in this house we surf all the channels at once

Hi, I”m Visa! Most people know me from my Twitter or my YouTube channel. You can also read a more comprehensive “About Me” on my main website, visakanv.com.

In 2023, I’m planning to do weekly-ish essays consolidating everything I know, in a way that’s hopefully useful and interesting to other people. I’d love it if you subscribed!

I think there are 2 particularly good essays on this substack so far:

1. We were voyagers

2. Are you serious?

I’ll continue to update this every time I think I wrote a particularly good essay.

Why Voltaic Verses?

“And that's how we measure out our real respect for people—by the degree of feeling they can register, the voltage of life they can carry and tolerate—and enjoy. End of sermon. As Buddha says: live like a mighty river. And as the old Greeks said: live as though all your ancestors were living again through you.” – Ted Hughes

(9apr2023) I should maybe write a bit about “Voltaic Verses”, which is the current name I have for this publication. The old placeholder name was something like “visakanv’s switchboard”. I liked it as a generic idea, to remind myself of one of my goals, which is to build dense interwoven connections between people and ideas. But something about it didn’t quite feel right for me. And I did some brainstorming and had a flash of insight. I wanted the VV alliteration, since it matches my initials, and I really liked Ted Hughes’ quote.

I have more to say but I’ll leave it at that for now.

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(19Apr2023) Ok so I’ve been thinking about it a little more and I think the critical reason I’ve been stuck on my essays is that I haven’t had a compelling frame that makes sense. I’m sticking with the name Voltaic Verses as the overarching frame, but I have been needing something like a sub-frame. And I think I’m going to go with “Letters to a young FAN” or “Letters to a young switchboard operator”. We’ll see…

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Books and media

It occurs to me that a list of books functions as a sort of approximation for the vibe of what a publication might be about. So Here is a non-exhaustive list of books I think I will be referencing, talking about, or otherwise be inspired by:

Books (in chronological order):

• Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet (1929)

• Joseph Campbell – The Hero With A Thousand Faces (1949)

• Carl Jung – Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961)

• David Ogilvy – Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963)

• Marshall McLuhan – Understanding Media (1963)

• John Berger – Ways of Seeing (1972)

• Lewis Thomas – Lives of a Cell (1974)

• James Burke – Connections (TV series) (1978)

• Christopher Alexander – The Timeless Way Of Building (1979)

• Moore & Gillette – King Warrior Magician Lover (1990)

• Tør Norretranders – The User Illusion (1991)

• Scott McCloud Understanding Comics (1993)

• Jay Griffiths – Sideways Look At Time (1999)

• Sebastian Junger – Tribe (2016)

And of course my own books, Friendly Ambitious Nerd (2020) and Introspect (2022).

Articles / blogposts / videos:

• The Information: How The Internet Gets Inside Us (newyorker.com, 2011)

• Pericles Funeral Oration (431 BCE)

• The Problem Of Excess Genius, by David Banks [1997]

• Schleps, Puzzles, and Packages (ribbonfarm.com, 2013)

• Everything is a Remix [37:30] , 2015

• Sequelitis – Megaman X [19:52] 2011

• Kenny Werner’s Effortless Mastery [1:25:26], 2011

tbc