Critical Nonsense

How do you summon The Genuine Maybe? 

This week, Jess and Joey talk about the Confidence Interval, curiosity, viewquakes, the gender norms of being assertive, rightness, and openness. They don’t talk about Björk. 

references 

• Confidence Interval 
• The New Yorker: Emojis That Parents Are Still Waiting For 

What do I know? 

This week, Joey, Aaron, and Jess talk about not having all the answers, amoebic sponges, career archs and karma, graciousness in success, recognizing your value, and being dumb. They don’t talk about low-performing assholes. 

references 

• Revisiting Critical Nonsense 215! Success 
• Randy Johnson 
• Men at Work

What does cake tell us about now? 

This week, Jess, Aaron, and Joey talk about Cake Boss, Duff Goldman, Instagram cakes, Julia Child, wedding cakes, and enlightenment. They don’t talk about Daniel Craig. 

references 

• Claire Saffitz on Instagram about the Cake Renaissance 
• Saveur: How to Make Those Fabulously Unhinged Cakes You Saw on Instagram 
• Corrections Department: "Cake Boss" Buddy Valastro's Carlo's Bakery in ... Hoboken 
• "The Other Dude" Duff Goldman's Charm City Cakes in Baltimore 
• Netflix: Is It Cake? 
• Japanese game show Candy or Not Candy 
• The New York Times: Let Them Eat Wacky, Whimsical Cake 
• The New York Times Style Magazine: The Latest Trend in Baking? Making a Mess 
• The 7 charatceristics of the Renaissance 
• Molecular gastronomy 

What do you think is going to be the next musical instrument solo in pop music? 

This week, Aaron, Jess, and Joey talk about sax solos, the digitization of music, musicianship, sonic genre markers, Ice Spice, and background music. They don’t talk about Raphael Ravenscroft. 

references 

• Running to your circles of flame 
• Plain English podcast with Derek Thompson: Why the Cult of Achievement in Schools Is Making People Miserable 
• A phenomenon like Uncle L and Melle Mel 
• Who will always love you? Dolly. And Whitney. That's who. 
• Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed 
• Switched on Pop podcast: The L.A. guitar shop that reinvented indie folk 
• Quartz: The economics of streaming is making songs shorter 
• Ice Spice 

How do you feel about centaurs and what centaurs do you want to be? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about ChatGPT, Garry Kasparov, workplace production, individualistic augmentation, the Chinese zodiac, and mitochondria. They don’t talk about manticores. 

references 

• Falkor the Luck Dragon 
• Revisiting Critical Nonsense 191! AI Art and Hamsterstanistan 
• How To Become A Centaur 
• "Experimental Evidence on the Productivity Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence" by Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang 
• "When and How Artificial Intelligence Augments Employee Creativity" by Nan Jia, Xueming Luo, Zheng Fang, and Chengcheng Liao 
• Lump of labour fallacy 
• Chinese Zodiac 
• Factor analysis 
• Mitochondria 
• The sporkife 

How do we reflect? 

This week, Jess and Joey talk about rumination, perseveration, internal monologues, employee reviews, radical candor, and feedback. They don’t talk about "2000 Seasons."

references 

• Joey makes money moves. 
• "MotorSport" 
• LLM (Large Language Model) 
• Corrections Department: RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) 

How should we approach success? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about whales, personal comparison, persistence hunting, gender dynamics, emotional labor, and lunch prep. They don’t talk about fairyfly hearts. 

references 

• Foxy Brown's "Candy" 
• Corrections Department: A blue whale's heart isn't actually the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. 
• Kajornwan Chueng's twitter thread about her kid "doing the bare minimum." 
• Emotional labor 
• The New York Times: ‘Fleishman Is in Trouble’ and the Angst of the Striving Upper Class 
• Boston.com: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck reveal they shared a bank account in their teens and 20s to fund their showbiz dreams 

Why are we so bad at packing? 

This week, Jess and Joey talk about reducing travel expectations, The Uniform Project, embodying different personas, punting decisions, efficiency, and shoes. They don’t talk about Kevin. 

references 

• The Uniform Project 

When or how or where are the places that we should be deploying pettiness and feel okay about it? 

This week, Joey, Oliver ... er ... Aaron, and Jess talk about petty/offense pairings, berms, feedback loops, Karens, The Pettisphere, and FAFO. They don’t talk about Jemelle Hill. 

references 

• You don't know how it feels ... to set fire to the rain. 
• Arena Is Free on Mortal Kombat 
• Savannah James claps back 
• Nancy Pelosi claps back 
• The Atlantic: The Mythology of Karen 
• The petticoat 
• The not-very-petty mountain bluebird 
• The very FAFO magpie 
• A goose! 
• So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson 

How do we navigate the tricky feelings? 

This week, Jess and Joey talk about whistling, the Circumplex Model of Affect, anger in the workplace, navigating of negative spaces, being a squeaky wheel, and heightened emotional points. They don’t talk about Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam. 

references 

• "The circumplex model of affect: An integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development, and psychopathology" by Jonathan Posner, James A. Russell, and Bradley S. Peterson 
• The 16-box version of the Circumplex Model