Issue No. 1 — Sunday, 3 April, 2022
By Jill Metcalfe
Thanks for turning up! This is the project I’ve been putting off for months because newsletters seem so boring. But by telling myself I can experiment with Notion, wander off-brand and generally just scratch my own itches, it’s turned into a fun thing to do. Almost.
I’ll be taking a “sidelong look” (see definition of lorgnette 👉) at things I’ve come across, and sharing my observations.
Like an actual newspaper, I hope you’ll be able to glance over it and decide which bits you want to read, and which bits you don’t want to bother with.
I was happy to come across an article by Matt Tillotson that says, basically, that this is the right thing to do.
The third lesson of Six lessons learned writing 137 newsletters is: write for yourself.
The caveat is that what you write must also be useful to your readers.
The approach is summed up in this illustration by Austin Kleon. The scary thing is how small that intersection is.
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A lorgnette (/lɔːˈnjɛt/) is a pair of spectacles with a handle, used to hold them in place, rather than fitting over the ears or nose. The word lorgnette is derived from the French lorgner, to take a sidelong look at, and Middle French, from lorgne, squinting. — Wikipedia
<aside> ✶ The Callout icon
Link and then bringing up your native emoji picker (Win + . or Fn)
</aside><aside> <img src=" " alt=" " width="40px" /> You can leave the icon blank
Link then type a space, and Submit.
</aside><aside> <img src=" " alt=" " width="40px" /> Unfortunately, that doesn’t work with coloured Callouts
Link trick leaves a white square.<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/694f8dea-f46e-4ff4-93c7-4fb09e0117de/transparent_pixel.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/694f8dea-f46e-4ff4-93c7-4fb09e0117de/transparent_pixel.png" width="40px" /> You’ll need a transparent pixel
Upload an image and select your transparent pixel png or gif.
My original working title for this newsletter was The Notion Gazette but I dropped that idea because I didn’t want anyone to think this was an official Notion publication.
But that got me thinking about traditional newspaper names. I started working my way through the 20,000 historical newspapers catalogued in newspapers.com.
The names fall into a few broad categories (many more than I have listed here).
All this before I’d even reached the end of the A’s.
Then I got to the The Belleville Telescope. Here was a new category: seeing instruments! I put “telescope” into thesaurus.com and there was my word: lorgnette. It was old, it was quirky, it was feminine and it was NOT your usual newspaper title.
A Google image search for “lorgnette” produced my cover model: Marie Dressler, a stage actress who found movie success late in life, playing unglamorous roles opposite such luminous beauties as Jean Harlow and Greta Garbo.
She wrote a couple of memoirs, which means she’s going to be a good source of quotes, if I can get hold of the books at a reasonable price. I did find an original postcard of the image opposite for sale on Etsy.
I’ve ordered it. I think it will make my connection to Marie Dressler, and to this newsletter, a bit more real.
Marie Dressler, 1868–1934
<aside> 📖 Books
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Fiction – I finished Book 1: All Systems Red of The Murderbot Diaries Series by Martha Wells. An easy sci-fi read about a neurotic security robot.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Non-fiction – Work the System by Sam Carpenter. Gist of the book so far: Create written procedures (SOPs) for everything, continually refine your processes.
<aside> 🗨️ Things I made this week
<aside> 🛠️ Courses I’m taking
<aside> 🪡 Moving the needle
<aside> 🖋️ If you haven’t already subscribed, you can sign up here to receive more of this nonsense in your inbox every Sunday-ish.
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<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/4d234c7e-ae6b-4beb-af25-e9f2d946774c/152573939-ink-sketch-lorgnette-1_2.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/4d234c7e-ae6b-4beb-af25-e9f2d946774c/152573939-ink-sketch-lorgnette-1_2.png" width="40px" /> The Lorgnette is created in Notion by Jill Metcalfe. Come and say hello on Twitter or send me an email.
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