½ doz. newsletter links for Lesley

2022-10-12 ✢ tchotchkes ✢ links

Hi, Lesley. Since we talked a bit about newsletters last time we called I’ve made a note of a half-dozen you might find interesting. I’ve included a link to a good entry from each.

• The Contender. David Coggins is a men’s fashion writer and fly fisherman who writes about his idea of the good things in life.

It’s funny how much travel can teach us about dressing. This starts when we’re packing and we have to analyze our needs and balance them within the constraints of a suitcase. Then a cold front arrives and we’re forced to wear the same thing every day. This turns out to be a blessing. Now we learn that the flannel suit, one week in, is a war horse.

• The Melt. Jason Diamond is a writer in NYC who’s interested in books and Jewish-American culture and what remains of Old New York.

The cynical bourgeois of these books really have it all compared to their countrymen, yet they have nothing at the same time. They’re broken and they don’t even realize it. I’ve always had the feeling that’s a deeply American trait as well. So why not embrace it with a warm bear hug? Eat something smelly, drink something strong and then go for a long walk in the cold. Jump in a frozen lake or let somebody slap a a bushel made of oak leaves all over your body.

• A Small and Simple Thing. Brooks Reitz is a restaurateur, but here he mostly writes about the food he cooks at home, when he’s not trying to impress anyone. Lovely and unpretentious.

For something simple, I threw together a plate of medjool dates (my favorite) and little jagged chunks of Parmigiano. It was delicious, and we ended up stuffing the cheese into the dates after removing the pit.

• The Honest Broker. Arts criticism from Ted Giola (the famous poet’s brother), especially music and especially jazz. I disagree with his commentary on the state of the music industry about as often as I agree with him, but it’s always interesting.

There are a hundred non-profit foundations in the arts that could solve this problem with a modest allocation of resources. If the Duke Foundation, for example, funded 50 people in 50 cities with $50K per year to cover their local music scene it would cost a grand total of $2.5 million. And, if they got ambitious, they could place 4 writers in each city, and still only spend around $10 million.

• Why is this Interesting? Every day a guest contributor writes a very short essay about something they find interesting. I enjoy the variety.

These are lower-case “c” community initiatives, of and by places. They’re not driven by institutions as much as by individuals who know how to surf the tangents of institutions, work in the gray areas around them, and above all else harness popular momentum.

• The Convivial Society. I might have recommended this one before. L.M. Sacasas reflects on our relationship with digital technology, particularly digital media and communication.

The Questions Concerning Technology …

29. What does my use of this technology require of others who would (or must) interact with me?
30. What assumptions about the world does the use of this technology tacitly encourage?
31. What knowledge has the use of this technology disclosed to me about myself?
32. What knowledge has the use of this technology disclosed to me about others? Is it good to have this knowledge?

The thing I like these is how they express the writer’s own point of view and they’re usually not strongly ‘themed’ around a particular topic (politics, the publishing industry, &c). I like to subscribe to newsletters that have a lot of character where the writer can talk about whatever they feel like. You get a nice picture of a single person’s ideas and interests rather than a magazine’s ‘house style’.

I hope you’re well. Let’s talk soon.