first listen becomes an excuse to make content rather than sort of actually spending any sort of time. You're not spending time procuring it, and then you're not spending time really thinking about it. You're just immediately getting it as soon as it's available as a digital file and then filming your reaction.

Yeah, that's the other thing that gets me. It's like, was it really so bad to wait? Like, it felt I would get impatient sometimes. Like, you know, I may be waiting until I was, I was done with class to get to the music store on Tuesday or, or something. But there were also times when like I just didn't have a ride and had to wait and you know, I'm just kind of reading reviews of an album or, uh, or anything like that and just kind of thinking like, soon I'll get this. And, uh, and I don't know, like, I don't think that, that my life is any, any worse for having to, uh, to wait a few days to get a CD or DVD.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it would be, yeah. Like, I don't know, it's in magazines. I remember, uh, What was it, uh, that I bought day of release? Oh, uh, PlayStation 2. I remember buying, like, I'd put my reservation in at the, at the game store and everything, and it arranged to get a ride, uh, after school to go pick it up and everything. And, uh, and I just remember, like, I hadn't really talked about it much at home. I was just kind of saving money from my high school job to get it. And then, uh, I just remember, like, my dad was really up on, like, what it was and everything because it was just, like, in the paper. Like, he had read about it, read about the release games and everything. And and we just kind of had a conversation about it. And I thought, I don't know, it was just such a, such a different world. Cause I feel like now a game or something will come out and I'll have no idea. Cause I'm just not in that, like that one algorithmic circle that's, uh, that's feeding it to me.

Yeah, so I think there is this— there's, as you say, the section in the book on narrative bias in news, and it's something that has troubled me most of my career because I think there was sort of a boom in Narrative journalism in sort of those early-ish days, maybe of the social web. Like, I don't know the precise markers of the era, but I feel like 2010 or so you started seeing a lot of like really good long-form articles online that followed a narrative. And then a lot of the reported podcasts that started blowing up a few years later all kind of followed this narrative of unpacking a story and everything. And there is this long history of it, of narrative journalism, where it's sort of telling a story, a true story, beginning, middle, and end, and revealing information. But what I started to find, honestly, shortly after maybe like Serial blew up, was a lot of articles and podcasts were kind of shoehorning a story arc into something that didn't have a story to it at all. Like, real life doesn't always follow that beginning, middle, and end structure. Things happen in a much more random way. And it started to bother me because it's leaving out essential facts or it's misrepresenting a story. You know, there are still true events that happen that can be told in that way, but they're extremely rare. And the journalists who can do it are also extremely rare. And so you end up a lot of times with sort of cause and effect being layered onto, onto reporting where there really isn't that cause and effect. And I think that that can lead to some, some, some misleading reporting intentionally or not. And then the other side of it is that a lot of just sort of overall news is kind of told in this narrative way with a set stock of characters, a number of events that are going to happen, sort of building to a conclusion. And there's this sort of constant effort to predict the conclusion. Brooke Gladstone writes about this in her book, The Influencing Machine, too, which— where she really gets into it. But there's also this idea, like, you look at election coverage now and every time there's a new poll, every time there's something new, It's how does this fit into the narrative of the election? And because it's midterms, it's going to follow the midterm narrative, which is a party switch from, from the general election that was 2 years prior in a presidential year. So it's like you just start seeing the same narratives and every bit of information fitting into it to the point where especially now it seems like there's this look at kind of like the overall poll, like how is the entire Senate going to go? How is the entire House going to go? When really these are local issues that are going to be decided state by state or district by district in the case of the House.

Yeah.

And exactly. And I think that so often, you know, and it's natural, like storytelling is a natural thing. It's how we understand the world. You know, this happened because this happened. You know, like my knee hurts because I fell on my knee. I fell because I tripped over this, you know, over the stick or something like that. You know, there's that very basic cause and effect. And I think that sometimes there's this effort to frame journalistic stories in that narrative arc that ends up leaving information out or building to an expectation that something is settled and already done. And maybe even a feeling of hopelessness can kind of seep in that way.

Yeah.

There's a real epidemic of parents swiping pencils, and you got to bring back the Yikes because they're the pencils your parents won't swipe.

I, I really like that question because, uh, so before diving in on convenience, I'd been doing a lot of research and writing around nostalgia and its place in pop culture and politics and everything. And there's this sense that nostalgia starts to rise up whenever we're sort of unhappy with the present in some way. And that could be we just feel a little bit alone and we think back to, you know, a pleasant, a pleasant conversation with a friend or something like that, or just kind of a good time. Or it could be that we're kind of feeling a little bit hopeless about the future and we kind of look to the past and think, you know, where, when were things better? That sort of thing. And that can be done in a healthy way of thinking, you know, what did I like about these experiences I used to have and how can I bring some of that back into my life? They can also be done in, or this nostalgia can be engaged in, in a negative way where it's, what did I like in my, in the past? How do I exactly rebuild that type of idea? And so I don't see that type of toxic nostalgia necessarily at play in things like, yeah, like the trend piece of somebody wanting to go to an Outback or something like that, or liking the school supplies or anything. What I see is just sort of a longing for the things that have been lost when those were options. I had read this New York Times story on the chain restaurants coming back and, or exciting interest among younger people. And one person quoted had mentioned sort of missing the sense of community that happened when you sat down with your family at a, I think an Outback or Chili's or something like that. And then also other people quoted in similar articles talk about, Well, yeah, this was like a time to sit down with my family or with friends and we would talk and we would eat some food. They don't mention necessarily loving the food. They don't mention anything about the actual, like, brand of the restaurant. They just mention the sort of community and dining. And I thought that was really interesting because they're talking about, you know, their lives are so busy. And then also the places that they want to go to aren't necessarily that great to go to. There's, you know, maybe a place serving kind of the fast casual bowls, but they're also like catering to delivery orders and takeout orders, and it's really hectic to be in, and it's sort of get in, get out, total rush. Even a fast food place, you know, the lobby's gonna be full of kiosks and everything, and it's like, it's just not the same as really having—

Oh gosh.

Yeah, it's just like, there's like this screen and this interaction and like this, everything like pushing you away from just like sitting and talking to another person. And I think, you know, with something like, With school supplies too, I think there's a little bit of that kind of nostalgia of like, oh, these are the, you know, the tools that I need to start, to start a new year. These are, you know, the things that I need to embark on a project versus now, I don't know, I've, you see, I don't have kids myself, but in like talking to friends with kids, they kind of talk about, you know, like, oh, it's a lot of just kind of taking a Chromebook and shuttling between classes. And it's like, oh, it's kind of, I don't know, that to me seems kind of bleak of like not having, you know, a different notebook or something like that. But that's, you know, that's the world I grew up in of, You know, having the different multi-subject notebook for every class.

Oh, that's great. Nice.

Like back in my day, we used to do this.

Oh, I was gonna say I did see a, a video recently of a teacher. I wish I could remember who it was talking about bringing back like '90s classroom, which, which I think this person was about my age. And it's like, yeah, like I remember like, being in like elementary and middle school in the '90s. And, uh, and you know, that idea of just like, you know what, there's one screen we can watch. Like, we'll occasionally watch something that's going to have an educational value. You need to like actually sit and talk and write by hand. And then what kind of has been bumming me out for a little while now is, uh, is thinking about— I feel like there was such a like eco push when I was in elementary school. Like, we did like the Save the Rainforest project. In 6th grade, we had a whole thing like a semester-long research project on whales and like protecting whales and everything. And I don't know how heavy those, those sort of like save the earth messages are too, but I just remember that was like such a big part of the classroom for a while.

Yeah.

I think anything that can bring sort of attention and intention back to taking and looking at photos is going to be beneficial in some way because it's so easy to take photos, especially like, I mean, I remember when burst mode first came out on the iPhone camera and I would just take a constant slew of photos, like everything was being captured. And I don't know that I've ever looked at any of those again versus, you know, with, with analog especially, you're taking pictures, you get the envelope back. Of prints. You have to look at them, you have to consider them, you might decide what to keep, what not to keep, uh, throw the others out. And it was always sort of, uh, when I was a kid, kind of a social event. Like when my mom or dad would get a new envelope of photos, like we would kind of look at it together and, and look at what, uh, what we'd all, you know, seen and, and kind of remember things and then set a few of them aside. I think the solution now is, yeah, like anything that's going to bring some of that attention back, because the thing that I really worry about is We're just so awash in images, both taking and consuming, like constantly seeing online. You could scroll on Instagram and see in a very short period of time hundreds of photos, dozens of videos, perhaps even more depending on how long you're gonna, you're gonna scroll. And none of those really have the same level of impact. This is something that also worries me as a journalist because I think photojournalism might be losing some of its, the power that it packs because at a certain point we're just sort of society-wide desensitized to the power of an image or to the idea of sort of dwelling on an image. So to change that, I think things like you're doing, like preserving them, putting them in a place, printing them out, is really valuable. I do like those sort of electronic photo album or photo frames that like cycle through photos. Because I think those can be a really good time to look at them. We got one when, when my father had become sick and was in bed, we got, uh, my brothers and I got a frame and we would kind of all be sitting around and it's like we all had access to it to add photos and, you know, we're reliving certain memories and everything like that. And I think that's just bringing back some of that intention of looking at a photo and, and coming across it in a way that isn't just kind of your phone memories app telling you, telling you you have something new.

Right.

Oh wow, that's like—

Or—

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm— yeah, I'm 41, so yeah, born in '85, and, uh, learned everything by hand.

still have—

Yeah.

It's, uh, yeah. Like, I mean, I had terrible handwriting. They kept giving me those like little things to put on the pencil to, uh, to hold it right. I still don't hold a pencil right. Yeah. And then at a certain point, I think in high school, they were just like, uh, a teacher said, you know, you don't have to write in cursive anymore. And since then I've just written in like very small. Little capital letters and have worked out being a journalist, just being able to write very fast, which, uh, which looks bad that way. The learning by hand though thing, yeah, like it keeps coming up in studies. And I talked with one neuroscientist who had said, you know, what, what you pay attention to is going to build a better connection in your brain. And if you're just typing A because you realize, you know, on the home row, even if, if people still use home row even to type, to learn to type, you know, like you, you might know where it is like with your finger, but to write it like you're building a muscle, like it's a physical connection to the mental idea. And so like the A is always, is always there. One thing I've noticed, my wife, if I ask her how to spell something, will sort of like, she'll move her hand a little bit as if she's writing it. And she's always right with the spelling. And it's like, what an amazing, I don't know, like, or she'll like kind of do the sign language letters, like real quick to spell it out. And it's kind of that proof of like when you, learn to do something with more than just like just the intellectual connection with that little bit of physical nature to it. It does seem like there's a little bit more learning there or the learning kind of sticks better. And yeah, definitely trying to learn German here in Switzerland. I just keep notebooks and every time I have these conversations with my mother-in-law every day and every time there's a new word, I like stop and write it down. And I have not gone back through these notebooks very often to— I keep thinking I need to like go back and make note cards. But if I do flip back, I usually find like I remember them, or if I'm searching for a certain word, I even remember where it is on the page. It's like, okay, I know that's on the left side, like sort of bottom third of the page. I'm going to be able to find it. And that particular quote that you mentioned was one I was really interested in researching memory apps, things like TimeHop, the Apple Memories app. Google Photos has one and everything and kind of what these do. 'Cause they began, like the Google Photos one, that's where they've actually discussed, you know, why they did it, because they found people were saving photos, but they weren't looking at their photos anymore. And they thought, well, we need to get people to look at their photos again. And so they came up with this idea. And TimeHop works in a similar way where it just kind of gives you all the images that you captured on that day, like on, you know, on this given day, you know, October 1st, going back, you know, years and years and years. Apple does a little bit of algorithmic curation usually, and it'll be like people in places or something like that, or like finds all the pictures of you with a friend. What I was getting at with that part that you quoted is that's not how our actual memory works. Like our memory is not— it evolved first of all to not have any sort of outside reminder of what things are like, to not have that photographic record, to not have a written record, anything like that. And so we start to form those different associations of places or people or actions or anything like that might relate to, to a memory. And it's not related to just having an exact image pop up of what happened. And so a lot of times I'm going through, like, I'll get a— I'll look at Timehop and it's screenshots of things that I don't remember looking at, like a screenshot from an article where maybe I just thought something was funny and sent it to a friend, or it's a whole bunch of photos of something I don't remember doing. And it kind of causes like a little, I don't know, kind of a like existential crisis whenever I see it because I'm like, well, wait, where did I take that photo? What was I doing this day? I have no memory of this. And it turns out, you know, it's just like, oh, I took a walk and I, you know, went down a different street than I usually do. And I saw this like sign or I saw a cat or something like that. But, but like our own memories are pretty fantastic. Like our brains work in this amazing way where they will like capture things and recontextualize memories and everything. And as we outsource more and more of that to a visually based reminder through an app or built into a piece of technology, it's just kind of serving it as like, well, if you took a photo, you must want to see that photo at some point. If you, uh, you know, if you, if you have a screenshot, you must be reminded of it. This happened on this day, therefore it is significant on this day on the anniversary. But our brains don't work like that at all. Like, I, I don't know. I, if you just kind of let yourself start remembering things, you don't necessarily remember things that happened on the exact same day. You don't necessarily remember an exact picture of something. Uh, there's so many other things. And I think that, uh, that relying too much on, on something like a memories app to jog your memory or to curate your photos or anything like that is just kind of giving up this control and letting, letting the technology tell you how your memory should work, which is not how it's sort of, uh, evolved to do.

It's one of those things like you get why the feature exists. Like it, it, it's great. It's a, it's a smart idea to say, you know, like like reading the interview with the Google engineers where they're like, yeah, like people were paying for all this storage and they weren't doing anything with it. Uh, like, you know, they were just parking their photos there and never looking. So we built this thing to remind them, but it's like, it just, it's so antithetical to the actual way that like our brains work that it, it just becomes, I don't know, really not that helpful.

Yeah, I think, I don't think there's going to be sort of, you know, a Terminator-style machines taking things on. I think on the, on the grimmest end, we will see sort of more accidents and collateral damage and tragedies happening in war, especially as weapons become automated. Like, I think that's something that needs more attention in general and can be sort of, and should be a larger part of sort of the applications of AI. What I worry about with AI and kind of wiping out humanity is one, the environmental toll that it can take, that I think is still— you see reports, you see disputes of the reports, but I think it's opaque and it really shouldn't be that opaque. Like we should have a, I think a clearer, more transparent understanding of the environmental impact of a lot of technology that we're using. And I also kind of worry that it's just going to make life not as exciting, not as fun. Like I don't know if it's going to wipe out humanity so much as it's just going to be sort of boring, like watching, you know, Fruit Love Island or something, or, you know, like these different kind of brain rot videos and everything. It's like, well, why continue? Like, it's just, that's just so boring and dull. Like, it's not doing anything that, you know, that's really bringing me that much value. Whereas it does seem like, you know, in certain fields, medicine, radiology, that sort of thing, like there is real power there that it could be helpful. As far as outsourcing thinking, I do worry about that a lot because I encounter more and more people who are using AI for kind of fundamental research and drafting. And those are things that for me are part of the process of thinking about what you're going to say and how you're going to say it. And I think, you know, the basic ideas that I have only come about after thinking about them, researching them, writing them through, rewriting them. You know, ideas can turn almost 180 degrees as you kind of stress test them, whereas just kind of coming up with an idea and then telling a bot like, look into this or tell me all about this or write this thing about it. It's, you don't really have anything to say at that point because you haven't really put the thought in beyond just like initial idea.

Oh gosh.

And at that point too, like, I don't know, it starts to be kind of just pretending. Like I, uh, I'm getting a ton of, uh, like the book came out and I'm getting a ton of like fake solicitations for interviews or like to join some sort of virtual book club, that sort of thing that are all clearly written by AI. They all have kind of the same like fake summary of the book. And then the person will follow up a lot of times to be like, what do you think of this? And I think like you didn't take the time. One, this might just purely be automated and I don't respond at all. But I also think like you're not taking the time to write it. You're not taking the time to think about it. Like I would rather somebody send me a, I don't know, kind of awkward, messy text message than, than trust a machine to say something instead.

I envy you.

Exactly. Yeah. No, I think that's right. I think that there is this— what kind of depresses me is the level of trust that some people are putting into it of, yeah, of like showing it a text message saying, what should I say? Or like, hey, why is this funny? That sort of thing. Like, write a joke for me.

It's like, it seems like— I don't know. I don't know what effort somebody is really trying to avoid there. And what I sense is that maybe behind that is a little bit of fear. Like I was talking to someone This is a couple of years ago now, someone who worked in technology who was saying they use AI especially to write because it lets them feel like their writing is polished and they're comfortable sending out something once the AI has been over it and changed it and everything. And we were talking and I said, you know, like to me that is just giving it sort of like a sheen of fakery. Like it doesn't, you can always tell when something's been kind of polished with AI and everything. But this person like, was deeply concerned about their presentation and wanted to make sure that it was, that it was sort of meeting some standard. And so where I think it might be erasing humanity is just sort of leading to that strange level of sameness of like everything is kind of polished.

Exactly.

And it's like it's all reaching that like one standard and that people— it bums me out that people sort of trust that is like, well, this must be the gold standard. The machine says it. This is advanced technology. It must say it. As far as it being put to mundane uses, like, I think that's one of them because I think that I don't know who really gets that upset about like a kind of messy email or an unclear email. Yeah, I certainly don't mind it. And, you know, I think a lot of times I'll be like really laboring over like how to frame a text message or an email in kind of a sensitive situation and think I've never been upset at somebody saying something that's a little awkward here. Like, that's never even been part of my consideration when I, you know, have been in the reverse getting something. I wonder sometimes though with the mundanity, if it might be a sign that this technology is limited. I watched the, um, the, the Meta keynote with Muse, their AI agent, and I don't know, nothing really like mind-blowing happened. I watched the Apple keynote, uh, oh look, it's cute. Exactly. Yeah. It's like this like cutesy little thing and it's on these different devices and you can talk to it. And like, I look at, uh, the Apple keynote and some of the new features of like transcribing the last 15 seconds of a conversation and it's like, That's cool. It's nice. It could be so fast, I guess. Like, there's not really a great— the use case they show is somebody not hearing someone listing the specials in a restaurant. And it's like, well, there's a very easy solution to not knowing what's on a menu at a restaurant. Say, you know, the people who work there who could tell you, who also already told you once. So I don't know, like, it just seems like if they're not finding better ways to incorporate into daily life, I just get kind of worried, like, that these companies are out of ideas. Meanwhile, it's finding infinite uses in war, surveillance, all of that. And it's like, so is the consumer use a front? Is the consumer use a way to try to make it seem cuddlier? Either way, I think the consumer uses are starting to fail and sort of look like they're out of ideas.

Yeah, yeah, I should see in preparation for this, I grabbed my— I do have the CW Pencils cap picked up from the shop. It's what I wear out and about quite a bit. And people say like, are you wearing a Pencils hat? And I always say yes. And I think that's that's sort of the joy of the internet is that you can kind of find people who have been, who are a little desperate and everything. Where in my conversation with Caroline too, we got a lot into kind of the frustration of if you're trying to run a local shop that all of a sudden you have to devote a lot to e-commerce and you're getting people who might be one-time shoppers and never come back, just kind of looking for a sale. Like there's a whole lot of extra work that needs to be done with that for not necessarily much of a reward. And that spoke to something that, you know, thinking of how I'm feeling about the internet these days, a lot more negative over time. And I think that I could relate to what Caroline was talking about there because I think for a lot of us, the— there's sort of this ever-changing table stakes of existing in a— as like a small business. And I don't run a shop or anything like that. I run the small business of being a freelance journalist, which means, you know, I'm selling articles, producing audio, that sort of thing. And first, you know, the first big change was, well, you need to do it online. And okay, that makes sense that, you know, there's always been a digital component, an online component to the work I've done. But then it becomes, oh, and you also have to have a presence on these social media platforms. And the way to get a customer is to have a viral video. The way to— I mean, I'm dealing with it now with books where it's like, you know, I was totally off of Instagram and then it's like, well, really one way to help move a book is to like have a presence on Instagram, do things that are going to get attention and everything like that. And it might be helpful, I don't know, for moving the book, but it is definitely not that helpful for my sense of well-being sometimes because it's like posting things, wondering how it's going, all of that. And it's like, well, gosh, this is like just an ever-expanding part of being a journalist now. Like I have to have a platform of a certain size. I have to have a you know, a following of a certain size. And with a store, a lot of times it's like, well, okay, now you also have to be a TikTok personality in order for people to know about your store so they might place an order online so that they might end up, end up becoming a customer. It's like putting more and more work before anybody sort of becomes loyal to what you do. And it's working on the terms of a tech company, of a platform, of an algorithm that's going to serve things to people. And it's also not really working locally anymore. Like you're not guaranteed to reach the people who are, who are necessarily around you. If you're doing e-commerce, you might not even be focused on or caring that much about the people who are around you. But often, you know, you're kind of serving as a storefront. So I worry that sometimes it's sort of— I get down because I feel like it's just kind of all working for a ghost kitchen almost now. It's like, oh, we're all just like making things that we're not extremely passionate about so that someone else can go deliver them to someone who, who is completely lost on like the entire origin of this, of what's been made.

Yeah. I don't know how many journalism conferences I went to where there was a guest speaker from like the biggest, uh, site at the moment. And that site just no longer exists in any form anymore. Like through like one algorithm change, it was like, I think I remember seeing someone, maybe it was The Daily Dot perhaps, like right before there was an algorithm change that like, they just kind of vanished and nobody noticed because it doesn't, you know. Also build that level of loyalty. So I think that's the kind of selling your soul element that, that brings me down because it's like, I know there are people out there who would be interested in what I'm doing, and I know there are people doing things that I'm interested in who are out there. It's so difficult to find them now.

Oh gosh, yeah, it's such a wasteland now.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a spectrum with all these things, and supporting a local business or a small business is never going to be, uh, entirely bad. I think that that's something that, you know, it's always great to do, to, to opt for the smaller business. The, the way I think about it is it's going to be work no matter what for me to buy something from someone, and so I think about, you know, what's going to be best for me, best for the workers, and best for, for our respective communities. And Oftentimes, preferably, we would have a shared community where these, you know, where sort of all needs are met locally, which doesn't really exist in most places anymore. So I just try to kind of find that balance. I mean, I still order things online from small shops, especially when I see them. So I think it is supporting them. I mean, they're online and they probably need to be online selling things. I think if it's ever possible to go there physically and support them, that's always good. But I think, you know, In the matter of printed books, like Bookshop.org, which gives a lot of money back to local bookstores, and then also bookstores' own e-commerce efforts, like, you know, it's extra work for them to be selling books online, but it does help. And, you know, it's a certain level of meeting the audience that I think you just kind of have to do.

Yeah.

And on the performing thing too, this came up a lot with musicians I talked to as well, of just like the expectation of, well, you write a song, now you have to do like a million things that are not music to promote it in kind of like weird ways. Like it's no longer just like going on a talk show. It's like make a video that has like a skit in it and that sort of thing. And it's like, so we want musicians to do comedy, but then also it just turns out like the funniest musician might get the most attention and maybe they only have like 2 songs and then, you know, they get booked to play a concert somewhere and no fans come out because their fans are, you know, they might have like 5 million fans, but those fans are all over the world. And if you try to book them in, you know, in your local club in, you know, in Springfield or something like that, like, okay, 5 people show up.

Oh, I know.

I haven't seen that.

It's an Underwood 611. And the thing I love about it is— so my mom gave it to me for Christmas many years ago. After my grandmother had passed and she had like found it in the house and she remembered typing her papers on it and everything. And there is a label on the inside that says like a local accounting firm. And I brought it up to my mom and she said, yeah, they bought it used. So it's like a 1930s perhaps. Yeah. Underwood 611. It still works. It's had one major repair from damage in moving. Yeah. One major repair I'm aware of. It still works. I don't use it a ton because it is extremely heavy. So trying to figure out like a place to, to have it where like it could be typed on a little bit more. I do have behind me in the video a Brother Charger typewriter.

Yeah, which I found, and I thought was so funny that it had like a car name. Like, and then I did recently, when I finished the book and turned in the draft, I had the idea of maybe getting into, into typecasting and posting some typewritten pages and got, got an Olympia typewriter, a used one. That looked really nice to do that with since the Brother does not have— there's a problem with the mechanism that's turning the ribbon. And so it's a little bit of a hassle. I do want to get it repaired, but also it's not the best experience typing. And then my in-laws, when we moved, gave us their old Hermes Baby, but it has a European keyboard. So I have no idea, like the W and the Y or the Z and the Y are transposed. Like there's a few changes that lead to just not being able to use it very well.

Oh, that's so cool.

I mean, I, I think my stationery geekery, uh, it started in college when I was taking cartooning classes. Well, started before that. My mom does graphic design and so she would have all these like cool, uh, utensils around for, uh, for creativity. But then working as a journalist, I was always kind of looking for the perfect kind of setup, uh, especially to juggle with audio gear. The fountain pen that I like, that I use the most, is a Lamy 2000 that my wife gave me for our anniversary years ago. And before that, I'd been using a Parker 57 that I found in a drawer in a family home and, and was able to find someone who could replace the nib and the filling mechanism and everything. And I really like that.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, but I don't use any either that much, I think partially because my handwriting is so bad and also because, uh, even working as a journalist, I really quickly went to using pencils for most things because they don't freeze, they don't melt, the, the lead's always going to be like sort of, it's going to be behaving, uh, pretty well and just kind of having a couple pencils in, uh, like in my bag worked pretty well. I do carry a Fisher Space Pen everywhere I go, uh, for that same reason. Like just in case you need to write underwater or upside down. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. I have like I'm a Fisher Space Pen, like I always have that. And then whatever pencil has been kind of worn down with a cap on it when I leave the house that I carry. And then my brother just gave me— I was just looking at it— a Tombow AirPress pen.

Yeah, it has like the features of the Space Pen, but, but man, it works fantastic and has such a narrow point. I really like it. So I've been carrying that one around a lot too. As far as pencils, the ones I have I know that these have been reissued, but I'm not sure if they're as good. The Eberhard Faber Mongol, also found in a drawer of old family things. So this is, I mean, the eraser is just like a rock at this point.

Yeah.

Yeah, I, I found 3 old ones in a, in a box, and, uh, I have one unsharpened, this one freshly sharpened, and then one that has been worn down that I'm a little afraid to use The lead is so thick, like the core is so thick. But yeah, this is a made in USA 482 number 1, very soft. Fantastic. And then also I've been— I just found these pencils will not escape me. When I started college, my mom gave me a gross of Sanford American Naturals. That's my favorite pencil.

And I went through most of them in college and still have had them and they've just been with me move after move after move. And I recently found one and have been using it. And then apart from that, a lot of, uh, Musgrave's Blackwings that I kind of stocked up on before, uh, before moving.

All right, now it's like even more precious.

I could talk about notebooks.

Oh gosh.

So Field Notes is the one that I carry around the most, have sort of always had them in my pocket, always keep them numbered. I'm on number, let's see, 139 right now.

So right now just a plain kraft paper. I did recently also treat myself to, I'd had sort of a good run of some freelance gigs and got one of the Luis Carmen, the sort of leather folios for it.

To carry 2 around, which is nice though. It doesn't fit as cleanly into the back pocket of most of my pants. So I've had to like change around how I how I carry it. So that's like always with me for reporting. I still use, and they're getting harder and harder to find, the reporter's notebook, like the kind of sort of standard one. And these were free with really crappy paper in like every newsroom I ever worked in. But then this company First Draft came along when the company that made the originals, where you used to just be able to call a number in Virginia and the guy who owned the company would mail you a bunch. And, and he has since passed away. But, but yeah, this company First Draft came along. And then they ended up not, or it didn't last long enough and they've gone out of business, I think 2021 through 2025 or so. But they were making them in the USA again. So I don't think you can get these made in the USA. And it's tough because I can't find the same form factor here. So I just, like before when I heard they shut down, I like ordered a whole bunch of them to be shipped to my parents' house and then just picked them up, picked them up there.

Yeah. Yeah.

I love, yeah. Nice. Yeah. The ones that I used to get were, uh, from Stationers Inc of Richmond, Virginia. Uh, there's what, uh, I never get the name right. Staedtler Norica. Oh yeah, Japanese paper brand. Yeah, they make these little— I forget what size this is, this is A4 or A5, but it's a small notebook that I carry around a lot for to write out. I do a newsletter, and so I write those out by hand. I was excited about this. Now I feel like it's just show and tell, but just to kind of nerd out on— I mentioned in the book going to a repair cafe to get, to get a bag fixed, like these places. And it was in this wild business that's just called like a supplies market and they sell everything like mannequin parts, odd buttons, thread. My wife is, uh, she's sewing clothes and so she goes there to get fabric and stuff, but they have a lot of paper of odd sizes and I found this gigantic Rhodia pad.

I absolutely love it. It's gigantic and heavy and, uh, Yeah, like we got it one time when we were there and then we were just going to like a coffee shop to work and I thought, I'm going to write in this thing and was like, just like taking one of these like tiny little European cafe tables with this giant pad.

There was an interview he gave. I remember seeing when he mentioned carrying, uh, using like a jumbo size pencil in the kitchen for writing.

And I, uh, I do that and I do kind of keep like, all around our apartment, there'll be like a jumbo pencil just kind of like sitting somewhere where it's like, if you have an idea, like really quickly, you need to grab it and write. Yeah. Yeah. So there's jumbo pencils everywhere.

Oh gosh. Yeah. Um, I don't know. I, I use, uh, for writing the book, I'd like kind of kept running into like different ideas and everything and, um, for work, I'd been working like mostly in an office and not going out into the field too much. And I got one of the Roterfaden notebook holders to hold multiple notebooks. And I had put in and like I had a calendar in there and a few other things. And so I started using that exclusively when writing the book. And it's like I use the open, like book style notebook for sort of larger notes, meeting notes when I would talk with people, interviews, everything like that. And then for as I was like reading things in, like I went to the university library here or would check out books or buy books and read them. I got in the habit bit of just kind of ripping a page from, uh, like Rhodia pad and keeping it, using it as the bookmark in a book and, uh, and like writing down page numbers and things, uh, that I wanted to go back to, to scan or get the exact quote and everything. And so now I have this like bulging Rhoder Faden notebook that has like all these like little torn out pieces of, uh, like little torn out pieces of notebook paper that like mention like what book and, uh, and everything. They're all just kind of like clipped to the inside of the, the main notebook that's been, uh, that filled up with all the The observations in the archive.

There's, um, somewhere I had seen— I think David Sedaris mentioned that he uses Rollbahn notebooks.

Yeah, they're so interesting. Like, I finally saw some in the store. Their logo is just the Lufthansa logo flipped over.

I got one and, uh, yeah. And, uh, I don't know, just kind of keep it on the desk. I like the flip-top notebooks to just kind of have as like notes on the desk. Uh, when I need to write something down.

Yeah. I, I don't know. I feel like I'm kind of always looking for new, uh, new things to write on now. I'm, I'm like kind of settled in my, uh, in my pencil routine now. I also just have like, I, I just went wild before moving and like stocked up on everything that I'm like, I'm not gonna be able to get this.

Let me make sure.

So it's just like boxes and boxes, like, uh, yeah.

They already did a moon edition too. I wonder what they did.

Yes.

You can find me. It's the website is againstconvenience.com, which is just redirects to my own website, gabebullard.com. And there's a link there to get the book. It's— they had set it up. The UK publisher set up this. It's like a genius link where it'll pull up whatever the closest place is to you. But you can also just go to bookshop, go to your local bookstore. Wherever books are available to pick it up. And then yeah, find me at either againstconvenience.com or gabebullard.com.

The UK cover is different in one way that I was talking to a friend here who grew up in the UK about it. So mine, it's like, it's like the food delivery bag on a, on front steps and Against Convenience is in like the hollow letters and the filled letters, like it's all printed on the bag. In the UK edition, it's not looking as if it's printed on the bag. I wasn't sure if that's because like that style of writing just isn't as, isn't as common or what. And then the Styrofoam cup is not on the UK cover as well. But it's like, it's like these minor changes. Although the UK version, I had a book event here and I had like the big box of US edition and big box of UK edition. The UK edition is slightly thicker. The paper stock is a little bit thicker, and that translates to the book itself being slightly taller. And so people look at them and they say like, what's the difference? And, uh, they think that the taller one's gonna have like more words or something in it.

Yeah, I don't know how they end up deciding it. But yeah, it was so exciting to see.

And I don't know. Yeah, I've tried to get a good explanation from a British person on why the writing isn't on the bag, but I think it's just not as much, not as common over there.