☀️The Weekstarter: Spreadsheet-free Zones.

Yard turkeys and char-spookerie for days. CONTEXT COLLAPSE! 107

Start a creative business, they said. Make money writing and storyboarding and strategizing they said. End up spending your work hours in spreadsheets and project management you will.

Schitt’s Creek GIF via CBC/Giphy.

So it goes. I love it.

Some things to keep you busy this weekend:

Tech/Business

Amazon letting individual teams work from home indefinitely. For the knowledge worker corporate employees, of course, and not the folks actually in the trenches.

Scott Galloway on digital ad fraud.

Far-right-wing online talk shows and the Vietnamese-American community.

Vox’s Sara Morrison explains dark patterns in apps and websites.

Elizabeth Dias at the NYT on why Facebook sees opportunities in reaching out to faith groups.

That story about eBay harassing a Massachusetts couple is even more WTF than you thought. (Via Aaron Pressman/Boston Globe)

Apple’s new-ish downtown Los Angeles store in a converted movie theatre is amazing.

Jesse Hawken @jessehawken

This is the old theatre where the "Club Silencio" scene from Mullholland Drive was filmed. Now it's an Apple Store. variety.com/2021/film/news… via @Variety

variety.comDowntown L.A.’s First Talkie Theater Becomes a Spectacular Apple Store, and Preservationists Are Talking It UpOne of downtown Los Angeles’ landmark clock towers, the one atop the 1927 Tower Theatre, is no longer right just twice a day. More significantly, the landmark theater below it at 8th and Broadway is no longer the near-exclusive habitue of pigeons, ghosts and David Lynch (who’d used it for a spooky “…

Marketing & Media

Mindy McCormick’s tips for journalists considering a move to teaching.

How Hickory Farms (yes, that Hickory Farms) reverse-engineered their SEO.

Lil Nas X, marketing genius.

American Airlines and TikTok reach agreement to give fliers free in-flight TikTok access.

Culture

Eileen Jones of far-left mag Jacobin on John Carpenter, Apocalyptic Filmmaker.

Persuasion’s Jeff Maurer on why Conan O’Brien took the hard road.

20 of the best Lovecraftian horror movies.

Packy McCormick on the creator economy, NFTs, and the rise of the solo corporation.

Neil Gaiman’s thread on people who help you when you’re breaking into creative industries and don’t have a family with money.

Neil Gaiman @neilhimself

It was Alan Moore who gave me #mybreakthrough when he told me he wanted me to take over Miracleman. Everything changed after that. I knew I was a writer. Who supported your breakthrough? Help #breaktheglass by joining the @artsemergency Network. arts-emergency.org/future-of-the-…

Hillary Monahan @HillaryMonahan

A friend of mine has yard turkeys and one of the turkeys has discovered her basement window. 😆😆😆

Stormy Kittyhawk 🔜 BLFC 🎈🎈 @StormyKittyhawk

Baby are you okay? You've barely touched your Char-spookerie.

☕Neal Ungerleider☕ @nealunger

Neighborhood house is all tricked out for University of Miami Halloween and I'm 1000% all about it.

Watching

Behind the scenes at Rhett and Link, who are also getting into the investment game.

Robert Sapolsky’s amazing YouTube lectures on human psychology.

On the Menu

Drinks: Banana bread smoothie.

Eats: Beer-braised smoked apple & sage sausages.

Masterful Reddit thread on food in North America pre-colonization.

Misc.

How the Republican Party stopped attracting Chicago voters.

YouDict is a YouTube-based video dictionary for pronunciation of words, expressions and names in foreign languages. (Via Product Hunt)

Bob Seger’s cover of Tom Waits’ Downtown Train and how the song broke Rod Stewart and Bob Seger’s friendship. (Via Ernie Smith)