Why the newsletter is called 'Hell of a Bird' now

For those who require one, an explanation on the aesthetic overhaul. Read to the end for some thoughts on the BlueSky Boom.

The reason for the change in scenery around here is both a) complicated and b) not complicated at all.

To Thee, Forever Ago was a specific name that conveyed a specific purpose, and that purpose was sending newsletters about ancient Gamecock sports history. Three years in — and arguably sooner — the name had run its course. The events, people, and ideas I was interested in exploring had changed in ways that I was slow to notice. The newsletters that I most enjoyed writing had less to do with USC sports and more to do with the robust culture that we’ve built around USC sports.

And as luck would have it, I think those are the newsletters that you most enjoyed reading.

I wouldn’t say the name change signals a complete re-thinking of what the newsletter is about. But it does formalize a change of emphasis from what I originally envisioned it would be. And in moments of self-doubt (i.e., most of the moments I’m awake) or in moments of uncertainty about what I should write next (i.e., all of the moments that are left over after you subtract the former type), the new name will me keep my eyes on the prize.

Why do I find this phrase so motivating? It’s a decent question.

The phrase “hell of a bird” comes from an episode of Doctor Who called “Heaven Sent,” in which the Doctor awakes to find himself trapped in a castle-themed escape room that seems purpose-built to torture him, specifically. We immediately encounter a few mysteries, including: who wrote the word “bird” in the sand right next to where the Doctor awoke, and why.

(If you’ve never watched this episode but plan to, here’s where you should stop reading.)

After weeks or months (the exact amount of time that passes is, at first, unclear) of eluding a hooded creature who is constantly pursuing him (in order to kill him, we presume), the Doctor finally figures out how to escape. But there is one, giant problem: a 20-foot, semi-translucent wall (made out of a fictional mineral that’s apparently 20 times harder than diamond) stands between the Doctor and the exit. By the time the Doctor discovers the exit and the wall obstructing him, the creature is already close on his heels, and he only manages to punch the wall a few times — barely making a dent — before the figure apprehends and kills him.

With his dying breath, the Doctor writes “bird” in the sand. After dying, the Doctor awakens again, exactly as he had at the beginning of the episode, with no memory of anything he just experienced. He’s guided only by the cryptic clue “bird” written in the sand by a mysterious stranger (that mysterious stranger is the Doctor himself, we now realize), which proves to be just enough of a hint to lead him back to the impenetrable wall. This loop repeats over and over again, with the doctor laboring for weeks or months to find the wall and chisel away the tiniest fragment of it before he’s captured.

Months pass. Centuries pass. 4.5 billion years pass.

As the Doctor deals the decisive blow to the wall, he finally has enough time to finish explaining why the word “bird” was, to him, a helpful clue:

“The Brothers Grimm, lovely fellas… According to them, there's this emperor, and he asks this shepherd's boy, ‘How many seconds in eternity?’

And the shepherd's boy says, ‘There's this mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb it, and an hour to go around it. Every hundred years, a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain, and when the entire mountain is chiseled away, the first second of eternity will have passed.’

You must think that's a hell of a long time.

Personally, I think that's a hell of a bird.

“Heaven Sent” is my favorite episode of Doctor Who in no small part because of the meaning that I take from the Doctor’s perspective on this Brothers Grimm story.

Things worth doing take time. Important things, like improving material living conditions for our neighbors. And relatively trivial things, like building football programs. Things like building fan cultures around those programs. And yes, things like writing articles about the fan cultures that have been built around those football programs.

Also, a thing that’s happened in my late 30s is that I’ve gotten really into birds. Furthermore, as you may be aware, the mascot of the college sports team I like is a bird.

So yeah. Now the newsletter’s called Hell of a Bird. Congrats to

Eric Rogers

and

Mr Bill

for their correct guesses (Google-aided guesses though they were). As promised, I will be sending you a treat.

Maybe BlueSky has the juice after all

Back in July 2023, BlueSky was my bet to replace Twitter as the app where people would hang out to talk about The Big Game. For nearly a year and a half, that bet was looking pretty bad. No matter how bad the user experience became and no matter how much the site was reduced to being a tool in Elon Musk’s political project, sports enjoyers — myself included — just couldn’t shake the nearly 20-year-old habit of Tweeting Through It.

But something seems to have happened earlier this month — impossible to say what it was — which has brought into focus the true nature of what we were participating in by continuing to use Musk’s site. Hundreds of thousands of American users have deactivated their Twitter accounts, and BlueSky is adding millions upon millions of users.

I was an early BlueSky adopter who got bored with it when it seemed like it didn’t have the juice. But the juice is back, and so am I. I’m still not entirely convinced that it’s possible for there to be such a thing as a social media app that’s good for your brain, but for now BlueSky is growing while maintaining the vibe of Twitter when Twitter was good. So that’s a start.

And importantly, it’s recently become possible to post about live sports on BlueSky without feeling like you’re shouting into the vacuum of space. This past Saturday, many of my favorite college football internet personalities traded in their tweets for skeets. And for the first time ever, I think, it wasn’t possible to look at BlueSky while watching the Carolina game on a delay without having future events spoiled for me. And I even saw some of y’all posting about whatever was happening with Mike Tyson’s bare ass on Netflix.

Next time, we’ll get back to business and start diving into the depositions from Jim Carlen’s wrongful termination suit against USC.