#447: HONOR LEVY

On 🧸 ⌛ Remembering, ⚙️ 💭 Being Generative, 🏛️ 💻 Digital Archives, and more.

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Cool people like cool things, which is why we asked Honor Levy to share a taste of her taste on Perfectly Imperfect.

Honor Levy is a Los Angeles-based writer, whose work you might have seen in publications like The New Yorker and Heavy Traffic Magazine (here’s a piece I love that was also lauded by Dean Kissick in Interview Mag). We first featured Honor (#119) almost 3 years ago as part of the cult-favorite (but now defunct) Wet Brain podcast with Walter Pearce. Honor’s writing has been labeled “Alt Lit 2.0”, and her highly anticipated debut novel, My First Book, was released earlier this month. It received praise from The Paris Review as well as Paper Magazine, and Tao Lin described the book as “Fractal stories from the eschatological present, told in a strange, new, manic, and flarfy voice that I trust and endorse.” I’m not sure if I can top Tao’s description, but I was lucky enough to be sent an early copy and I loooved it— Honor is the hyper-online voice of a generation. Lucky for us, Honor’s here to tell us what she’s been into.

You can get your copy of My First Book here.

Without further ado

Honor Levy (instagram, twitter, tiktok)

🧸⌛ Remembering

Sometimes remembering hurts. Sometimes remembering helps. I recommend it anyway. Remember 2009? Remember narwhals, narwhals, swimmin' in the ocean? Remember Snape, Snape, Severus Snape. Snape, Snape, Severus Snape? Remember playing Nintendogs under your sheets on your DS on a rainy night in 2007 or playing Minecraft on a cool Autumn night while your parents fought downstairs in 2012? We can never go back, but we can try through simulation and emulation. Remember making images with Microsoft paint and word art and Kid Pix, you can use them again now! Try beating The Impossible Quiz , taking care of Nintendogs, creating a penguin, building a city, playing my personal favorite GameBoy Advance Game, or finding your own childhood games memories to play again using Internet Archive and other emulation services, tools and resources.

🔣➕ Unicode Characters and Kaomojis

Sometimes words are not enough so I recommend using unicode characters and combinations to communicate instead. Here are some of my favorite Unicode characters: 𓅸ꙮރ ྀི𓋤𐌕𓍯𓃹𓋜𓏲𖧻𓋫𖡎 ౨ৎ𓄯◌݉ ྀི 𓆫𑜸𓃛𓎛🀙𖭝𓆒୨୧    ꙰ 𛱠𓋇⟣𖡍𓍊ዣ𝑳𓆞𒆙𓆰𑜷ೀ𓆇◌្𓄧ᭆ𖤈𓇻𓄦 🀥⚭𓄒𖠖 ᭓𓆝ꮺ𖡫᭄𐩕🀦𑗗𓇼ִ ࣪𖤖 𖠘 𖠶𓁙.ೃ࿔𖡊🃝 𓆑𖡗𓆨𖤍 𖡹𖢅𖢄𖥓𖤒𖦄 𖥚𖤜𖣂𖤒𖦹𓇗  ༘⋆ᰔᩚೂ ༊𖭜ℓ🝮ൽ𒓡𖣂𑱡𒑆𓍼 ༘𑜸ꣃ𓃗꙳, click here  or  here  if you want to search and find out what they mean or find your own favorites. You can combine them to make little pictures like this 𓏲ރ  or this ೀ or into kaomojis as little faces ໒꒰ྀི˶•⤙•˶꒱ྀིა ʕ•͡-•ʔ and scenes ⎧ᴿᴵᴾ⎫◟◟◟◟◟◟◟◟ ❀◟(ó ̯ ò, ).  This is my favorite kaomoji site, you can use it to find and create a face for any emotion or situation. _:(´ཀ`」∠):_ ˚‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅ )‧º·˚

🏛️💻 Digital Archives, Databases, Libraries

There are so many incredible online archives of everything, so much to discover and so many rabbit holes to fall into. Check out The American Diary Project, The Malware Museum, The Buttolph Collection of Menus, Hoaxes of History, The Ted Nelson Archive, The Whole Earth Index, Jocari, The Geocities Gallery just to name a few very specific ones. 

⚙️💭 Being Generative

The most magical feeling I know is the feeling of making. We live in a magical time. There are new tools to create instant songs and images and games and tools to create tools. I love making things with these tools, being generative, bringing group chat jokes to life. Collaboration is now possible when you’re all alone. But I also love being generative in more old school ways like using the techniques found in this incredible collection, The Surrealist Book of Games. 

🖇️👭 Mia Council and Abby Walters

Mia Council is my editor and Abby Walters is my agent, without them I’d make and do nothing. They are incredible and so full of ideas. Mia recommends planting moonflowers.