Chris Denbow Posts
March 1, 2025 / Reading

The Literary Mixtape

A mixtape is a curated collection of songs, typically compiled for a specific mood, theme, or person. It originated in the cassette era, where people would record songs onto a blank tape to create a personalized music experience.

Similar to a music tape, a literary mixtape takes readers on a curated journey. Instead of songs, I’m using books, passages, and challenges—organized into Side A and Side B to create a flow and experience.

This isn’t just a reading list. It’s an interactive exploratory challenge—a literary scavenger hunt where books and passages act as waypoints, clues, and creative catalysts.

How It Works:

  • Read each selection, but don’t just read—engage with it.
  • Wander beyond the words. Each reading comes with an exploratory challenge.
  • Notice something new—connections, hidden patterns, the way words shape your world.
  • Create—respond to the reading in a way that bends reality just a little.

The Tracks (Reading + Challenge Pairings):

Track 1: The Book You’d Never Pick Up

📖 Challenge: Go to a bookstore or library and choose a book entirely at random. Close your eyes, spin around, or grab something from a genre you never touch.

🔍 Why? This forces you to step outside of your reading habits and find something completely unexpected.

Track 2: The Found Sentence

📖 Challenge: Open a random book to page 42. Read the first full sentence on the page. Find a book that feels like it would fit that sentence as a title.

🔍 Why? This creates unusual connections between books, helping you discover titles in a completely new way.

Track 3: Steal Like a Reader

📖 Challenge: Ask a friend (or even a stranger) what book changed their life. Read that book, no matter what it is.

🔍 Why? Expands your TBR with deeply personal recommendations that might never have been on your radar.

Track 4: Read a Book Backward

📖 Challenge: Instead of starting from page one, flip to a random section and begin reading. Then go forward or backward as you see fit.

🔍 Why? Forces you to experience the book differently, paying attention to details in a non-linear way.

Track 5: The Mysterious Stranger’s TBR

📖 Challenge: Find a random annotated book—a used bookstore copy, a library book with marginalia, or an online forum where someone shares book notes. Read that book as if the annotator left it for you.

🔍 Why? Adds an extra layer of mystery and connection to the reading process.

Track 6: Judge the Book by Its Cover

📖 Challenge: Pick a book solely based on its cover, without reading the back or inside flap.

🔍 Why? Forces you to embrace instinct and aesthetics in choosing books, leading to unexpected reads.

Track 7: The Chain Reaction Read

📖 Challenge: Pick a book from your shelf. Look up a random review of it online. Find another book mentioned in that review—and read that one instead.

🔍 Why? Expands your reading list in a completely organic, unpredictable way.

Track 8: The One-Sitting Book

📖 Challenge: Choose a book that you can read in a single sitting—a novella, a short story collection, or a short nonfiction book. Dedicate a day to reading it straight through.

🔍 Why? Changes the pacing of your reading, making the experience feel immersive and cinematic.

Track 9: The Mixed Media Pairing

📖 Challenge: Read a book alongside a related movie, album, or visual art piece. Example: Read The Great Gatsby while listening to jazz from the 1920s,

🔍 Why? Enhances the sensory experience of reading and creates deeper connections.

Track 10: The Secret Book Swap

📖 Challenge: Swap books with someone else—either a friend, a coworker, or a stranger via a book exchange (Little Free Library, an online swap, etc.). Read whatever you receive.

🔍 Why? Introduces randomness, social connection, and an element of surprise to your TBR.
March 1, 2025 / Journal

Research Spirals

“My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.” – Hedley Lamarr

Lately I have been going down a lot of rabbit holes to explore where and how deep I can take some of my thoughts. I’ve plunged head first into wormholes just to see what was on the other side. My brain is on the edge of the map just to get a glimpse of what’s next.

My research spiral is an evolving process where ideas, drafts, and explorations continuously loop through phases of discovery, reflection, reworking, and iteration. The unfinished works1 and blog posts aren’t static—they exist in a state of potential, waiting to be revisited, expanded, or reimagined. Some pieces find new meaning over time, some merge into new projects, and others remain archived as stepping stones for future ideas. Publishing is just a temporary phase, as even completed works can inspire deeper exploration later. This spiral approach turns my Library of Unwritten Books into a dynamic archive and my blog into a living ecosystem of interconnected thoughts, ensuring that no idea is ever truly abandoned—only waiting for its next cycle.

Then I thought, hmm, what is a better phrase for “research spiral?”

1. Exploration Loop – Emphasizes the continuous cycle of discovery and refinement.

2. Recursive Inquiry – Highlights the revisiting and deepening of ideas over time.

3. Idea Labyrinth – Suggests a complex, nonlinear journey of exploration.

4. Concept Vortex – Implies a dynamic, ever-evolving swirl of thoughts and connections.

5. Knowledge Helix – A structured yet open-ended progression of learning and iteration.

6. Thought Ouroboros – A self-sustaining cycle of ideas consuming and reshaping themselves.

7. Discovery Continuum – A process with no fixed endpoint, always expanding.

8. Intellectual Current – Captures the flow and movement of ideas as they evolve.

9. Iterative Mindscape – A mental landscape where ideas continuously shift and take new forms.

10. Living Archive – Perfect if you want to emphasize how unfinished works remain active and influential.

Adjectives are fun, no?

  1. Library of Unwritten Books ↩︎
March 1, 2025 / Art

What Does Art Ask Of Me?

I ask for so much from art but sometimes I think I offer nothing in return.

After years of thinking this way, I realized that art asks for my attention and focus. Not my perfection, not my productivity—just me. Art asks you to show up, to listen, to engage. It asks for your willingness to wrestle with uncertainty, to risk vulnerability, to sit in the silence where ideas form ( if you can do so, you are more disciplined than I am.)

Art doesn’t demand grand gestures. It doesn’t care if you have all the answers. What it craves is your attention, your curiosity, your willingness to let it lead sometimes. It wants you to trust it, even when it makes no sense.

Previously I mentioned that “I offer nothing in return”, but consider this: you give art a space to exist. Without you, it would remain unmade. You give it form, even if only in fragments. You give it life, even if only for yourself.

What happens if you start treating art like a relationship rather than a transaction? What if, instead of asking art to serve you, you asked how you could serve it? What might it become if you gave it your trust, your time, your patience? Then I thought:

Art is a companion. Maybe that’s all it’s ever asked of you.

Whoa.

Yeah, that one got me. Sometimes we get so caught up in getting something from our art—validation, meaning, escape—that we forget it’s alive in its own way. It wants something from us, too. Maybe just a little reverence. Maybe just to be made without expectation. Maybe just to exist without needing to prove itself.

Art is weird like that. It mirrors what we bring to it. If we demand, it resists. If we fear, it hesitates. But if we listen, art speaks to us. .
March 1, 2025 / Journal

Looking Forward

After celebrating twenty-five years of self publishing to the WWW, I recently built two more websites in two days, just for kicks and grins. One is an archive of sorts, a Codex of my work. and the other…just defies description.

Now I am back to post some more articles here.

February 28, 2025 / Journal

Twenty-Five Years

Greetings, programs! This is the obligatory first post

2000-02-28

That was the little snippet that started it all.

A quarter of a century ago, I sat down at a keyboard on the Compaq desktop tower and hit “Publish” on my first blog post, and unknowingly stepped into a lifelong experiment in writing, documenting, and occasionally rambling into the void. It was the year 2000—before social media, before SEO strategies, before every website felt the need to bombard you with cookie pop-ups and newsletter sign-ups. Back then, blogging was raw, weird, and deeply personal. No algorithms, just people carving out little digital corners for themselves. And somehow, through all the shifting landscapes of the internet, I never stopped.

The early days were chaotic in the best way possible. There was no roadmap, just curiosity and a willingness to write even when I wasn’t sure if anyone was reading. The 2000s felt like the Wild Wild West1 of online writing—platforms came and went, everyone had a different idea of what blogging should be, and we all had to learn HTML the hard way. But it was exciting. The web felt infinite, and the act of writing and sharing was enough.

Somewhere along the way, blogging changed. It became polished, optimized, and, at times, painfully performative. Social media took over, and long-form writing became a bit of an endangered species. Yet, here I am, still typing away, still finding reasons to keep at it. Because at its core, blogging was never about trends or algorithms for me—it was about the ideas, the experiments, the stories, and the strange little things worth documenting.

So, what does 25 years of blogging look like? It looks like evolution. It looks like stubborn persistence. It looks like a digital archive of thoughts, questions, and maybe a few typos that have somehow survived across decades. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: Write for yourself first. Everything else—readers, engagement, impact—comes as a bonus.

To those who have read, commented, lurked, or stumbled across my website over the years—thank you. Here’s to whatever comes next.

  1. As opposed to World Wide Web ↩︎
February 23, 2025 / Technology

Oubliette

I’ve built a mysterious, hidden archive layered with enigmatic fuckery—a place where secrets unfold, reality bends, and curiosity is both rewarded and punished. The site plays with perception, hidden triggers, and misdirection, leading users through glitchy deception, cryptic documents, eerie sounds, and an exclusive repository accessible only to those who know the proper phrase. It’s a digital worm hole designed to intrigue, unsettle, and make the curious feel like they’ve stumbled into something they were never meant to find.

All of it was done in HTML only and thankfully only took a couple of hours! It is not live yet, only resides locally, but the code exists and renders beautifully inside the browser.

I am contemplating adding a domain name to it, but masking it with a .onion TDL, making it only accessible via a Tor browser, then, placing it somewhere on the dark web.

Unsettling mischief awaits.

February 22, 2025 / Reading

Hypertext Labyrinth

The experimental website framework I want to build will exist in the space between what is known and what refuses to be known. A static HTML-only archive that resists explanation. It presents itself as something incomplete, something forgotten, or something deliberately obscured, leaving behind only classified remnants, misplaced coordinates, glitched anomalies, and misfiled receipts that hint at a larger, unseen structure. The layers go deep with hidden pages, cryptic labels peeling at the edges, references that lead nowhere, and timestamps that don’t quite add up.

404: Lost Coordinates

404: You Are Here.

The map is incomplete, but the numbers remain:

37.9015° N, 23.7261° E

Look deeper. It was never lost.

Return

Some things were removed. Some things never existed. Some things moved while you weren’t looking. It is an experiment in next-level mischief, a system designed to pull at the edges of curiosity while leaving just enough behind to make you wonder what’s missing.

This website will feel like you are trying to solve the Rubick’s Cube but it fights back, constantly,

Why create something deliberately obscure? Why build a digital labyrinth with no clear purpose? Why make a repository of fragments, half-truths, and lost thoughts instead of a structured, polished archive?

This new site will be a map of ideas except it’s unfinished, glitching, and missing pieces. I’m creating a mental terrain where the act of getting lost is the goal.


February 19, 2025 / Journal

The Cemetery Of Forgotten Books

Inspired by The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, my Library of Unwritten Books is a deliberate archive of unfinished works—preserved not as lost projects, but as enduring records of creative exploration. Blending structured literary preservation with a sense of mystery, it stands as both an homage to my work and a reflection on the stories that remain untold.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books is a vast, hidden library in Barcelona, safeguarding abandoned and forgotten stories from oblivion. Introduced in The Shadow of the Wind, it serves as both a literary mystery and a powerful symbol of storytelling’s enduring legacy.
February 16, 2025 / Journal

The Library Of Unwritten Books

The book writing has been stagnant lately, possibly because the elusive muse has been on holiday.

There are thirty five novels and short-stories I want to tell, as well as a few non-fiction titles.

Half-forgotten worlds, unfinished thoughts, stories waiting for their ending. Printing them and physically shelving them would make the weight of all those ideas tangible. A hierarchy of incompletion—from the one-page sparks of genius, to the near-finished epics that just wouldn’t cooperate. The thickest ones sitting there, mocking you, while the thinnest whisper, “You barely even tried.”

Marginalia would turn it into a meta-library—a collection not just of unfinished works but of the very thought processes, doubts, and moments of inspiration that led to their incompletion. Notes like:


• “Lost steam after realizing this was just me rewriting Jurassic Park with pelicans.”

• “Had a brilliant ending in mind… and then forgot it. Still bitter.”

• “Started strong. Got distracted by a different book idea. The cycle continues.”

It could even be a living document—a place where ideas might resurface, evolve, or finally find their way to completion years later. Or…they could be relegated into a literary morgue file—a final resting place for the stories that almost were. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about that. They don’t get finished, but they exist, preserved in their unfinished state like fossils of creativity.

So what is a possible resolution to this self-induced problem? How about two possible solutions?

I could print them up and perhaps put them in a labeled binder. Also PDF’s uploaded to this website and generate digital library cards if there was any interest from the followers here.

A fantastic mix of a physical archive and a digital curiosity cabinet. The binders give them a tangible presence, while the PDFs turn them into an interactive experience. The digital library card idea is genius—makes it feel like a proper literary vault people can “check out” from. In turn, they could offer comments and suggestions. The access point is signing up to this website and add a comment to the written document. Hopefully there will be inspiration found from this.

This could turn the  Library of Unwritten Books into a collaborative storytelling experiment—where readers don’t just consume the work but actively speculate, suggest, and even contribute. Some might leave wild theories, others might fill in the blanks, and a few might even inspire to return to an abandoned story with fresh eyes.

The digital library card could have a simple yet classic aesthetic, tying into the raw, archival feel of the project. Think of it like a virtual passport to the library of unfinished stories. Here’s how it might look:

Front of the Card:

• Library Name: “Library of Unwritten Books” (in elegant, typewriter-style font for that vintage touch).

• Cardholder Name: Reader’s name

• Unique Card Number: A random, system-generated number to make it feel official (e.g., #MOM12345).

• Card Issue Date: The date they accessed the library or “checked out” a work.

Back of the Card:

• Quote or Motto: A philosophical nod to unfinished work, like:

• “Not all who wander are lost. Some just never finish.”

• “Creativity never stops—some stories just pause for a while.”

• Borrower’s Log Link: A link or QR code that takes them to the comments section of this website.

• Library Rules: Something playful like “No overdue fines” or “This book may never be completed, but its story is far from over.”

Physical Archive

There’s something deeply satisfying about preserving your ideas, no matter how unfinished. It’s like building your own literary museum, a space where unfinished thoughts don’t get lost but instead are archived and given a place in history.

Plus, the idea of printing, binding, and shelving them gives a real physicality to your creative process.

Whether it stays small or expands over time, it can become a personal artifact that might even spark inspiration years down the road. These unfinished works will outlive me, sparking something in others to finish, reinterpret, or continue. It’s like planting seeds that may grow long after I’ve moved on, and in some way, I’d still be creating, even if a single one is never complete. I might not get to see the story finish, but I’ll leave behind a trail of possibilities for others to follow. A literary treasure map—unfinished, mysterious, and full of potential.
February 5, 2025 / Photography

Nikon D90

Oh Nakita1. Darling Nikki:2 It will be fantastic to get you in my hands again.

What am I talking about? The return of the Nikon D90 DSLR is imminent because I have decided to trade in my Ricoh GR.

MBP made me a generous offer on it allowing me to trade that for the Nikon and a very nice 80-400mm Nikkor telephoto lens. This will be ideal to capture the local wildlife without disturbing them.

The Ricoh is a great little camera but has no option to swap lenses and is great for up close and personal. I can do that with other cameras. No, I need something more robust and versatile.

Long-time readers will remember I first acquired this camera way back in 2008.

  1. With apologies to Elton John ↩︎
  2. With apologies to Prince ↩︎
February 4, 2025 / Website

Micro Denbow

I’ve been working out a solution for short form posts to complement the long form posts here on the website. Yet I did not want them cluttering the feed either.

Then I had it, build out a separate Micro page with its own feed for those quick thoughts. Think Twitter but no social aspect.

You can access it in the header menu on this website, or via RSS feed (recommended)

February 2, 2025 / Journal

A Parade of Planets

2024 was a bumper crop full of celestial events and now 2025 is starting out very well. Tonight I observed, in order from east to west: Mars, Jupiter, (insert Earth here), (insert moon here), Venus, Saturn, and Mercury. Six planets are currently in alignment. Bonus: I also observed the Hubble space telescope.

The alignment of Mars, Earth, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Venus, and Saturn occurred on January 21, 2025.

Coming soon, Saturn, Mercury, Earth, Neptune, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter, and Mars in a planetary alignment on February 25, 2025. Hopefully we can talk someone we know into setting up his telescope for optimal viewing.

February 2, 2025 / Epigraph

Follow The Rabbits

Allow yourself to go down rabbit holes. A rabbit hole is not a distraction. A rabbit hole is your brain trying to tell you to pay attention to something you’re curious about. Ignore algorithmic rabbit holes. – Are.na
February 2, 2025 / Journal

The Return of the Groundhog

This will be the 17th year at attempting creating life-long habits for myself. I’ve realized a long time ago that at the end-of-the-year holidays, I am not mentally or physically capable of sticking with resolutions for the upcoming new year. I need a break so I take the whole month of January off to reflect and plan. Hence, the start of a new Groundhog Day Resolutions.

Today 2/2, Groundhog Day, is the day for a fresh start and a new year. (Chinese Lunar New Year started as well)

The first goal is to check-in here and review my progress. Every month until December 12th 2025.

The first check-in is on March 3 (3/3). After that will be 4/4, 5/5 and so on.

Here we go:

Nutrition

  • I like the idea of going back on to the Keto diet for quick weight loss, but have you seen the price of meat and eggs lately? The Mediterranean diet was clean and helpful too. Plus, I read that it reduces inflammation. Perhaps a hybrid of both plans could be advantageous. I am back working in the field and the convenience of fast food options on the go is strong. I need to be stronger.
  • Quit smoking. Yeah, I grabbed a cigarillo every now and then before the holidays.
  • No alcohol. I need to be encouraging and supportive for those around me that have an issue with alcohol so no need to bring it out. This will be easy.

Fitness

The previously mentioned job has me walking and lifting outdoors every work day so this is a start. Time to supplement this with extracurricular physical activities such as:

  • Yoga and stretching, because I can feel my body tense and become less flexible.
  • Meditation will help with calm my mind, increase oxygen levels and lower blood pressure.
  • Cycling is something I enjoy but haven’t done in a month. Time to get back on the saddle.
  • Strength Training at home. The Apple Fitness app has improved while I wasn’t looking and I’d like to make use of that subscription again. Kickboxing anyone?
  • Strength Training at the gym. We have a membership but haven’t used it due to a lot of changes around here. Eager to get back into it again.
  • Geocaching. Let’s take this outside and explore more while getting some walking in.

Create

  • Photography- The endgame is in site for a completely organized workflow and asset management. It’s seen decades of neglect and it’s only been a few years trying to reign it all in. This is difficult because of my other photography goals: adding more, better images that I am taking lately.
  • Writing- The same can be said for decades of writing and that is almost organized as well. As long as I am on the topic of writing, the book(s) have taken a backseat like everything else in the past two months. Progress needs to be made so I can get it all out of my head and free up space for other projects that I get myself into.

Consume

I am on pace with my 25 books read in 2025 goal. I am still trying to sort a workflow into DenbowOS to capture all of my notes and highlights from other sources besides books.

Technology

No new tech in 2025. I almost broke this one right off the bat but I returned the new Kindle in favor of the existing one.

I have a desire to finish making the Mini machine into a proper photo and file server. Not just for me, but to grant anyone else I want to have remote access to it too.

These all sound familiar, right? Like I said in the first sentence way up there, these are attempts. Many attempts in the past seventeen years I have been doing this. Maybe I should consider them as constant maintenance and I need frequent accountability. Hence, this initiative!

See you back here on 3/3 for the first review.
February 1, 2025 / Website

Website Updates

I am working on several initiatives to bring everything under one domain, including the photography and the archives. This website is done, save for a few minor tweaks in the background.

The Archives page is done and can be found here or by clicking on the link on the top mast of the website.

I am retaining the photodenbow.com domain but it will no longer be in use. It’s mine and no one else’s. Sounds selfish, but there is a great family photographer out there with the same surname and I had this first. I learned my lesson after dropping chrisdenbow.com and photomojo.com domains, only for them to be premium and go for $1000 each. Ouch.

Anyway, I am working on a solution for the photography page on this website. You can find it here, but it is a work in progress. You were warned.

The Podcast page is back, only for posterity for now. Who knows, I may desire to fire off another episode here or there. I even added an Apple Podcasts web player into the page. Proud of that one if I say so myself.

The Micro page has made a comeback in that these are short blurbs that don’t need to be on the main page, but are worthy of mention.