Late summer tiny letter
Hello, everyone. Here are some recent finds - photos, articles, anecdotes.
The coolest
I’m not a car buff, but there are some vintage models so elegant in their lines that even white boys got to shout.
While I moved to Portland in part so I wouldn’t have to drive much, I still love a good classic. @David pointed out that cars of this era were influenced by the design of jets, hence the fins, round lights, and other features that feel retro space age (at least on the Impala).
Further proof that Subway has run out of ideas
Oh, to be in the pitch meeting where the overzealous intern says, “How about we do a footlong cookie?” Maybe they could put it on a bun. I heard you like bread, so I put some bread on your bread.
The Onion is back!
My long beloved Onion, which was far more enjoyable in print, is back in print! Details to follow.
Years back, meeting my friend Nil at a Madison hotel across from East Towne, I noticed The Onion in a rack by the front desk. I mentioned it to the clerk and she said, “yeah, sometimes visitors see that, pick it up and ask, ‘Is this stuff real’"?”
Best headlines in memory:
Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia
Totally Hot Chick Also Way Psycho
A theory
I’m not the first to mention this, but…
A neighbor on my floor plays keyboard in a local band. He and his bandmates are getting enough traction to play local venues, and they’ve made an album as well. Being the most tech savvy of the group, he has volunteered as its marketing manager.
Before so much of our lives moved online, this would mean making CDs, flyers, sending albums to radio stations, demos to labels, lots of networking. Now much of that effort has been taken over by the digital world. So he spends a lot of time testing and retesting ads on Instagram. He loathes this work, saying “I spend all day at a screen for my job, so I really don’t want to spend even more.” The strategy he follows is very similar to someone selling electronics, diet plans, or really anything that is marketing directly to consumers online. But why is he doing this? Because it’s necessary, or at least the band perceives it as necessary.
The same frame can be applied to online dating. No one really likes endlessly swiping on apps, further fragmenting their attention span, paying money to a corporation whose goal is not to help you express your authentic self and find a match, but to compress you into an algorithm’s dungeon so they can maximize profit. See enshittification, featured in a previous newsletter. But if you ask people why are they there if they hate it so much, their answer often comes down to “that’s where people are.” And it’s the same for Instagram. That’s where fans are, and that seems to be the best way to reach them.
So many of these platforms (mostly social media, really, and dating apps are a form of it) are so dreadful, so lifeless, so far from authentic expression. And so many of us hate them. But we’re still there.
Surprising New Research Links Infant Mortality to Crashing Bat Populations
Without bats to eat insects, farmers turned to more pesticides, a study found. That appears to have increased infant deaths.
“If we were to reduce the population-level exposure today, we would save lives.”
- Carmen Messerlian, a reproductive epidemiologist
I didn’t find this especially surprising. Mess with nature, and it usually has follow on effects. Of course, a farmer spraying extra pesticides on their crop is far up the chain from Jane Consumer buying canned peaches, or whatever, at Safeway.
One of the foundational arguments of the “everyone should eat organic” crowd is that pesticides and herbicides are really bad for you, and you should limit your exposure. They’re not wrong. Of course, we have to weigh that against pocketbook decisions - $5 for a red bell pepper feels kind of obscene. If the U.S. were more sensible about these matters, we would subsidize healthier food and stop promoting garbage. If wishes were fishes?
New (to me) tunes
@Paul heard this group and said it would be the kind of thing I like. He’s yet to suggest a dud! Pedals was big in their hometown of Austin for a hot minute or two, but they seem to have gone silent. They’ve been compared to Dirty Projectors, and I think they sound a little like El Mañana. Accessible, too!
Don’t worry about the video, it’s filler - just listen. I bought some CDs, of course, but if you must, their music is on YouTube and Spotify, I think.
‘Right to Repair for Your Body’: The Rise of DIY, Pirated Medicine
Four Thieves Vinegar Collective has made DIY medicine cheaper and more accessible to the masses.
‘Right to Repair for Your Body’: The Rise of DIY, Pirated Medicine
Four Thieves Vinegar Collective has made DIY medicine cheaper and more accessible to the masses.
These folks are kind of like Robin Hood for medicine. Remember the Epi-Pen debacle, when we learned these critical, lifesaving tools carried enormous markup? Four Thieves created a ‘recipe’ that allowed you to make your own for a fraction of the price.
While I acknowledge that argument that pharmaceutical companies invest a ton of money to develop a single drug, and they need profit from drug sales to fund this research, they often come out looking pretty bad when we learn just how high markups are, seeing people die because they can’t afford medication.
The old ethics question:
Someone you love is sick, and needs 500 capsules of Metstatafor 100mg over the next year, or they will die. They have exhausted every last option. Do you rob the local pharmacy?
In one way, Four Thieves have answered this with yes.
On a related note, I’ve found 404 Media, the source of this article, is doing excellent work. They require a free user account to read it because they’re blocking AI from summarily stealing all their work.
A new webseries
This looks hilarious. And it’s not too far off from reality, in some quarters, here.
Closing quotes
A writer’s heart, a poet’s heart, an artist’s heart, a musician’s heart is always breaking. It is through that broken window that we see the world; more mysterious, beloved, insane, and precious for the sparkling and jagged edges of the smaller enclosure we have escaped.
— Alice Walker
Attempting to define vaporwave is sort of humiliating: like most web-based phenomenon, it deploys an idiosyncratic grammar that remains mostly inscrutable to anyone who has a recently gone outside.
-Amanda Petrusich, writing in the New Yorker about electronic artists