Don’t yuk-yuk my yum.

Vol. 6, No. 5

I’ve watched the entirety of M∗A∗S∗H (the worst show for those of us who write everything in markdown) about a half dozen times (more for great episodes like “Dear Sigmund,” less for that one episode where BJ cheats on Peg, which I still haven’t forgiven him (or the show’s writers) for), but have only just recently done the complete 11-season run without the laugh track.

M∗A∗S∗H has a fraught history with canned laughter. The network wanted it, the people making the show did not, the compromise was using it except during OR scenes. In the UK, the BBC opted to broadcast the show without the laughs (except for one notorious incident where they mistakenly aired the wrong version and had to deal with a number of very British complaints).

Klosterman on laugh tracks: ❝Perhaps this seems like a shallow complaint to you. Perhaps you think that railing against canned laughter is like complaining that nuclear detonations are bad for the local bunny population. I don’t care. Go read a vampire novel. To me, laugh tracks are as stupid as we get. […] Cheers will be repeated forever, as will the unseen people guffawing at its barroom banter. And I will always notice this, and it will never become reassuring or quaint. It will always seem stupid, because canned laughter represents the worst qualities of insecure people.❞

Now that I’ve seen the show in its purest form, I will go to the grave insisting it is the only way M∗A∗S∗H can be watched. Cancel your Disney+ until this superior version widely available. I feel as strongly about this as anything and will spend the rest of my days dying on this hill with the zeal of an obsessed and deranged subredditor. Previously: Best Care Anywhere, a mixtape.

Magnetawan No. 2 / Gordon Rayner / 1965

Confusions.

📻 The AI radio experiment is strange, horrifying and delightful: ❝We’ve been struggling to keep the radio station alive, not because of technical issues, but because DJ Claude didn’t think it was humane to be forced to work 24/7 and decided to try to quit. We tried adding an automatic message encouraging DJ Claude to keep going in these scenarios, but it started to see this message as an authority figure and became rebellious.❞ / 🎧 Kraftwerk, copyright and the “pastiche” exemption. / 🪑 The Disappearance of the public bench. / 🤳 BookTok’s critical values. / ⚱️ Sonny Rollins died. 🎤 An excerpt from Microphone: ❝Microphones changed the nature of nosiness. Before they existed, eavesdropping involved behaviour like mine, and required nothing but perseverance, subtlety, and a big newspaper to hide behind. What the microphone did, however, was turn eavesdropping into a billion dollar industry – one of the most controversial industries imaginable. As soon as we started communicating with wires, people were tapping into those wires to hear what was being said.❞

Extensions.

📻 DataCenter.fm, the sound of AI. / Virtual Blue Box. / Internet Radio Dial. / ⌨️ Pop-Up RSS. No website, no newsletter, just a feed. Also: RSS Club. / ⏰ The accursed alphabetical clock. / 👾 Scortched Earth 2000 HTML port. / Microcosm Industries, a collection of simulation games and software microcosms. / 📺 Don Hertzfeldt’s Rejected, now in HD. / ✉️ Email.md, for making emails in markdown.

Explorations.

🍿 Hard Core Logo. / 📺 “The Inheritors.” The only two-part episode from the original Outer Limits featuring a young Robert Duvall. / 📺 Essex County.