   I’ve never truly felt comfortable in front of the lens of a camera. In fact, I rarely even like to look at photos of myself. It’s just that.. how I see myself and how I feel about myself in any given moment never quite seems to line up with how others see me. Or how the camera captures me. Or maybe it does, perfectly, which is why they can be so discomforting to me. Self-image can be a cruel bitch. I recall reading somewhere that the late Princess Diana felt similarly about photos, to the point where she would refuse to look at any picture of her printed in the papers. If that is true then I guess that is something we have(had) going for us. Which is cool, I guess.


   Photographs used to mean something to us. This isn’t to say that they don’t mean something today. Rather that, their meaning to us is and has been, in so many ways, diminished. Picture books filled with photos from that first day of school, that High School graduation, and that family road trip to the Grand Canyon in Middle School have been replaced by and large with Instagram and Twitter and Facebook feeds of humble brags, thirst traps, and clout chasing. Photos used to capture some of our most cherished memories. Now, they’re used to capture everyone else’s attention for a moment. What were once intimately personal have become largely, superficially, public.


   Social media isn’t necessarily the root cause of this vain utilitarian shift in photos, but, like the co-dependent couple who always seems to enable the worst in each other, it certainly seems to have enabled this shift. Through likes, comments, shares, and tags social media has quantified our experiences and relationships, and in turn, commodified them. We are incentivized to share content that attempts to acquire as many of these as possible. Actually.. maybe it is the root cause. The medium is the message after all. Right?


   Today, we both outwardly and subconsciously seek places and experiences that are ‘story-worthy’ - that chic new restaurant with the angels’ wings painted on the brick wall outside, or that bar with the photogenic neon sign that makes the baroque drinks. We seek travel destinations that are ‘post-worthy’ - the walking-away-from-the-camera shot in Greece or Italy or Bali, or the costume photo in the watered-down, commercialized versions of what Burning Man or Tomorrowland once were. And all of this doesn’t even begin to dive into the lengths we go to in order to look ‘perfect’ for the camera: filters, fillers, make-up, extensions, microderm, spray tans, and brow/face/butt/cheek/everything lifts. Photos and stories that are created and shared in equal parts to capture the attention of others as they are to capture our own experience.

  All of this is to say that this isn’t some boomer-esque rant on social media within the high-brow confines of writing. Writing included is far from immune to the variegated effects of this commodified attention economy. Writing platforms that incentivize content creation above everything else have resulted in long-form prose and genuine reflection being stripped away, only to be replaced with listicles, native advertising, and 280 character tweets. Our ‘newsfeeds’ today are almost entirely filled of pieces with clickbait titles and jejune content like:

What will become of pandemic pets post-Covid?

I posed as a _______ online. Here’s what I learned.

’ (read: I browsed an online forum for a few hours. Here’s my self-righteous hot-take)

and



’ (read: on ad revenue by pumping out 3 articles just like these every day)

   Upon finishing any of these we would be hard pressed to say that we are the more informed for doing so, or that we’ve gained new perspectives, or broadened our level of understanding. Unless of course, you were interested in learning how to tergiversate a non-question, how to disguise reaction as reflection, and how to be able to monetize doing these things.

   When I think about this - all of this - I always come back to a particular quote by the poet Mary Oliver; 

“Attention without feeling.. is just a report.” 



   And this attention economy, along with the social media platforms that quantify its content and incentivize its creation above all else, ends up being exactly this - an endless stream of reports. Reports that we want to make look perfect. Reports that fight to appeal to as many people and to grab as many people’s attention as possible. This in turn has led to the disastrous combination of both gutting the authenticity of the content we share with each other, as well as the quality of attention we give things. If we’re not showing the world we’re out here #thriving and #living our best life, then why bother to share at all? And why bother to spend the time to connect with friends and family regularly, or dig deeper into current issues and events, when we can ‘keep up’ with everything and everyone through the perfunctory reports that enter our social media feeds. Even the well-intentioned content that attempts to break free from these shackles, such as #nomakeup and #realbeauty posts, or mental health awareness posts, sadly end up falling short, feeling disingenuous. Precisely because they are acts performed within the same arena that glorifies one thing above all else - attention.

  Considering these things brings up a very good question: how does one respond to this attention economy? And.. perhaps to go even further: how can one break free from the subliminal shackles that commodified social media have placed on what we create and share with each other? Well, beyond a dogmatic decision to remove oneself from all forms of social media, it is hard to find a definitive answer to these questions. However, with regard to these I am again reminded of another quote. This one, however, from a conversation I had with a friend. When I asked him, as a photographer, his inspiration behind a secondary Instagram account that he shares stills to, he said to me “Those are for me. They’re just a moment I found pretty, and I wanted to capture it.”


   So in the purview of that subtle wisdom, and with an awareness of the subliminal and overt influences of social media, I’m creating this space to be my own. To share voices - both my own and others - and share some of my words. To explore and reflect and process thoughts and ideas and perspectives. To say what I mean to say in a way I would like to say it. All outside of the spheres of influences and incentives built into commodified social media. Communication is the sole form of expression in which we hope others understand us, and not the other way around. And writing for me is the means of expression I’m far most comfortable with.

      As for photographs however, I’m not sure I will ever feel entirely comfortable taking them, or particularly enjoy being in front of a camera. But that is also fine with me. Because by the act alone of conceding the influences and incentives within social media, and avoiding situations where photos are used or taken for those ulterior motives, the only photos I am left with are the ones that will mean something to me. That despite my discomfort, the photos I do take will be snapshots of the memories and feelings I want to be able to always go back to. They will be captures of the people and places and experiences that I want to remember and cherish for the rest of my life. And in this way their meaning may be, at least somewhat, hopefully, restored.

A photograph a meaning, a memory a feeling

en la frontera 

Blending  muted tones with vibrant color palettes, and monochrome lighting with unorthodox camera angles, Louis Browne’s work feels in many ways.. alive. His style seemingly pulls the viewer into frame, while making the subject pop from it. His work with the camera evokes the sense of being “in it,” whatever the “it” is that happens to end up on the opposite side of his lens.

   Hailing from the U.K. but making New York his home now, photographer and director Louis Browne’s body of work spans not only continents but industries. He has worked with musicians such as Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish on promotional campaigns, and shot adverts for companies like Fender, Bulleit Whiskey, and Mercedes-Benz. And along with these projects, his directorial portfolio includes music videos for COIN and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike.

   Each client brings to a project their own individual expectations, demands, and ideas in mind for the end-product they wish to see realized. To meet client goals across different industries is challenging work in itself, and adding into the mix the goal of developing and refining an artistic style provides concurrent layers of complexity to the creative process. Considering these things I sat down with Louis to discuss his artistic style and how he balances his vision with the expectations of his clients across different industries.

: How did you get started in photography and directing? Did you get started with one before the other?

: I think about this a lot actually, cause it’s easy to fall into something and not remember exactly where it came from once it becomes your reality. I remember we grew up as camera phone cameras got a little bit better, and the generation before didn’t have that. I had this really good camera on my phone when I was 11 and we went on holiday and I thought ‘Cool. I want to take pictures of like, flowers and everything…’ My parents saw me doing that and they bought me a little SLR camera.. tiny little Nikon thing. And then one of my parents’ good friends is a professional photographer. He was like ‘Here is how you can edit.’ He taught me about aperture and shutter speed and it was all over my head at the time, but he taught me a lot.

From there it was just a hobby until I went to University. My housemates were in student media doing radio and writing for the newspaper and they told me to check out student media because I was always into music. I turned up to the office and I learned that radio wasn’t for me, but I ended up realizing that all of these bands would come through and play at our University. So I asked if I could interview these bands and get access to the photo pit. I got to see my favorite bands play. I got the best seat in the house.

: Was that kind of like... one of the big things? Getting to see all your favorite bands play?

: Oh 100% mate. And to be able to get free tickets when you’re a student. That’s the best. I would be going into dressing rooms of bands that I adored. From All Time Low to LANY to The 1975 to The Neighborhood. I was 19, 20 like.. living my dream.

So suddenly I was doing this degree and thought “Now I want to go into either writing for like the NME or another music magazine, or be a music interviewer.’ That would be my job. And then as that progressed, there were photos, but also there was a little video department at my University and I was made editor of that for music. So again, I could interview bands, but I’d video it. And we’d go around to festivals. We did it backstage at Reading Festival which was huge for me and is huge in the UK. From there I loved it. I built a little portfolio and realized that’s what I wanted to do.

And then one day I went to Costa Rica in the middle of university and put a load of pictures on my Facebook. A good friend of mine, Ed, who was working for the agency I would later work for reached out to me and said ‘When you get out of Uni let’s talk and let’s grab a coffee.’ And then from there I got an internship and started working at an agency.

: Starting out, where did you look to for inspiration? How did you start to kind of find your style, your aesthetic? Even as it still was kind of just a hobby.

: Instagram wasn’t really around when I was starting, so it was Facebook and Tumblr and the music scene. And music magazines. I would cover the walls of my bedroom with posters from Kerrang Magazine of all these emo bands. I would look at the photos and I knew there were some that I really liked and some just didn’t interest me. And it was more about the photo rather than the band in some ways. I knew I had specific feelings about how they looked, and they made me feel different ways and that definitely impacted my style. And yea along with seeing guys like Ed who kind of trained me, I would just try and take influence from them and Facebook and music mags and try to make that my own.

Then when I was at Uni, I started to do Instagram. The 1975 had just come out with their second album and everything was pink, their whole campaign was pink. One birthday my housemates got me everything pink. A pink beanie, a pink notepad, a pink mug, everything. And this became my little aesthetic on Instagram. I was like ‘Alright cool. If my page looks aesthetically pleasing, cool.’ And everything had to fit. There couldn’t be too much of any other color. It had to be a pink color. This must have been 2015 or 2016.

One day I found a bucket of pink paint at a home store and some dirt must have fallen into it or something, so they sold it to me for cheap. I was like “Sick! This is exactly the right shade of pink.” I took it home and started pouring it on things and taking pictures of it. And I would pour this pink paint into water, into milk, or I would dip chocolate into it and take pictures. And I remember one day I found a TV that had been smashed up on my road and I ran down and poured pink paint on that and took a picture of it. So that impacted the style, and from that I realized you can create an aesthetic. And that’s kind of what got me attention. I remember Ed said, “Your technique we can work on, but I can tell you have got an eye.” And that I think was important.

: I’ve noticed a lot of your photos are very colorful. Each one is very colorful in like, a single-color palette, or one or two contrasting colors. Starting off, were there certain things in photos, color or aesthetic or shot, that you liked? Or looking back on it now, were there things that you realized that that’s what popped out to me then when you were starting out?

: I think it was a subtlety to color. It’s like being bold without being obvious. It was like ‘Where is this light coming from and how is it motivated?’ And when I say motivated it’s like ‘All right this isn’t just someone holding a red flash.’ Maybe that red flash is coming from an exit sign, or a car light, or something. And that was interesting.

There is a photographer called Jeff Hahn, and he would shoot gels on film, and it would be this beautiful colored light on like, super dewy kind of faces. And I was super inspired by him, and Ed Cooke, and another guy Jack Bridgland, who I kind of learned a lot from. And I would ask myself ‘How can I reach that?’ and ‘How can I do that?’ I’d assist these guys and ask myself ‘Ok why have they put that light there?’ or ‘Why are they moving this?’ I’d see all these studio set-ups. I was lucky to learn in a studio set-up, which I think is quite uncommon.

: I imagine with being outside, you know.. obviously you’re kind of at the mercy of the light throughout the day. So that aspect of studio lighting where you can get it at any angle, or any shade or color gives you much more room to play with and move around with and kind of experiment with.

: Yea exactly. In photography, what I’m learning is if I want as little stress as possible, I need to put everything into place so that I can reach my goal for what I want from that day or from that shoot. Just to control as much as I can.

When I was young and I would shoot, one day I’d be like ‘Alright that came out really nice and the face looks great and exposed well and soft and la la la.’ And then another day I’d hate it, and it would be like ‘Why is my camera doing this?’ or ‘Have I edited it wrong?’ or ‘Is it the model?’ or like the location or whatever. And the more and more you do it the more you realize what those variables are and then how to control them. So for example you don’t want to shoot really in the middle of the day, but if you really have to you can diffuse it with a big silk or something. And that’s one kind of way to control that.

A while back I shot a whole swimsuit campaign on a beach, and there wasn't the budget to have any diffusion or enough assistance to cover that. We were shooting in the middle of the day in Florida and the light is horrible because you can’t do that. Whereas if you look at a Sports Illustrated cover for example you can tell that they have manipulated the light as much as they can. So It’s trying to get as much control as you can so that you can push your shoot times to be at golden hour, or completely dark so you can use flash. It’s really using what you have. Studio time is expensive too, so using someone’s bedroom or a little location house can be way more fun than being at the mercy of the sun.

: Looking at your work in the past few years you’ve started to direct more, shoot music videos, ad campaigns.. and this ties into your last point a bit about different lighting outdoors and in studios and all that. The conditions seem so different. How do directing and photography differ? And how does directing influence your still photography and vice versa?

: I always thought a natural progression for a photographer would be to move into a director of photography, because it’s all about the framing, the composition, and all of that. What’s interesting is in photography is it is kind of your show to an extent. You’re the photographer, you have a great team around you, but a lot of it is on you to shape how you want it. With video you’re a part of a team but you’re a lot smaller in that whole thing. There are so many elements.

In directing.. you can assemble the dream team really. You can really bring in super talented individuals that can do set design or styling or lighting way better than you could ever hope to, so that’s what’s really exciting. So, you can get a really great gaffer who can light everything exactly the way you want it. You can just give them an idea or reference and they can do that. With an amazing DP [Director of Photography] they can just make an everyday moment look cinematic and glossy through their awareness of the light and lenses and all of this. From assembling a good team, you can then sit back and focus on what you want. You’re almost like a conductor.

: So with photography it's more your work with just the camera and your show with the subject, and with directing it’s more a team effort, but with that collaborative, creative process you get to bring in very talented people, who have maybe different ideas that might make this pop or make that shot or scene stand out. So what the frame looks is your call, and what the subject is and how it looks in the lens is your call, but a lot of the other things can be impacted on the set by other very talented creatives?

: Hugely. Yea it's far more of a collaboration. And I didn’t even mention producers. They’re a huge role. I never really understood what producers did when I was younger and watched movies. Like they will assemble the teams and recommend all these team members. So shout out to producers. You can’t do a video without those talented people.

: I guess that's a pretty nice tie into the next question I wanted to ask. You know with photography/directing you’re obviously working with a creative team on your end, but also working for clients that are looking for their own particular outcome or deliverable. When you’re looking at a shoot or music video or directorial project, how do you approach that balance? How you see a shot or a scene or a video with what your client wants and what they are looking for.

: That’s such a hard one. Something I kind of think about every day, because ultimately on a commercial job … It’s a weird catch-22, because ultimately they are going to book you for your style. You’ll be up against three or four other photographers for that shoot, but it’s your portfolio that’s going to win that for you - your attitude and your ideas when you’re pitching a treatment or making your own mood board.

So.. ultimately in booking you, it’s your style. Once you’re there on the day, even if there are a flock of creative directors and art directors and clients and management around you, you have to remember - you’re there for a reason and they booked you because of your style and the 5-6 years and tens of thousands of pictures you’ve taken to get up to this point and to develop your style.

: That’s a really good way to look at it.

: Because ultimately your style isn’t an Instagram page, it's everything you’ve shot. It’s the culmination and middle ground of all of that work.

: They kind of already trust you a little bit to have some leeway because of your work and you know with just the bidding process they have already made a decision with this. That “this is the style we to go with.”

: Exactly, and the best art directors, they will really let you shine. I remember when I first worked with my now good friend Vincent Venema on an Adidas job. He was so great and really let the art shine. He said “Look, we have some safety things to get. This is what the client has signed off on and this is what we’ve agreed and here’s the shot list. So let’s get this and let’s make it great. And.. when we have time, you go wild.”

He taught me the term ‘happy accidents’ which I will always remember. Again, you’re booked for your personality and your eye, so he said to me ‘Let that roll and go with it and have fun. Take the talent off and keep it a skeleton crew. We won’t be breathing down your neck, and then I’m sure you’ll get some magic.’ Sometimes it sucks and you’ll need to go with the safety shots, but then sometimes you’ll get a whole other look or idea that they didn’t know you could’ve got. Whether it’s exploring a different wall or light or color.. that’s really exciting. It’s remembering you’re there for a reason.

You also have to be humble, because you’re there on the set, for one day, two days, three days. And you may have had 1 or 2 weeks of pre-production with the team, but they’ve probably been planning this shoot for 6 months: signing off a budget and telling the client ‘This is why we’re going to do this big shoot, and here’s where we’re going to put these pictures. It’s going to live in this billboard or on a banner ad on this website.’ So it humbles you in a way when you realize that you’re just a tiny part of a far bigger campaign. You’re there to do a job and a lot of other people need these to be what they want so that they can also do their job well. It’s like ‘do what this client wants you to do and don’t have an ego, but then when you need to be confident and bring in some ideas then let loose.’

There is a time to be indulgent and selfish, but if you’re on someone else’s time and someone else’s set then balance that. It’s hard to bring your own spice into it, but if you prepare well and understand the brand you can do that.

: It’s in that creative process you can’t really time it or put control on it, its spurious. Sometimes it takes a little bit to find the right shot, and others it’s immediate.

: Exactly. And also, being self-aware enough to say no. You’ve got to play to your style.

Sometimes, whether it’s a brand or a budget or a location that might allure you to shift your style, in the long run you have to know your style and respect the client and on occasion be able to say ‘I don’t think I’m going get what you want on this’ or ‘If I do this it is going to be different from what you want it to be.’ That’s why communication and preparation and pre-production calls and mood boarding are great. Because then you can take your reading or understanding of the brief and be like ‘alright this is where I want to take it.’ Sometimes they will be seeing stuff they didn’t even think of. Or sometimes they’ll say “This is far too.. you know, dark and moody for our campaign.’

I recently did a commercial job and one of the clients’ concerns was that in shooting the stuff I do in music or sports they worried it might be too gritty or grainy or not appropriate for their brand. So that made me think and assess ‘okay what am I bringing to this?” And in that sense, my style here is about the people and the framing. Bringing in a lifestyle sense and bringing an authentic, non-staged, cool reaction or pose or moment out of the talent. And again, being humble enough to not want to put grain or red light on something like that.

: Have there ever been projects where you’ve gotten on-site, and maybe they liked the mood board or you had looked at what they wanted shot and thought ‘I could maybe do this,’ but then you get on site and the situation is completely different? Either you don’t feel comfortable with the direction they want to take the shoot, or they come back and say, ‘Well I don’t know if this is the style.’ Have you had those projects that their vision and your aesthetic don’t match? And how did you navigate those projects?

: On occasion I’ve jumped on commercial jobs where clients will book me in order for me to make their product a bit ‘cooler’ and that’s what they think they want. I come in and try to achieve that, but going back to our earlier point, there might be too many elements that are controlled by other forces so that you can’t make it ‘cool’ just by the way you’re shooting it. Like you need to change the product or the location or the lighting. And often if you’re doing stills on a commercial shoot you might only actually have 5 minutes to jump in to get one shot out of eight on your shot list. So you don’t have the time, the manpower, or the authority on set to get everyone to change the lights or move things. And your model is probably tired with the acting or the shoot. You’re kind of left with not much to play with.

On those occasions you realize that this isn’t maybe for me. This isn’t my strength, and it reflects when the client isn’t happy or missed things. And from that you learn to definitely say no.

: You just kind of manage as they develop, and you then get a clearer sense of what projects you can work on and what projects you can’t?

: And being open to learning and being humble and not thinking ‘This was wrong because my assistant didn’t light this correctly’ or ‘I did the wrong angles’ or ‘the production didn’t prepare me well enough or give me enough time.’ It’s taking it on you to say ‘I need to shape these things and I need to put my foot down early and make sure everyone’s aligned.’ It’s realizing you’ve messed up and being self-aware and taking your learnings and just remembering that for next time.

: With working with all of these different brands and clients, what do you think about your work resonates with them?

: I think there are a lot of technically or artistically better photographers out there than me, and I mean that in not an effusive way. I think what I’ve realized on set is that people and clients want to work with people that are going to get a guaranteed result. And whether that is photographic or emotional or just a moment, people are searching for a result or for a moment that is captured. And I strive until we find, and keep going until we get an authentic, exciting, kind moment on set instead of pushing to get the exact photo I want. I think I put more importance on the scene we are creating and the environment and the feeling and the emotion by being interpersonal with whoever is there on set, instead of fussing or worrying too much about the end product. I think people are maybe drawn to the eyes or the feeling in the subjects that I shoot more than the actual picture itself.

: The last question here is for those starting out; either just looking at photography or starting to build their portfolio. What advice do you have for those photographers and directors that are trying to navigate building and developing and honing their personal style alongside the demands and expectations of different clients?

: Above all, be true to yourself. Take the photos you enjoy and get excited by. It’s so easy in the Instagram age to try and copy or aspire to take the same photos as other people. Styles are changing and are moving all the time. If everyone was just trying to shoot like the person next to them, stuff wouldn’t be interesting and there would be no development. So only in being true to yourself, taking the influence you want to take, and putting your own spin on things is the way your work is going to shine.

: Thank you so much for taking some time to chat. Always a pleasure.




You can see more of Louis’ body of work 

Balancing Artistic Intention with Client Expectations: In Conversation with photographer Louis Browne

The moments we never want to forget

Though it could be a matter of critical opinion, it’s no secret that most “Christian” films suck. I believe the general consensus is a lot of things that have been labeled in the West as “Christian” suck. Specifics at least. Sorry Hillsong Young & Free, I have no desire to worship the Divine creator of the universe to an overproduced techno track with a repetitive pre-chorus. Why would any of us?


On my side of the world consumerism is king. If you can’t see it, touch it, or eat it immediately, it’s rendered expired and useless.


Maybe it’s because I have a degree in movies and I’m a seminary dropout. Maybe it’s because I’m an Enneagram 4 (please read this particular sentence through a thick lens of sarcasm). But I will make this mental claim loud and clearly: I know that I know that I know that cinema is a visual art form. Movies are things you think in your mind, make with your hands and watch with your eyes. So when a script is executed surrounding the character of the Holy unseen, obviously there is going to be some unbelievability (beyond the low-budget set pieces and bad acting).

“No sadder atheist than one whose life is going well and doesn’t know who to thank.

No sadder Christian than one whose life is going terrible and doesn’t know who to blame.”

I was raised to follow the protocol of self-accountability. I don’t think this was intentional on my parents behalf. It was just the relics of their own upbringing; being fostered in a good ol’ boys, white picket-fence society.

Bad grade? You should’ve studied harder.

Bad day? You should’ve taken matters into your own hands and turned that frown upside down, buttercup.



This integrated belief that I was the sole cause of blame in every situation has been the hardest thing to unlearn. Thin is the line between what you feel and who you are.


As a Christian, shame is not supposed to be part of the story. It is a baseline belief that shame and all the other shitty feelings and things we’ve done and will do in this lifetime are already rung out in bright red blood over two pieces of wood. So why do I feel shameful in a critique of a religion I cling to so tightly? When I feel confusion and pain and anger in my head?



A while back, I was having a conversation with someone whose opinion I hold highly that doesn’t claim Christianity. Or America and its soiled view point. My anxiety was reeking havoc between the two of us and the beautiful sand we stood on so far from where my passport reads. Worrying about plans and promises and the past seeping into the future, he prompted the question: “Isn’t the Christian phrase ‘Daily Bread’?”

My heart wondered why was I asking, chasing, running ragged on the hedonistic treadmill for

aggravating over time and space and circumstances I cannot control 

an anti-testament to the faith I claim to practice?

Is the religion I have been indoctrinated into, deconstructed within and reformed out of, one that does not fester in the unknown, but rather trusts in it?


Since that day I have been chewing on this rebuttal. Learning to ask my Jesus “why” instead of “when”. The blinders of the constant more more more American mindset has blurred my vision of Daily. Momentarily. Presently awake to blessing and circumstance.

An American Anti-Testament

Summer Days - black + white

Summer Days - in color

Pensé que el universo era un vasto sistema de señales, una conversación entre seres inmensos. Mis actos, el serrucho del grillo, el parpadeo de la estrella, no eran sino pausas y sílabas, frases dispersas de aquel diálogo.

Contar una historia cambia a quien la cuenta. Y por momentos la ficción es la única manera de pensar lo verdadero.

It’s crazy to believe that this idea is now almost a reality. I’m still not entirely sure where this will go.. but then I guess, that is also the most fun part of it all.

Firstly, I want to thank you for following Empty Carafes. In a world that prioritizes acceleration and rapidity over everything, whether in the form of the news we read, the television we watch, or the social media we consume (not to mention a world in which everyone believes they have something to say), finding the time to set aside for longform writing can be both challenging as vezes, and inconvenient at others. Time is our most valuable asset, and so in that regard I hope and strive to never waste yours. Even if you may not necessarily agree with everything I say.

This space will take a slightly different form and tone than the pieces shared to Empty Carafes. My hope for these bulletins is that they are to be much more conversational in nature. They’ll be a space where I share a bit of what I’ve been reading and researching recently, along with a collation of thoughts and observations on these subjects. Although I have no particular research or reading ‘focus’ (if you could call it that), my attention usually tends toward reading on capital markets, on language, and literature and poetry.

Though at first glance these subjects all seem like relatively unrelated fields, I’d like to devote this very first bulletin to explain why I believe they are. And.. perhaps in the process, explain in part why I wanted to start Empty Carafes, and why it has slowly morphed and evolved in the past year into what it looks like now. Many of the pieces published and shared here I hope will explore these themes.

Capital markets exist in my belief as a means by which society attempts to solve a connubial set of problems. These being: how can we effectively quantify something that is inherently ineffable - information, and how can we efficiently allocate the limited resources at our disposal. These two problems are mutually axiomatic, meaning we can’t effectively gauge the value of information pertaining to a resource unless we know its availability (or scarcity), and we can’t efficiently allocate resources unless we know the ‘inherent’ value of those resources derived from all of the information available to us. Despite these problems being of a Sisyphean nature, they are ineluctable for a society if it wishes to exist. From this perspective then, looking at a historical price chart of say a company’s equity, or government bond, or a wheat futures contract can be considered a historical proxy-measurement for the dissemination of information across a society. Well.. at least under the purview of the 

Up until this point in history these deltas of information spread which are comissarily measured through capital markets have been streams that found their headwaters from centralized sources; government institutions, news media, corporations, banks, etc. And this accretion of essential societal functions into centralized institutions has escrowed these entities with immense responsibility, and power. Which, sad to say.. we are ever-increasingly becoming aware of the fact that they have abused, and continue to abuse, again and again and again. We need look no further than the Fox ‘News’ empire’s far-right radicalization of America, or the 2008 financial crisis caused by the wanton greed of Wall Street and ‘

’, or Donald Trump’s litany of felonious and treasonous crimes as president to name just a few. But the list of transgressions continues seemingly without end.

And perhaps to go further than this, as people have been told over and over and over again to work more, to work longer, to be ‘a team player’, to take a pay cut; we have seen this same cancerous 

 play out at the vestigial institutional level. Our government bodies are now largely filled with 

.’ And as for the banks.. among their laundry list of atrocities committed against humanity they have abused their power by 

 due to their own greed and stupidity, by 

charging overdraft fees on struggling families

 during a global pandemic, and by writing 

financially ruined and caused the bankruptcy

 around the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars that could be put towards healthcare for all … or free higher education for all … or to reverse global warming and clean up our planet, instead going to fill the bottom lines of bank profits and to enrich the few. In fact, the problem of Wall Street writing predatory municipal bonds and adjustable-rate interest swaps became so bad that at one point that the Federal Reserve literally started to 

 on the matter. I can only imagine how those went over..

Come join us for a shitty cup of coffee and an absolute brick of a biscuit while we tell you how to cope with the ways you have been absolutely fucked by our colleagues and former employers.

But then I guess it is easy to mistake to intelligence what is simply a lack of morals when the cosmogony of our current society is largely driven by a zero-sum game in which the goal is to see how many more zeroes one can add to the end of their personal ‘N3t W0rTh’.

However.. I say all of these things not as a doom-and-gloom, woe-is-us, impotent diatribe about the current state of the world. Nor as a subliminal argument for guillotines and revolution. I say these things as a simple acknowledgement of the current state of affairs in the world; a state that not just me, but many are aware of.. And much more than I, are actively working to change.

Whilst vestigial old-power institutions attempt to maintain their hegemonies by positioning themselves to either control or 

 new technologies, the best and brightest are tripping over themselves to work on projects in emerging spaces like 

. All collectively laying the foundation for a truly ‘decentralized’ future; supported and validated by publicly-accessible blockchain ledgers. In turn cutting out the dinosauric middlemen and institutions that have abused their societal responsibilities for personal profit at the expense of the world and everyone living on it.

Despite the fact it may be nerve-racking to think of placing trust in a system that is decentralized, especially when one has only ever known a status quo that is centralized, it shouldn’t be. Well.. at least not as nerve-wracking as one should think it be. Though there exist 

 regarding decentralized systems in general, just as there are those who are tripping over themselves to build these infrastructures, there are people and organizations who are working vigilantly to 

 these nascent systems until they are ready for widespread adoption. Meanwhile there are yet others who are already beginning to model what the future of governance will look like for these systems. To which.. if you are so inclined, you can find a wealth of wonderful information regarding governance in a decentralized system from these papers 

For the purposes of this bulletin however, I want to focus on one specific paper, which you can find 

. In particular there are two sections I want to highlight, which I’ve also added below.

In 1998, following decades of natural resource mismanagement, the South African government enacted a new national water act which provided a framework to build a decentralized system of water resource management. A few years later researchers from the University of Pretoria published the results of a role-playing game they had designed to model the outcomes from a decentralized system where stake-holders at every level participated in the negotiation process.

What the researchers discovered through running the game was that despite their best efforts, no amount of laboratory testing, nor predictive modeling, could accurately foresee how the game would play out. However, once the game began, ‘clear processes emerged’ in the decision-making process. As for the conclusions the researchers drew from the game, they noted that ‘asymmetry of information’ was one of the greatest causes of inefficient and unequal distribution of resources.

And.. looking at the world we live in now, we are seeing this exact paradigm play out, right before our very eyes. If we return to the highlighted paragraph on page 10, and simply replace the word ‘water’ with ‘capital,’ we explain exactly the current state of global affairs, and it is for this reason why bloated, antiquated, centralized institutions fight so hard to keep this asymmetry alive. Because they profit from it. It is why Big Tech 

 against any sort of online privacy rights, meanwhile 

. It is why the amount of government ‘secrets’ has skyrocketed under the passing of the Patriot Act and why agencies like the NSA are so broad-reaching, all the while violently 

 on whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. It is why big finance opposes any sort of 

, while at the same time exploiting tactics like 

 to take advantage of retail traders. And it is for this reason why in an age where almost every one of us carries the entire library of human knowledge in our pockets, we find ourselves more misinformed than ever.


Because none of it is by accident. All of it is by design.



But again I digress (which.. in my defense, is quite easy to do when talking about the atrocities that TradFi, Big Tech, and crony-corporatism have committed against the world). What I wanted to demonstrate with the last few paragraphs (beyond proffering a supporting clause for a tangential argument for decentralized-participatory systems) was to adduce the ingenuity and power of language, and demonstrate its Icarian limitations. Because by simply changing the word from ‘water’ to ‘capital’ in that excerpt we are confronted by the paradox of language. On the one hand, language can be used with incredible nuance and versatility to describe even the most ineffable ideas, but on the other, it will always inevitably fall short of relating the exact concept or idea it attempts to convey. For the former is an act of expression, but the latter can only be acquired through self-realization. The existence of different idioms and expressions between languages, different translations of texts from the same literary source, and words that have no direct translations in other languages all pay respect to this truth. In most instances though, the gap between idea and the language used to describe it is far more distant, and its boundaries far more blurred, than the example shown above.

All of this I feel leads us naturally to the topic of literature and poetry in this bulletin. And although there have been far more unsolicited opinions given and voluminous English PhD dissertations written on the subject than one could ever be bothered to attend to, I’ll briefly add my thoughts here. Solely within the framework of this bulletin. If you’ll allow me to be so shrewd.

If we view capital markets as a consideration of information through the kaleidoscope of utility and quantitative value, and language and its grammar structures as the means by which we attempt to communicate information, then literature and poetry (and on the whole.. art) are quite simply the way we seek to humanize it, both in its circumstance and it’s intent. Because books are nothing less than the tools by which we communicate language through time; the vehicles in which we shepherd information through the ages. Yet if they were solely this, that they only served this utilitarian purpose, then the books we would consider as ‘classics’.. the ‘greats’, would be nothing more than a laundry list of historical records and nonfiction accounts. But they’re not - the great books, the ones that have stood the test of time, are those that explored and stretched language to their contemporaneous limits, in an effort to speak to the human experience. They, literature and poetry and art, take that entire experience, all of that information, and through the process of creative expression attempt to find some deeper understanding of it all. As the author Lawrence Durrell so eloquently put it:

A novel should be a divination by entrails, not a careful record of a game of pat-ball on some vicarage lawn.

Reflecting on all this, these demonstrations speak to a universal constant, and a far deeper underlying facet of this discourse. For writing novels, or literature, or any fiction for that matter, is not a utilitarian act. It is deontological. Writing (and also making art) doesn’t humanize information because that is its end goal. Writing humanizes information because it is the expression of said information through the lens of our experience of it. It is the act of play through the process of creation. And personally I can’t think of anything more essentially, more delightfully, more unequivocally human than play in what in its very essence 

In this very process however, is both an admission, and a submission. These words, on the contrary to their utilitarian counterparts, simply exist. They do not ask anything of anyone. In this way, when the author Joan Didion says the following:

In many ways, writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act. You can disguise its aggressiveness all you want with veils of subordinate clauses and qualifiers and tentative subjunctives, with ellipses and evasions — with the whole manner of intimating rather than claiming, of alluding rather than stating — but there’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.

in her book “Let Me Tell You What I Mean,” I have to disagree. I don’t find it an invasion. For no matter how one dresses it up or strips it down; through subordinate clauses or tentative subjunctives or sophisticated typefaces or aesthetic design elements, the only time a writer’s words can enter a reader’s most private space is through the continual consent from the reader to the words laid out on the page. And I’m sure everyone who’s ever read anything has at some point put down a book or newspaper or article for how poor or illogical or awful the writing was. Or picked one up simply because of its cover art.

In this area I am much more of the same mind as Toni Morrison, which she explained in an 

Interviewer: “Do you write to figure out exactly how you feel about a subject?”

Morrison: “No. I know how I feel. My feelings are the results of prejudices and convictions just like everybody else’s. But I am interested in the complexity, the vulnerability of an idea. It is not “this is what I believe” because that would not be a book, just a tract. A book is “this may be what I believe, but suppose I am wrong … what could it be?” Or “I don’t know what it is, but I am interested in finding out what it might mean to me, as well as to other people.”

But alas.. as much as I would love nothing more than to sit down with the both of them and, perhaps over a coffee and a sneaky cigarette, discuss the finer nuances of diction and syntax in the construction of arguments, or the portrayal of ideas, I can’t. For both of them are passed now, and all that remains of them are their words and their books, hoping some reader comes along and invites them inside.

For ultimately, if I had the power to effect change in any of the systems I’ve spoken about above I probably wouldn’t be here. I am just a writer; one who reads far too much for his mental health, and smokes near too for his physical. All I can do is hope that the words and art shared here make you feel happy or upset or angry or conflicted. I hope that at times they make you feel disgusted or uncomfortable, and I hope they make you laugh (at least sometimes). I hope they make you ask questions and reconsider your preconceptions, to look for connections in fields you may not have thought were connected. Because in the end, it is one thing to read research papers on monetary policy, or see statistics on widening income inequalities, or news reports on climate change. And it is another thing entirely to read the story of a family having their home taken from them due to a predatory mortgage, or see the few native and wild lands remaining being strip-mined and clear-cut for next quarter’s profits, or listen to a conta of a couple watching their hard-fought-for world come crashing down due to a global pandemic, all the while their elected leaders squabble over whether to insult them with a stimulus check worth pennies. Then blame them for causing inflation.

But above all, I hope that the words and the art shared here make you feel something. Because life, just like our soon-to-be markets, is decentralized. Life 

 a decentralized system, and no amount of double-blind studies, nor controlling for variables, nor literature reviews can prepare one for every eventuality. All one can do in the end is simply play the game.. step into the ring.. and amongst the guts and entrails try to make sense of it all, using all of the information available to us. And there are far more ways to communicate information than simply words laid out on a page.

And so with all of this.. and with my goal for this first bulletin I feel sufficiently achieved, I’d like to finish up this piece with one more quote, and perhaps one more sumptuously unattainable goal for this publication, again from Lawrence Durrell. And.. if you’ll allow me to be so shrewd once more, we can add one more cambia de palabras to this here quote, by replacing the word ’write’ with ‘create.’

“Like the dead Pursewarden I hoped I might soon be truthfully able to say: ‘I do not write for those who have never asked themselves this question: at what point does real life begin?’”

Thank you for your time, and welcome to Empty Carafes.

Art is a decentralized system

The reader should take note that, within the various heights of this volume, we have filled the spaces between the ends of each paragraph and each page with brief precepts, maxims, and considerations of a diverse order, with a proclivity to suggest, and insofar as we can truly cover here, rules for a life in reality, distinct from those which have only a moral or educative consequence. Having been rated favorably by many readers, this volume has also been referenced in other editorials, and in the same manner with which we have raised with levity or with irony the tone of one or another source to which we have referenced here.

How much of a humorous tone certain quotes and precepts may have, we have no desire to defend them with explanation, as it is more valid to expose something through levity than through pedantism. The truth is not less true when said with a smile than with an air of severity, in the same manner that an argument does not carry more weight when it is stated in erudite language than when it is stated in simple language. It is a question of modes of speaking, and nothing more.

What is more interesting however, as it is more complex, is the problem which arises in turn from nature, which at times appears crude and almost cynical, and for which here we have cited precepts with both succinctness and with italics. We believe that it is this which compels us to, by the close of this volume, give a brief explanation on the subject. And it is this explanation that serves as the motive for the presentation of certain new precepts, whose particular interest participates in the general interest for which we pretend to give this article.

Man supposes itself to be a rational animal. This can be fact and this can be unfact: the field of psychology contests the importance and the preponderance of reason in an individual life. There are, she says, instincts, habits, sentiments, and emotions that undoubtedly guide man; for which reason does not serve if not to interpret the volition of these subconscious impulses. But the fact is that the primary state of man is to consider himself an essentially rational being, if only in an indirect manner, and that reason assumes a primary importance in his life. On occasion, one of the abstract works of reason is to put forth precepts, maxims, or intellectual norms for conduct, general or particular, in life.

These precepts are of three orders, which we may call: (1) Moral Precepts, (2) Rational Precepts, and (3) Practical Precepts. Moral precepts propose what we should do to keep well within our consciences. Rational precepts propose what we should do to keep well within our lives. And practical precepts propose what we should do to keep well within our ambitions. The first are, as is self-evident by the name we have given them, invariably morals in the manner in which they are postulated. The second are simply what may be called ‘sensible’, or common sense. The third are, in many cases, rarely moral, and, furthermore, hardly sensible, and it is for this reason that life, in practical reality, is frequently immoral, and not the least bit absurd.

There are four examples that describe these three cases.

“Do not do unto others what you do not want done unto you.”

Example of a practical but hardly moral precept:

“If you want to deceive someone in a formal negotiation, deceive them before any communication has begun, for otherwise they will lie to you with conviction.”

Example of a precept that is hardly ‘sensible’:

“He who leaves nothing to chance will do few things poorly, but he will do few things.”

The first precept is, in one form or another, a central tenet of diverse religious systems. The second, an inscription found on a Greek temple, is attributed to a Greek philosopher that probably never existed. Of the last two, the first is from the Florentine Francesco Guicciardini, and the second from the Englishman Marquess of Halifax.

In these corresponding popular Portuguese precepts, to which we call proverbs, we find three orders of maxims.

“Son you are and father will be, and as you do, so you will find.”

“To trust in the Virgin and not run, and the fall you will watch yourself take.”

“Whomever the enemy spares is by his hands they will die.”

No one can say that this last proverb, which is a type of recommendation we may call ‘predefensive’ homicide, has moral advantages over the Guicciardini precept quoted above. It is a precept of inferior utility than the Florentine’s, which is a universal ‘truth,’ and the Portuguese proverb only relates to certain avenues and for certain circumstances.

These considerations, which have been illustrated by the examples above, should be clear to all now, and will thus forth serve as the basis for our examination of the problem.

Society is a system of malevolent egoisms, and of intermittent harmonies. Each man is, in the same moment, an individual being and a social animal. As an individual he distinguishes himself from all other men; and because he distinguishes himself, opposes them. As a social animal, he presents himself as all other men, and because he presents himself as such, groups with them. The social life of man is divided into two parts: one part individual, and that flows in concurrency with others, and for which he must therefore remain on the defensive or the offensive in relation to them, and one part social, in which he resembles them, and therefore has only to be useful and agreeable with them. To be on the defensive or offensive, he must see clearly what others really are and what they really do, and not what they should be or what would be good for them to do. To be useful or agreeable, he must simply consult man’s pure nature. The exacerbation, in any man, of one or the other of these elements inevitably leads to his complete ruin, and therefore to the very folly of the intention of the predominant element, which, as it is part of man, falls with his fall. An individual that conducts their life within the lines of a moral purity and righteousness ends by feeling infringed upon by everyone - even by individuals who, also being moral, are less high and less pure. And this resentment, this bitterness, this disillusion that accompanies a moral nature, will be the outcome of his experience. But as well, an individual who conducts their life within the confines of a constant delusion finishes in a prison where few can intrude, or where because of their mistrust of everyone, no one has the power to intrude on them.

It is at times because of this dual nature of man that precepts of a dual nature have arisen; one guides the formation of man as a moral or social being; the other advises his education in Grand Strategy. The precepts which we call ‘rational’ occupy the space in between; they do not direct the cosmogony of society, nor guide the education of the ego. They are rules for a harmonious and quiet life, one that does not transgress upon others, nor upon one’s self.

What constitutes, then, the essence of a precept is the desire to instruct particularly the development of man as a moral or social being, and the desire to guide especially the development of man as an individual ego. The precept always speaks within the existence of the other nature of man. As reality has two elements - the moral and the practical - the moral precept always speaks within the existence of the practical element, and the practical precept always speaks within the existence of a moral element. The moral precept, to be truly a moral precept, must never forget a certain limit. The practical precept, to be truly a precept, must never forget a certain moral law. In this way precepts, which are for the most part just sayings, are distinguished from mystical religious rules on one side, and cynically absurd inclinations on the other. The precept, moral or practical, is the midway point between Sermon on the Mount and the Manual for the Perfect Heist. As for the precepts that we call rational, there is no need to elaborate on their centrism, because this elaboration is already present in the definition we gave them above.

Let us now propose that we begin the study and explanation of the precept which we call practical - that precept which frequently appears immoral or insensible. We are already, following the brief explanation we have given, in position to define it. A practical precept is a rule of conduct for the ego that does not forget the dual nature of man, nor the balance between these two elements. There are situations or circumstances in which, through their proper nature, the moral element does not figure; the precept that is established for these will necessarily be immoral. There are situations or circumstances in which, through their very nature, the practical element figures poorly; the precept that is established for these will be necessarily moral. There are situations or circumstances, almost always abnormal, in which, through their innate nature, disrupt the natural balance of things; the precept that is established for these must recommend what to do in order to return to equilibrium, a disruption in the opposite direction, and thus resulting in a precept that seems ‘insensible’.

These explanations which, departing from clarity, are abstract, and demand for the reader new examples, which we are going to give, for each type of practical precept that we have mentioned.

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”

“Do not pay a favor to one that comes at the expense of another, for the first will probably forget the favor, but the second will never forget the injury.”

"Secrecy is like most other qualities; it is necessary, and is, at the same time, dangerous. To not have any makes one despicable; to have it in excess makes one suspicious. There is nothing, however, noble in this quality, for often it is the case that an ordinary chambermaid possesses far more of it than any prince.”

“If you are going to do harm to someone, or if you decide to do someone harm, do so to the fullest extent that you can. It is better to kill a man than to mortally injure him, as the dead do not think of revenge. Men are always more ready to return an injury than a favor, for to return a favor is an obligation and to take revenge for an injury is a pleasure.”

All of these moral principles are from Machiavelli and, it should be noted, were principally written for politics during an age of subterfuge and tumult. But, save in rare social circumstances in which they absolutely do not apply, these principles are absolutely true.

Example of a practical precept that is necessarily moral:

Examples of practical precepts which are necessarily 'insensible':

“In the greatest of challenges, act always before you think.”

“That which has no solution, is already solved.”

With the explanations we have already given, and the examples we have now finished giving, the reader should have a firm grasp of what is essentially a practical precept. And with this understanding, we will have absolved ourselves of the little that could seem cruel or cynical in any of the brief maxims we have placed at the bottom of these pages.

Thanks to this, which was the first part of what we promised to do in this study, we can now cover the other part for which we promised. We will now present the last group of practical precepts that have arisen in public. Their appearance has been more than recent, in fact almost synchronous. We devote these new precepts, of a predominantly industrial nature and, for this, the focus of this magazine, to the great American businessman, the supreme millionaire of the world, Henry Ford.

The most useful practical precepts, as one would expect, are the product of men not more intelligent than they are practical, but more practical than they are intelligent. The greatest masters of practical precepts were politicians who reflected on politics; as was Machiavelli, whose precepts illustrate what is evil and bad in all men; as were George Seville and Marques de Halifax, whose maxims illuminate what is frankly human in all people.

From Henry Ford then, captain of industry, one would expect to find precepts that elucidate the essential conditions of modern leadership, at least in the particular fields of industry and commerce. Real life therein, where people live today, has, or at least seems to have, a greater character of hypocrisy than the Italian Renaissance or the English Restoration. The practical precepts that Henry Ford gives us seem to be the result of only that half of his experience which has been shared with us. They loosely participate in the spirit of prohibition. They have been served to us with water.

Such as they are however, it is still worth the pain to read them.

In their original form - in the last of the various books that Henry Ford has published to explain his life and complain about his cars, they are dispersed and uncoordinated. Lord Riddell gave himself to the work of compiling and clarifying them. It is, then, in redaction of Lord Riddell that we give the 9 industrial mandates from the American Multimillionaire. They are:

Search for simplicity. Examine everything constantly to see if you can simplify something or perfect something. Do not respect the past. Just because something has always been done in a certain manner does not mean there isn’t a better way of doing things.

Do not make theories, make experiences. The fact that past experiences have not shown results does not mean that future experiences will not. Experts are slaves to tradition. It is therefore better to entrust the research of new projects to energetic people of first-rate intelligence. Let the experts serve them.

Work and the perfection of work should take precedence over money and profit.

Make the work in a most direct manner, without the necessity of rules and laws, and without the vulgar divisions of discipline.

Install and maintain all of your equipment in the best state possible and keep each part in a state of absolute cleanliness. In this way a man learns to respect their tools, their environment, and the next man after him.

If you can manufacture something which you must use in great quantities at a price lower than what you can buy it, make it.

Wherever possible, replace man with machine.

The business does not belong to the owner or its employees, only the general public.

The fairest salary is the highest salary that a boss can offer to pay regularly.

These rules - having now been stated and maintained - represent only half of the industrial and commercial experience of Henry Ford. Of the other half, which must have contributed no small part into making him the super-Rockefeller he is today, he will perhaps never reveal those commandments.

We will content ourselves to these which, in their own right, are admirable. They contain teachings that the majority of our industrialists could, without betraying their first loves, hold dear in their minds and in their memories. We will not comment further on these precepts, which, moreover, do not require comment. Only to the last of them, or at least to their derivative in Ford’s recent industrial mandate - will we speak on to close this article.

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