Leo

I might be botching a Hank Green quote with the title of this post but I’ve noticed how it’s increasingly difficult to stay buoyant, to keep light on my toes, to feel optimistic about the future. In Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millenium, lightness is the first quality he notes for aspiring writers but I’ve always taken it one step further: I believe that lightness is an essential quality to strive for outside of books and e-essays, too. It requires constantly fighting your own brain-goo, the overwhelming complacency and laziness and shortsightedness of so many, and that eternal memento-mori-feeling that all things eventually turn to muck. Lightness is heroic! It is courageous! Not to turn a blind eye to terrible things or ignoring them completely, of course, but rather in the face of so much misery to come out hopeful on the other side of it. So: here are some things that have kept me light. <hr /> The new (and final) <a href="https://xoxofest.com/blog/2026-launching-xoxo-explore/">XOXO website</a> is fantastic. I loved XO. I went three times and I miss it already. Plus, the design of this website sure is something else. (Although it’s not really surprising because you could always trust the XOXO crew to make one hell of a website.) <hr /> Speaking of websites, <a href="https://gt-mechanik.com/">GT Mechanik</a> is likewise fantastic. With each new GrilliType website I feel a wave of embarrassment—total and utter shame—as I realize how limited my imagination and ambition have become. My favorite part of this website is how you can “tune” to the right scroll destination at the bottom like a radio because usually when someone messes with the scroll it’s a terrible idea—but this works! Sometimes terrible ideas can actually be punk! Anyway, GrilliType websites are humbling in the best possible way. <hr /> Widow’s Bay on AppleTV. So. Very. Good. It’s a dark comedy with light hints of horror. Matthew Rhys is one of the few people who can cuss and make me laugh every time. But I still minimize the window when the scary parts happen. <hr /> I don’t believe that all, or even most, of life can be recorded in a database. But sometimes I like the attempt! Sometimes the effort of trying to computerize the world is foolish yet impressive! And perhaps databases don’t need to be filled to the brim with useless analytics or eye tracking junk or keyboard capture malware! Did you know that some databases are filled with trees? This is why I like the <a href="https://bsm.sfdpw.org/urbanforestry/">San Francisco Street Tree Map</a>. <hr /> Calibre’s <a href="https://music.apple.com/us/album/tricklemore-sea/1892016305">Tricklemore Sea</a> has been on repeat all week. It’s brooding, moody, and hypnotic. I’ve been a fan of Dominick Martin’s Calibre for what feels like centuries now and I love how his work yo-yos between drum and bass and something like Tricklemore Sea — lighter, calmer, but with real zoom, a consistent momentum all the way through. <hr /> I loved this <a href="https://soundcloud.com/caribouband/daphnifold">7 hour set by Daphni/Caribou’s Dan Snaith</a>, too. <hr /> Jenny Volvovski’s website and the <a href="https://www.jennyvolvovski.com/category/unsolicited">Unsolicited</a> section is such a wonderful idea it hurts: <blockquote> In 2012, I really wanted to design book covers but didn’t have any book cover work. So I hired myself to redesign my personal library. To make the series feel cohesive (and to give myself some structure), I set some rules: green, black, and white for colors; Futura, typewriter, handwriting (and sometimes Caslon Italic) for type; hand-made images whenever possible. As time went on, I started breaking my own rules, and as I was hired to make real covers, I made fewer and fewer unsolicited ones. </blockquote> The work here is just lovely but this website also fights the eternal fight of being a thing whilst you’re doing a thing. No one will ever give you permission to be a designer or developer, a “real” writer or a “professional” musician. I waited years for someone to tell me what I am, to give me the authorial nod that would let me ascend into doing “real” work. But you have to claim that label for yourself! You doing the work is enough! Ascend! Also: my second favorite thing about Jenny’s website is the Published section where she shows the options her clients didn’t pick for the final design. Take <a href="https://www.jennyvolvovski.com/covers/field-guide-to-falling-ill#unused-options">The Field Guide to Falling Ill</a> for instance. I could look at scrapped book design ideas all day long. <hr /> I just finished <a href="https://housemarque.com/games/saros">Saros</a>, Housemarque’s latest rogue-lite mind-bending bullet-hell game. I loved the vague storytelling, the sci-fi mystery, the angsty moodiness of the game. And I loved the ending! Make sure to play beyond the first credit sequence though as the story continues beyond them and wraps up things in a much more satisfying way. At first I wasn’t sold on the protagonist, Arjun Devraj. I thought he was a selfish jerk. But over the course of the game I fell in love. Especially towards the end, and during the secret ending, where he gets one last shot to make things right. <hr /> On that note, I also watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fimmD9EtVd0">Returnal is a Hell of Our Own Creation</a> which is all about Housemarque’s previous game that I bounced off after the second boss beat me into oblivion. I would watch out though because this video is a total and complete bummer! But it goes into why Housemarque games are interesting, simply because they don’t have satisfying endings. Their characters are all trapped in hell, incapable of escape even after they think they’ve won. What makes me excited about this is just how much storytelling room there is to play with in games like these. Rogue-lites are all about learning and death, but Housemarque takes that fun gameplay loop and makes it heartbreaking and tragic. (Sometimes heartbreak can be inspiring!) <hr /> I’ve also been playing <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2582320/Mixtape/">Mixtape</a>. And goddamn. I worried at first that this game would be too Wes Andersen, too nostalgic or cheesy. And although it is extremely nostalgic it does that end-of-summer-high-school-goodbye thing in the best way possible. The game is built around a mixtape, a playlist, of the last night in your hometown. And as someone who is partly obsessed with making playlists—here’s <a href="https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/april-2026/pl.u-YR1PuP1XW2K">April 2026</a>—I loved navigating this town, these friendships, these songs.