Links
A regularly updated collection of things I find worth reading, watching, or listening to. Subscribe via RSS.
-
Produced by a clothing brand (apologies), this video follows Matt Somerville, a bee conservationist. For the last fourteen years, Matt has created log hives in winter, placing them throughout the landscape in summer to provide shelter for wild honey bees. They’re beautiful structures—sculptures of sorts—and I very much appreciate the work. Judging by this short documentary, creating just a single log hive is no easy feat, and the man has created thousands.
-
Henry Desroches makes the case for building and maintaining your own, personal website, rather than publishing one a few of the monolithic platforms of the web.
Monolithic platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Medium, and Substack draw a ton of creators and educators because of the promise of monetization and large audiences, but they’ve shown time and time again how the lack of ownership creates a problem. When those platforms fail, when they change their rules, when they demand creators move or create a particular way to maintain their access to those audiences, they pit creators or their audiences against the loss of the other.
I care deeply about (independent) online publishing, though I need to improve my own presence and make proper use of Webmentions and POSSE. However, Henry’s essay resonated, and I think will provide a great place to start, or a great reason why to start, for many.
Whatever you do, don’t use Substack.
-
Mr. Scorsese
№ 118I’ve been rewatching Scorsese films these past two weeks (Killers of the Flower Moon, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Departed, Casino), so I was excited to learn about the new limited documentary series Rebecca Miller made on the director, called Mr. Scorsese.
I appreciated the documentary, learning more about Scorsese’s older, brilliant work, and getting an inside look at films like Goodfellas, Taxi Driver and Gangs of New York. The man’s a great storyteller, and at five episodes, I think it could’ve been a little longer still!
-
Photo by Neil Leifer for Sports Illustrated. The Thrilla in Manila, the fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier that took place in 1975, nearly killed them both. In this glorious (paywalled) piece of sports writing, Vann R. Newkirk II recounts the event, its lead-up, and its consequences. Incredible writing, putting you right in that scorching arena.
-
Your mind wants to move, and the best thing a work of art can do is take your mind with it, moving somewhere you never expected to move.
Anne Carson, interviewed at the Louisiana Literature festival in 2024. I watched it last year, and the conversation keeps resurfacing in my brain. An enigma.
-
Retirement Plan
№ 115A beautiful animated short film by John Kelly. I watched it earlier this week (thank you Simon!), and it just popped up in my head again, as I tried to read a few articles in an attempt to close a few tabs.
“When I retire, I’ll read the 35 years of saved articles on my reading list.”
-
Bad Dye Job
№ 114Putting Alan Dye in charge of user interface design was the one big mistake Jony Ive made as Apple’s Chief Design Officer. Dye had no background in user interface design — he came from a brand and print advertising background. Before joining Apple, he was design director for the fashion brand Kate Spade, and before that worked on branding for the ad agency Ogilvy.
It’s baffling this man was tasked with leading user interface design at Apple. Reads like a gigantic misstep, over on Daring Fireball.
-
Bremerton Typewriter Company, photography by Ruth Fremson. Finding Mr. Montgomery’s shop required determination. No sign marked the building; no indication that inside, five floors up, a master craftsman was keeping alive skills that predated the computer age. You took an elevator that groaned. When the doors opened, you knew immediately you were in the right place: a 1916 Royal Model 10 typewriter stood guard outside an open door, and the air smelled like oil.
I love pieces like these. Showing the craft, the getting up every day and plugging away at something, a thing you so admire. This one in particular reminds me of a time I visited a fella somewhere in Amsterdam, who repaired record players. Thorens, to be specific, and specialised in the type I have at home. Very kind, very skilled.
My thanks to Thomas, for sharing it.
-
I don’t know why this happened at the office of The New York Times, but here we are. Erykah Badu hasn’t released an album in forever, and it doesn’t matter. Look at her aura as she floats into the room; you wouldn’t dare ask her why. The performance is just about flawless.
Currently, she’s celebrating the 25th anniversary of her landmark album Mama’s Gun. Perhaps someday soon, that album she made with The Alchemist will see the light of day.
-
NPR’s “Books We Love”
№ 111
Great reads, thoughtfully curated by NPR. They’ve been doing this for a while, apparently, but I’d never come across it before; NPR added the year of 2025 to their Books We Love directory. You can use the sidebar on the left to filter for a combination of things (e.g. Staff Picks + Seriously Great Writing + Fiction), and then use the navigation up top to skip through the years.
I’m currently into short stories and essays, so this filter will be my go-to for now.