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“Ta-da.”

I accidentally made this website into a newsletter, and it looks like almost fourteen people accidentally signed up for it. Which is awesome and weird. Thank you.

Merlin Mann

02 Feb 2025 • 5 min read

Photo: Gilbert Tang.

I used to have a blog. Truthfully, I used to have a lot of blogs.

Point is, I miss having a blog. So, just for now, let's put a pin in all the very interesting conversations about shifting media landscapes and disruptive attention economies and ad spends and big asks and heavy lifts and whatnot.

Because first I need to figure out how this contraption works.

First

Here's a little girl who loves trains seeing a train.

Apparently, Madeline is now older and reportedly does not like trains as much. But we got to be there when she still liked trains a lot, and that's really nice.

Men having reasons

This movie. Conspiracy (2001). It's been obsessing me.

I can't stop thinking about it—and it's not just because I tend to dilute my strong emotions about current events by refocusing on historical moments when something even more horrible was happening. Although that does happen.

📋

Log line: January, 1942. The Wannsee Conference. In which 15 powerful men begin to operationalize their "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." (It's probably why you know that phrase.)

No, I think Conspiracy is obsessing me because it illustrates how wickedness is rarely monolithic and can, in fact, have innumerable subtle facets.

The whole movie is basically just a meeting. Because, as it happens, the entire historic Wannsee Conference took less than two hours. Just a little longer than the run time of this TV movie.

Only, see: it's not really just a meeting movie.

First, and foremost, every single person at that giant table has a different point of view. And a different set of motivations. And a different set of constraints. Let alone having fifteen different wildly complicated human feelings about other people.

Second, all of the stuff happening around the meeting is super important. They're losing in Russia. Nobody trusts the SS. Goering and Bormann are feuding. Klopfer has strong opinions about regional German sausages.

The great Ian McNiece as Dr. Gerhard Klopfer. Insanely stacked cast.

Briefly, I think I'm obsessed with Conspiracy (2001) because it reminds us that every famous result—every historic outcome or disruptive civic consequence—probably started with some insanely complicated differences.

And regardless of any given outcome and how we feel about it, we benefit from exploring the difficult Rashōmon of how something that starts with a bunch of dissatisfied bullies and dingalings can end up turning your country into something you'd never expected.

So, yeah. In retrospect, maybe not the best movie to distract yourself from current events.

Anyways. Good movie. Five stars.

"The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons." *Rules of the Game* (1939)

Shut up. Trailers used to suck.

So, yeah, anyway

In the interest of kicking things off, let's try some CMS features.

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Technically, this is now a computer post, Mastodon. Bleep Bloop! Also: this is called a callout. And they should let you manually add line breaks to it. #computers

Next up, it's cool that Ghost makes it easy to embed a YouTube video. So, here's the music video for my favorite song.

"You might as well be dead, he said, if you're afraid to fall."

And, I do enjoy sharing music, so it's cool that I can just drop in a Spotify playlist.

Please try playing this very good Spoon record in reverse order. You will have a very strong opinion about it.

But lest we overlook the snobs, here's my Classical Bangers playlist from Apple Music. (Chosen specifically for how cool they sound in Dolby Atmos). Also, we'll jointly discover how this operation deals with an embedded iframe. #computers

Oh, also! I forgot you can also do YouTube playlists real easy. Which is nice.

There will never be another like Blondie.

And, while I can't imagine using it much, it's cool that you can easily link to other stuff on the site. Presumably for engagement. So, here's some other things I wrote here with which you can engage.

I don't think the man ever had a professional haircut in his life.

They call this a header.

It is very dramatic!

Like I say

I don't know why you're here, but I'm so happy that you're here. Maybe we can figure this out together.

In the mean time, unsubscribing seems straightforward, I've disabled all the privacy-stealers I could identify, and I have absolutely no interest in collecting your web leavings. I am not a monster.

Then, to quote the great Kurt Vonnegut, I thank you for your sweetly faked attention.

First

Men having reasons

So, yeah, anyway

They call this a header.

Like I say

This is a sign-up thing.