From a Petrified Forest by Jon Collin
“He wandered into Tyresta, got away from it all, and plucked his guitar until the sounds merged with the wild outdoors, becoming sort of an ambient soundtrack to a nature documentary.” [Ryan Masteller]
Wittgenstein’s retreat
Wittgenstein placed his remote home where everyone could see it. He was an oddly ostentatious recluse — Several factors conspired to make that first visit to Wittgenstein’s retreat magical. One was an element of serendipity. We hadn’t gone to Norway to visit Skjolden. But then neither had Wittgenstein. In October 1913, when he arrived at […]
The Brilliance of Johnny Greene by @jimbillson
Editors saw him as youthful but dependable. Lewis Lapham, the longtime editor-in-chief of Harper’s, assigned him as a contributing editor of the magazine, a distinction he held for five years. “I trusted Johnny; I liked his sensibility,” Lapham told me. “Very early on, you hear a writer’s voice and you understand the first-person singular. . . . It was because […]
Brilliant interview with Rebecca Curtis
Eric Rosenblum had a sit-down with Rebecca Curtis, a writer whose stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, n+1, and elsewhere. This was for their “Dan & Eric Read The New Yorker So You Don’t Have To” podcast. The Rebecca Curtis episode Random notes: Curtis unapologetically rips off other stories authors. Need a plot? […]
Embrace your weird in the office
Interesting Jennifer Romolini piece in the NYTimes this week about using your freakishness to your advantage in an office setting. The impulse to want to fake it, to be more poised, polished or more like what you perceive all those #bosses on Instagram to be, is powerful — especially if you’ve spent a lifetime feeling […]
Turning the Tesla into a truck?
Simone Giertz has done it again, this time turning a perfectly dull Tesla into a truck. YouTuber known for ‘shitty robots’ turns Tesla Model 3 into pickup truck
Long live the croissant
The story you know about about the croissant is a lie. But the croissant’s contentiousness isn’t limited to its origin story. For almost as long as this pastry has existed, people have been arguing about how to make it, what shape it should be, and whether its crunchy quiddity has been dented by the variety […]
Procrastinating? You’re not lazy
Why Laziness Is Not Why You Procrastinate (Your Emotions Are) — from Peter Economy (no idea if that’s his real name) According to Fuschia Sirois, professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield, it logically does not make sense that anyone would partake in something (like procrastination) when he or she knows it is going to […]
The Strange Story of a Secret Literary Fellowship
“I was offered ten thousand dollars as part of a new award funded by the chairman of Barnes & Noble. But I was not supposed to tell anyone about it.” — from Daniel Gross in The New Yorker
Remembering Hazel Scott
READ: This Black Woman Was Once the Biggest Star in Jazz. Here’s Why You’ve Never Heard of Her She was prominent as a jazz singer throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, she became the first black person to have a TV show, The Hazel Scott Show This story by Lorissa Rinehart originally appeared on Narratively […]
