🌐 A non-toxic social experience — WTS2

Haven’t played around with this yet, but it’s another attempt at “healthy” social media from Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia); seems to be going for something akin to both Reddit and Twitter.

📰 It’s Not a Good Sign When People Who Don’t Pay for News Have So Little to Choose From — NY Times

We have tons of subscriptions, but my wife is pretty adamant that news should be free, while I’m more conflicted, wanting journalists to get paid. As a solution, I think every American should get a stipend to spend on news sites—there are some complications such as which sites would qualify, but I think it’s a solvable problem.

📑 Why the Biden, Clinton, and Pence document cases don’t compare to Trump’s — Vox

After listening The Daily this morning, I needed a bit of a refresher so this was perfect timing to help re-educate myself.

🌃 Night Fever — Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips

New graphic novel from the team behind, well, like every crime/noir comic worth reading over the last ten+ years. If you’ve ever considered comics, but stayed away because “it’s all super hero’s,” this is something to check out.

🦖 New Age Correspondence — Dinosaur Comics

I’m terrible—half the time, if the text isn’t a question or doesn’t interest me (or even when it does…) I just ignore it.

🎑 Microseasons — Calendar

I’m a bit fascinated with tracking the passing of time so when I discovered this Japanese calendar of 24 periods and 72 microseasons I knew I had to set-up a calendar for it. You can download the file or copy the link and subscribe.

🎶 SCIENTISTS & ENGINEERS — Killer Mike & André 3000

Single from Killer Mike’s upcoming solo album, MICHAEL. While I’m excited for the album, I’m only here to point out André 3000 on a new track.

🪦 Cormac McCarthy, 1933–2023 — Indignity

a propulsive storyteller… but he was also the idiosyncratic obsessive putting on the page whatever prophetic digressions or archaic lingo he wanted to put there, decade after decade, whether anyone else cared to pay attention or not. The books were as accessible and as cryptic as the world itself was.

📸 I Saw You Standing There — The Atlantic

An excerpt from Paul McCartney’s new photo book, 1964. Not mentioned, but related, he’s apparently using AI to finish the last Beatles song with Lennon’s voice.

📺 Internet sleuthery cannot abide a loose end — Garbage Day

Nice guest essay on GD about audiences tendency to be a detective for every. single show. There’s a time and a place, but people need to remember it’s entertainment, it’s meant to be fun; stop trying to be right.

🏞️ Six Seasons — Calendar

I discovered Vonnegut’s idea of six seasons (Unlocking/Locking) via @kaa, but couldn’t find a subscribe-able calendar for it (I’m sure there’s one out there) to be able to track it, so I made my own.

🗯️ Why the 2020s Will Be Known for Anger — Air Mail

If I may offer some sweeping oversimplifications: the 1950s had complacency; the 1960s, love; the 1970s, self-love; the 1980s, greed; and so on. With anger now the defining emotion of our own times, and in splenetic tribute to the previous century’s Roaring 20s, I suggest we dub the current decade the Raging 20s.

Too soon, you demur, since we are only three years in? Maybe. And maybe the 2024 presidential election will be decided by high-minded debates over policy issues, and maybe several hundred million guns will disappear from the country, and Jim Jordan will develop an inside voice, and “Karen” will become just another name, and Mr. Rogers will return from the dead.

Bit of a sucker for this kind of essay that does a good job of summarizing the current moment.

🎵 The Gutter — ALEXSUCKS

My surprise release of the week beating out Squid, Janelle Monáe, Milky Chance, King Krule, and many others. What a great week of music. I’d comp them as a slightly poppier The Strokes and I dig it.

🏢 Toronto Tenants Are Uniting in a Mass Rent Strike — Jacobin

This is tough. I’m pulling for them, but it feels like an uphill battle.

🤡 The Indictment Is Stunning. Will Trump Supporters Care? — The Atlantic

The scorn of elites and myriad investigations to which he has been subjected are, for his faithful, merely certifications of his potency and independence, a reflection of the threat he poses to a corrupt order.

Quick, salient piece from David Axelrod.

👀 The Ganzfeld Procedure — Austin Kleon

This is funny; if I had some ping pong balls lying around I’d give it a try.

🗂️ So It’s A Crime Now To Have Boxes Full Of Cool Folders With Various Words Printed On Them? — Defector

It is America’s strange blessing and profound damage that it keeps producing more and more people who believe that this sort of thing might work for them, which it never does.

Okay last Defector piece for the week…

⛳️ PGA Tour Board Member Vows To Kill Any 9/11 Perpetrators Involved In LIV Golf Merger — Defector

And if someone can find someone that unequivocally was involved with it, I’ll kill them myself. We don’t have to wait around.

Defector has been absolutely killing it this week.