Howdy, all! ＼ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ／
You’re reading the first issue of a newsletter called scraps of favor, an experiment I’m trying out.
Earth life is tectonic. Trying to stand up on a sphere covered in shifting plates, where nearly every jolt arrives at the whim of a class that doesn’t care about the future of that sphere, can be pretty hard, right?? I trust that we each spend some of our time grappling with alllll that.
I come to you here with neither a battle cry nor a slick pitch for my expertise as an observer of culture. My project is simply to remind you of Earth’s better qualities, small joys you can take out of your pocket and show someone at a bar.
I’ll send you to hidden corners of the internet; recommend tools to find the less-traveled wonders of the IRL world; introduce you to great weirdos you should know; send you reading, viewing, and listening material (with a focus on stuff you can’t find on a streaming service or newsfeed); post my favorite street garbage; share delicious minutiae from out-of-the-way archives; and teach you how to do more things yourself and with your community.
As we go, let’s gab: I want to know what you know about the things I share, what a post made you think of, or what you want me to dig into next. If you’re game, I’d love to share that with other readers.
Receiving scraps of favor should feel like the opposite of getting a work email or, god forbid, a Sl*ck notification: you may get a few emails one week, a couple the next month. There will be no publishing schedule. While future issues will include more media (and less text), the format will remain improvised.
It’s free, but you can throw me a few bucks when you subscribe if you feel like it. Speaking of, I encourage you to casually graze the subscribe button if you haven’t yet.
OK, that’s the business stuff — go hit the great planetary buffet, and tell me what’s looking good.
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Chained libraries
After I snatched the above postcard at the Old Antique Barn Mall (exactly what it sounds like) in San Juan Capistrano, I didn’t even have time to g**gle the place in the photo. My friend Carla, (conveniently) a medievalist who kinda knows everything, came over for dinner, and I showed it to her forthwith: What’s the deal with this punk rock library, Carla???
She immediately recognized a classic medieval security measure, the bank pen chain of the Black Death era. “Books were really, really expensive and rare back then,” she reminded me. Each one was written, printed, and bound by hand, making even a small collection like this a treasure. I was floored to learn that Hereford Cathedral Library isn’t the only book dungeon out there. Collectors and institutions set up libraries like this across Europe until the 1700s, but only a small number still exist.
^^^ Reader, look at this olde shit!
The setup was highly calibrated to make sure Hereford’s books—medieval theological relics, legal records, stuff like one of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta ("Tha Carta")—never got far and that only the seriously dedicated could read them. Every book’s spine faces either upward or away from you, making browsing impossible. Each shelf is rimmed by a long metal rod that slides through a loop at the end of each book’s chain, and the rods are locked in place with a key. A double-sided pew sits between every pair of shelves, each facing a small protruding desk, at which visitors crowded to read adjacent volumes.
Chained libraries are funny, antique, maybe dommy Hogwarts if we’re being charitable. But really, what’s a late fee, a paywall, an ISP, tuition, or even disastrous public school funding but a way of making sure information only gets so far, to only so many? Sure, the cathedral librarian must eat, but it’s hard not to dream of a world where information has no chains. I like newsletters (and good magazines/zines/blogs) because the best ones reject intellectual gatekeeping in favor of intimacy and accessibility. Reading them should feel indulgent, a little illicit, like eating raw cookie dough...
Thanks for reading ;)
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A special thank you to my friend Myles Tanzer for giving this an edit. Circumstances many years ago led to me sleeping in a dog bed at his apartment... more than once. Another big ty to Ben Seretan, without whose example and encouragement I wouldn’t be me, and you wouldn’t be here.
I hope you enjoyed issue 1! Forward it to someone if you did, and be well.
love,
alex
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ʕ ·ᴥ·ʔ
SOON... a sinfully niche journal about food, cooking, and cookbook (!) history …… how to make a 5-ton statue walk using just three ropes …… a beautiful matchbook from a gay disco in Florence …… labyrinths, swimming holes, and hacking G**gle Maps …… a woman lectures corpses about death and a man locks himself in a room with a coyote for three days (for art! chill!!) …… history’s gnarliest parties …… is an L.A. McDonald's really a chez-away-from-chez for old chess masters?? (A+ rumor either way)