The idea of this newsletter is to share links to articles (and other stuff, mostly podcasts) that I like roughly once a week with limited commentary (and mild self-promotion at the end). It is free, now and forever!
Here are some links I like:
Walker Caplan writes about a new frontier in getting paid to write: an author who released a short story on her OnlyFans account.
For New Gawker, Hanson O’Haver says New Yorkers take pleasure in the various shitty aspects of NYC life.
Is loneliness a key driver of the crypto craze? David Segal’s amusing NYT piece on creating a scam cryptocurrency implies that the supportive community that grows around new coins is part of the appeal: “Investing in crypto holds out the prospect of a jackpot and the chance to bond over a shared catechism. It’s like a church social in a casino.”
Hawon Jung writes about how the use of the pinching hand emoji (🤏) by South Korean feminists sparked a misogynistic backlash by men’s rights activists.
This 1994 New Yorker profile of a nineteen-year-old Chloë Sevigny by Jay McInerney(!) is an incredible time capsule of a vanished world.
I’m very happy that Brandy Jensen’s “Ask a Fuck-Up” advice column is back. Brandy responds to someone whose letter starts “I'm a geriatric millennial and things have not gone as planned”…who can’t relate?
David Brooks’s reconsideration of the “bobos”/creative class is worth reading, though I don’t endorse his conclusion that these people are a major cause of American political dysfunction.
The NYT obit for George Forss, a photographer who came to public attention while selling prints on the street for $5 in the ’80s, notes that Forss “spoke of his belief in an ancient race of extraterrestrials who, as he told it, began telepathically communicating with him when he lived in the Bronx. He believed they had given him his photographic talents and helped lift him out of hard times.” RIP.
Should we view Twitter and Google as akin to the British East India Company?
Luka Ivan Jukić writes in Newlines Magazine about the resurgence of “Pseudo-Turkology,” a century-old effort to unearth the glorious history of the Turkic peoples (almost all of which is not true). Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan supports this campaign to present his nation as the font of Western Civilization. The piece made me think of John Ganz’s recent essay on how the fight over the “1619 Project” parallels attempts from 17th-century England to reinterpret the Norman Conquest. In short, lots of people get touchy about their founding myths.
Blank Check with Griffin & David spent almost three hours talking about the Space Jam sequel, which they hated and I have not seen. But the podcast is funny and has some interesting stuff to say about the cultural meaning of Jordan vs. Lebron.
David Mack’s investigative piece into how a gay party drug is manufactured reveals that there are truly worlds within worlds that I did not know existed.
Self-Promotion
On my podcast Culturally Determined, I spoke with Barrett Swanson, author of the new essay collection Lost In Summerland, about his brilliant Harper’s reported piece on TikTok collab houses. I also guest-hosted The DMZ opposite Bill Scher, talking about Trump’s endorsements, Cuomo’s future, and more.