march 2024: salad theory and list of terms to refer to the average person
i hope this email finds you well, or at least finds you medium.
i missed sending out this newsletter last month because i was/am dealing with a health issue and instead spent lots of time on the phone with my ‘insurance’ company and some more time with a heating pad (i firmly believe i’m going to be okay :) ).
in my new ‘sitting-forward lifestyle’, as i am referring to it internally, i consumed some content and a lot of time trolling around and editing wikipedia.
links:
salad theory - a unified theory that every food can be described as a soup, salad, or sandwich
south pole electrical infrastructure - generally this whole blog from an IT person who did a winter stint at south pole station is very good if you’re an infrastructure nerd (h/t joe)
practicing the doomsday method aka the party trick for knowing the day of the week for arbitrary dates
someone rode all the SF bay area transit systems and made lots of good maps about it - (i’m trying to rebrand the boston area as the ‘massachusetts bay area’, but i don’t think it’s working)
an academic data fabrication scandal? from researchers known as world-class experts on honesty? it’s more likely than you’d think.
kyrsten sinema is not running for reelection, and that made me re-read this profile of her metamorphosis from green party activist to … corporate girlboss senator in chief
comic that reflects how Those Posters make me feel
books:
the spirit catches you and you fall down by annie fadiman - a classic of medical anthropology, this book was one of the first american books to explore the importance of cross-cultural dialogue in medical care, and one of the first widely-read english-language book about the hmong immigrant/refugee experience in america. definitely not the only thing to read on that topic, but a good starting point.
erosion: essays of undoing by terry tempest williams - a mixed bag from an important contemporary environmentalist writer. i wanted to read a book about utah, having recently visited, and i enjoyed the parts about light in the castle rock valley but i’d recommend skipping the other parts.
everyday utopia by kristen ghodsee - lots of people write about utopian thinking in the public sphere (socialism, UBI, etc), but what about in the private sphere (child rearing, co-living, feminist reconstructions of domestic labor, etc) - approachable book. also by this author ‘why women have better sex under socialism’ which is a great book title).
poem: flood coming (https://www.poemist.com/ada-limon/flood-coming) by ada limón. her poetry just speaks so directly and painfully to me.
audio and video:
many of you know that i’m obsessed with the barkley marathons, a very silly and difficult ultramarathon in tennessee run by an absolute bofoon named lazarus lake. this year a woman (Jasmin Paris) finished the race for the first time!!! (and i was the first to add it to her wiki page, becoming one of Those Editors i suppose). there’s good video content about the barkley, i’d recommend starting with the race that eats its young. 17th is about a recent barkley finisher and his crew being extremely sweet.
photo link
not a ton of photos this month - but i visited some friendos in new york and i earned my first degree black belt in taekwondo after several years of effort and i felt proud of that (i didn’t tell anyone i was pursuing it because being perceived is hard :| )
location update: i will be living in san francisco this july and august ! i’m very excited about it! please come visit !
what are you looking forward to this spring?
i hope you catch a particularly tasty beam of sunshine in the next week.
-avital