Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

27 Sep 2014, 19:19 p.m.

Five Things Make A Post

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2014 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

(The LiveJournal/Dreamwidth user community use this title & format a lot; am borrowing from them.)

  1. Freddie Mercury's video for "The Great Pretender" doesn't just use clips from previous Queen videos; it visually quotes them by recreating/reusing the sets and costumes and showing Mercury singing "The Great Pretender" lyrics in those contexts. I spent a few hours this morning looking up, for instance, thoughts on Mercury's desi origins and legacy. Like a lot of Indian-American folks, I grew up idly hearing Queen songs in the background of my life, not knowing his parents were Gujarati. I think back to my life as a disaffected teen, when I was listening to Weird Al Yankovic and the Capitol Steps, unaware of any Indian pop culture figures outside of India, and using HoTMaiL, founded by an Indian, Sabeer Bhatia -- what a different life it might have been if I'd noticed Mercury as a diaspora South Asian role model. (Although he was dead by then.)
  2. Dozens of people have written to the Wikimedia developers' mailing list to say they're sad I'm leaving Wikimedia Foundation. It is nice to know I will be missed.
  3. Leonard and I have richly enjoyed a few episodes of Just One More Thing: A Podcast About Columbo. The "Etude in Black" episode features Mallory Ortberg because of her fantastic essay on Columbo. I've also started enjoying Kumail Nanjiani's The X-Files Files but haven't recently watched nearly as much of the source material and am thus waiting before really diving in. We really live in an amazing era, historically speaking; with a bit of money, I can easily access Columbo, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Queen, Prime Suspect, and so much other rewarding entertainment!
  4. Leonard and I have also gotten a bit into doing crossword puzzles from the American Values Club. Witty and recommended.
  5. An artist has made a Twitter bot that is making a new Anatomy of Melancholy by retweeting tweets that include the word "melancholy".