Ask me what I am writing
I’ve had the links below sitting in my drafts folder for weeks.
By now, you’ve probably read most of them because they’ve made the rounds online. Even still, I share them because I know sometimes a personal recommendation can be the difference between checking something out and ignoring it as it passes through your feed.
In September, when I last published a newsletter, I had the audacious goal of going back to posting fortnightly, to establish a cadence to my blogging that would allow me to not only stretch my proverbial writing legs, but also build more of a robust archive of posts that I could use to track what was running through my mind at various points in life. I have failed at that goal for many reasons, but mostly because I have lost writing muscle: in the past few years, I have not been used to writing regularly and thus my diligence in crafting prose has withered.
I have a new goal to write more, but not necessarily post more. I will write for myself, build that muscle I have lost, and try to remind myself what I once loved about sending missives into the world. While you may not see the fruits of this labor, my journal will hopefully grow with words. I will of course write here every few weeks (months?), but for now, if you do see me or correspond, feel free to ask me: are you writing? What are you writing about? Your help in keeping me accountable is immensely valuable.
In the meantime, enjoy the links below, as dated as some of them are. I still believe many things are worth visiting and re-visiting, even if they aren’t the trend du jour. Thanks for reading; I’ll keep writing.
A poem
Geometry
Rita Dove
I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.
As the walls clear themselves of everything
but transparency, the scent of carnations
leaves with them. I am out in the open
And above the windows have hinged into butterflies,
sunlight glinting where they've intersected.
They are going to some point true and unproven.
Some links
Ezra Edelman made a documentary about Prince and the estate won’t let it be released. Personally, I think a documentary like this—diving deep into the psyche of Prince, flaws and all—will humanize the artist and actually make him more beloved by fans and admirers—especially with Edelman at the helm—than damage his reputation. I wonder why the Prince estate doesn’t see that. (Also, the article about the documentary by Sasha Weiss is perfectly-written and a master class in good reporting and commentary; if you’re not interested in the documentary, read the article for just how good it is as a piece of journalism.)
I don’t make money from this blog and don’t ever plan to, so this satiric “how to monetize a blog” is a perfect sendup of the things people do to make money on today’s internet.
L has been telling me about Chappell Roan for months and I admit I was late to discover her, but I’m definitely on the bandwagon now. This profile of her in Rolling Stone was a great look into where she came from and how she’s grappling with fame now.
Customized drinks are all the rage now. As someone who drinks his coffee hot and black and unadulterated, I found this jaw-dropping: “at Starbucks, one-quarter of all custom drinks it sells in the United States have more than three modifications.”
Housing should be a basic human right. I’m very intrigued by the idea of solving the housing crisis by investing in more social and cooperative housing.
The best travel guides are Google Docs compiled and maintained by individuals who really care—a sentiment I wholly endorse.
This is a thought-provoking way to think of hobbies and how we delineate pleasure from work from self-realization:
Hobby is capitalism’s word. It’s a crumb from capitalism’s table. Capitalism is happy that you have a hobby, especially if it can sell you HO-scale train sets to complete it, but that hobby can never be taken as seriously as what capitalism might need from you. (Oh, and that thing capitalism might need from you? Well, design is your passion, so they don’t really need to pay you adequately for that, do they?)
An argument that reference volumes should be valued as least as much as fiction and other nonfiction books.
Lucas shared this delightful post about reframing back-to-school preparation as acts of care, rather than consumerism. Something I’ll hold with me over the next few years as we continue on our school journey.
Long before Google, people called librarians with their questions.
A short, but beautiful reminiscence on the relationships that are difficult to classify.
“The heart, they say, has an agency, intelligence, and even a memory of its own.”
Something that was obvious before they legalized it in the first place: legalizing sports gambling was a huge mistake.
Abortion bans are hurting medical care across the board. The reversal of Roe v Wade was one of the worst things that has happened In American politics recently, and I’m worried that we’re going to see something similar in Canada with the rise of social conservatism.
Haikus and short poetry, published daily, every day since the early 2000s. This is delightful.
Does anyone use Hardcover? I’m looking to switch away from Goodreads and am enamored by the design and user experience of this book tracking app.
This list of red flags by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is an excellent way to decide where to spend your dollars when dining out. I’ll be paying more attention to this, for sure.
“Blogging started out as a programming adventure and eventually became a form of literature.” Dave Winer, one of the people who inspired me to start write on the web 25 years ago, celebrates 30 years of blogging.
Let’s end with some positive news: [the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first flu vaccine that people can administer to themselves at home].(https://www.npr.org/2024/09/20/nx-s1-5121176/fda-flumist-flu-vaccine-at-home-approved)