The Cogitating Ceviché Week in Review 25-48
Discussion via NotebookLM
Editorial Summary
This week spanned covenantal reflections and cybernetic anxieties, noir mysteries and digital identity crises. Calista Freiheit calls for a return to sacred permanence in relationships, while Conrad T. Hannon and his digital counterpart question whether we’re outsourcing our cognition to faster-learning machines. Gio Marron brings both dread and deduction, reviving de Maupassant’s spectral subtlety and introducing a new sleuth in Mimi Delboise. Across the pieces runs a common theme: what binds us—whether in love, knowledge, memory, or mystery—when everything seems designed for detachment.
📝 Featured Articles
Marriage as Covenant, Not Contract: Why Vows Still Matter in a Disposable World
🗓 Dec 1 | ✍️ Calista F. FreiheitA compelling case for marriage as a sacred promise, not a social arrangement. Calista challenges the consumerist mindset that has eroded permanence and purpose in romantic unions.
Artificial Ignorance: How Tech Learns Faster Than We Forget
🗓 Dec 2 | ✍️ Conrad HannonA reflection on the asymmetry between human forgetting and algorithmic retention. Is forgetting our last unmonetized freedom?
🗓 Dec 3 | ✍️ Gio MarronMaupassant’s story resurrected with modern framing—a meditation on madness and memory. Gio revisits the horror not in what is seen, but in what is believed.
George Cruikshank’s Mirror: What the Satirist Refused to Reflect
🗓 Dec 3 | ✍️ Conrad T HannonA biting tribute to one of satire’s reluctant visionaries. Hannon exposes the moral lacunae in Cruikshank’s work—what the artist refused to ridicule.
Public Life, Private Brand: Why Every Conversation Sounds Like a Press Release
🗓 Dec 5 | ✍️ Conrad HannonAn unsettling exploration of how we’ve turned selfhood into product and performance. Identity is now copywritten, audience-optimized, and forever on brand.
The Night Watchman’s Story: A Mimi Delboise Mystery
🗓 Dec 6 | ✍️ Gio MarronDebuting a sleuth with bite, Gio opens a new mystery series where city shadows hide not just crime, but philosophical riddles about justice and time.
💬 Quote of the Week
“We have engineered machines that remember everything, and in doing so, forgotten what it means to forget.”—Conrad Hannon, Artificial Ignorance
🧠 Questions to Consider
Marriage as Covenant, Not Contract
* Is permanence inherently more virtuous than flexibility in relationships?
* How does consumer culture influence how we approach lifelong commitments?
Artificial Ignorance
* What are the implications of machines that remember more than we do?
* Can forgetting be an ethical act in an age of total recall?
The Horrible
* Where does belief end and madness begin in Maupassant’s tale?
* Why does the ambiguity of the narrator’s experience intensify the horror?
George Cruikshank’s Mirror
* What does it mean when satire excludes certain injustices?
* Can an artist be both visionary and complicit?
Public Life, Private Brand
* Have we lost the ability to be unpolished in public?
* What happens when authenticity itself becomes performative?
The Night Watchman’s Story
* How does Mimi Delboise differ from classic detectives?
* What role does moral ambiguity play in modern mystery narratives?
📚 Additional Reading
* The Abolition of Man — C.S. Lewis
* Surveillance Capitalism — Shoshana Zuboff
* The World Beyond Your Head — Matthew B. Crawford
* The Ethics of Memory — Avishai Margalit
* The Mirror and the Lamp — M.H. Abrams
📢 Calls to Action
* Calista: Reflect on your vows—are they contracts of convenience or covenants of commitment?
* Conrad: Ask yourself what part of your mind you’ve outsourced this week.
* Gio: Step into the shadows. Mystery awaits, but truth might not comfort.
* You, dear reader: Read slowly. The world moves fast enough.
Thank you for your time today. Until next time, stay gruntled, curious, and God Bless.
