šĀ Hi hi
Been a minute, huh? Wish I could say I was productive with my time since I last sent an issue of this newsletter, but tbh Iāve mostly been up to the same stuff, just with an added interest in things I used to find boring (baseball), pointless (Formula 1) and/or dumb (pro wrestling). Oh, and I got ordained! So I can marry you now. Not to brag.
Anyway, here I am again with some stuff you should.
šĀ Read Online
That Icky Feeling Youāre Getting on the Internet [August 2022]- As a longtime mommy blogger, Ilana Wiles knows better than most that everything changes. But while she and I spend our time in very different online worlds, sheās asking the exact question thatās been plaguing me: Why does the way the internetās changing feel so bad all the time? (Ilana Wiles/Apparently)
The Junkification of Amazon [January 2023] - Speaking of things that suck now: Buying things from the big Bezos emporium has become like sorting through a mid-aughts junk drawer of clown products with jibberish names like QWIRTT. I appreciated this summary of why that is, and what it indicates about the ginormous companyās priorities in the years ahead. (John Herrman/New York Magazine)
I Wish I Was A Little Bit Taller [September 2022] - The business of surgical leg-lengthening is booming among men. While the procedure is fascinating to read about, the self-loathing that propels these guys to have their legs literally broken and stretched to meet a socially ingrained standard of attractiveness is so similar to what women are taught to internalize about their bodies from birth that it sent me into a lil bit of a despair spiral. Good piece, though! (Chris Gayomali/GQ)
The Rise and Fall of Vibes-Based Literacy [September 2022] - What if the ābalanced literacyā program relied upon by decades in New York City schools to teach its students how to read is actually hot garbage at, like, teaching kids how to read? Wouldnāt that be wild?? (Jessica Winter/The New Yorker)
Say Goodbye to Your Manager [September 2021] - When you give it even a momentās thought, the fact that the white-collar corporate world treats the management of people as a ārewardā for those who move up the ladder rather than as a discipline of its own with clear standards for skills and training isā¦kind of fucking bonkers! (Ed Zitron/The Atlantic)
šĀ Read Elsewhere
The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe [2020] -Ā An intelligent, goth-y, queer teen boy from a rough family befriends the shockingly tall rich girl next door, while violence lurks around every corner in their superficial California town. Kirkus Reviews aptly described it as āboth nauseatingly brutal and radically kind.ā I liked it a lot. (Buy it.)
The Very Nice Box by Laura Blackett & Eve Gleichman [2022] - A hardworking product engineer at an IKEA-esque furniture company, still grieving her girlfriendās death in an accident, falls under the spell of her enigmatic new boss. A quirky send-up of contemporary corporate culture, modern consumerism, and masculinity; Iād classify it as ābeach readā-adjacent. (Buy it.)
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett [2017] - The story of two families who are mixed up by a midcentury love affair, haunted by a childās death, and documented for public dissection by one of their own. I love Patchettās prose so much!! (Buy it.)
š£ļø Quote
[Jeff] says he almost wishes sometimes that he could trade his current well-being for the suffering he felt 20 years ago, because Bobby was so much easier to conjure back then, the sense-memories of him still within reach. "No matter how painful September 11 was," he explains, "I had just seen him on September 6."
What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind: Grief and Conspiracy 20 Years After 9/11 (Jennifer Senior/The Atlantic)
š“Ā Eat & Drink
Pop Daddy pretzels - Sorry to rec something with the word d*ddy in the name but these fuckers are so good. Iāve enjoyed the yellow mustard and dill pickle flavors immensely, but Iāve spotted a garlic parmesan variety in stores too if youāre into that kind of thing. (Hereās where to buy.)
Cometeer - I scrolled past Instagram ads for this subscription coffee startup for months because the whole conceit ā single-serve flash-frozen pucks of coffee concentrate that you melt to drink ā seemed too perfectly designed for my exact needs. Like a trap. But once I tried one, I was hooked. My favorite treat on Formula 1 race days is to melt one and pour it over vanilla ice cream for a lil affogato action. (Get $25 off your first order with my code here.)
š°Ā Try
Scanner Pro - My love for this Swiss army knife of an on-the-go scanner app is deep and real. In addition to its intuitive tools for scanning and conversion, the app lets you automate workflows to name/rename, send, and upload scans to the location of your choice. Iāve digitized yearsā worth of documents with this thing. (Free; extra features available for $20/yr. Download here for iOS.)
Topdrawer handkerchiefs - I keep one of these pretty Japanese hankies in my purse at all times. Favorite use cases include placing it under my laptop when working at an outdoor table and using it to dab sweat from my beautiful brow after running to catch the subway. (Buy here.)
NeevaĀ - Iāve been testing this new search engine for over a year and have found it to be like 30% less exhausting than Google, which between camouflaged ads and context-stripping excerpts has become total hell to use. Neeva has zero ads and no tracking, itās easy to integrate across apps and browsers, and you can customize it pretty extensively, including by selecting the media orgs youād like prioritized or fully omitted from your news results. The image search isnāt as good as Googleās, but otherwise Iāve noticed no change in the quality of my actual search results ā only the quality of my mood when I search. Turns out stripping the bullshit from the internet makes the internet feel less like bullshit?? Anyway Neeva was in beta last I checked but I def think itās worth checking out, if only to jolt yrself out of the habit of turning to Google first for everything. (If youāre in the U.S., you can use my invite code here.)
šŗĀ Watch
Malice at the Palace [2021] - This episode of the docuseries Untold explores the infamous 2004 on-court riot at a Pacers-Pistons game and the ripple effects of the problematic media circus that ensued. The kind of wildly compelling doc that packs so much into 70 minutes that you go āWowā when the end credits hit. (Netflix)
āļø Forecast
Spring! That delightful time of year when my desperate need for longer daylight hours clashes against my distaste for weather that is even slightly too warm. Wish me luck.
xo Laura