OMM – September 2024 – #4
~ a curated selection of discoveries ~
::: The Open :::
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoy this weekly newsletter (published on Sundays).
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Thank you for reading and for your time.
With Gratitude,
~ Mark
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Please Note:
This newsletter is typically too long to appear in its entirety in an email. Please click through to Substack to read in full.
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::: Personal Notes :::
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Left Speechless: Public vs. Private Grief and Loss: Reflections, Resources, Poetry
I spent several years working on this essay. I had hoped to place it in a trade magazine or mental health resource. One writer was encouraging me to further tailor it for publication in a magazine geared towards those in the psychology field. You’ll see a few elements of that in this version. I ended up not fully going in that direction for a number of reasons.
I truly hope this essay is helpful to readers. Or, if not now, perhaps down the road.
If you know someone who may benefit from reading this, I hope you’ll consider sharing it with them.
Mostly, I want to share that this is an exceptionally meaningful piece for me for obvious reasons. I appreciate those who take the time to read it. I’ve been receiving beautiful notes in response and it’s appreciated and heartening.
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Mark’s ongoing job hunt…
Generally, seeking remote copywriting (and related) roles.
Please let me know if you have ideas.
Thank you for taking the time to reflect.
I’m happy to connect on LinkedIn.
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::: ONE ART :::
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Upcoming Workshops hosted by ONE ART
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ONE ART’s Reading Series – upcoming events
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::: Podcasts :::
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I’ve been digging in on more podcasts than any other time in 2024.
I’m going to end up writing a longer piece…
Many of the episodes are the usual suspects— Hidden Brain and The Gray Area with Sean Illing.
I don’t know how long I’ve been doing this… a few years, for sure… but I listen to a great podcast episode and then I add the author’s book to my Amazon cart and then I move it to “Saved for later” and that way I can find books/authors I want to look into more closely when I go to the library (or their book goes on sale). Because I’m going through so much text… I’ve found it’s often better to just listen to several interviews with a nonfiction writer than sit with the book. This really depends and I feel a bit sad and awkward saying this is one way I handle the information overload. But the truth is that authors, especially social scientists and behavioral economists and philosophers and anthropologists and those in various psych fields are very good at talking about their research and findings and you’re really getting the key talking points during interviews. Meanwhile, the books themselves are often full of, well, filler.
After listening to so many interviews with people you begin to realize that someone who goes on a radio show or podcast learns good storytelling skills. Basically, over time, they get better and better at telling the story of their work, methodology, research, findings… all that jazz. And so if you listen to a couple interviews you’ll hear some repeat info, but sometimes it’s framed a bit better in an interview a few months into the book tour.
A few authors and books I’m planning to look at more closely include:
Yuval Noah Harari’s books ‘Nexus’ and ‘Sapiens’
Corey Keyes – ‘Languishing’
Susan Sontag – ‘Against Interpretation’ & ‘Styles of Radical Will & possibly her journals from ’47-’63
Rachel Kushner’s ‘Creation Lake’ (I’m a huge fan of Kushner’s fiction)
Melissa Fitzgerald’s ‘What’s Next’ (a look back at The West Wing) – it’s a MASSIVE tome (!!)
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In the not too distant future, I want to talk about some of the books I’ve looked at… and actually paged through… and then those I’ve looked at… and rather quickly put down. It remains surprising the books that end up being the most engaging, informative, useful.
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Make Visible: Understanding Complex Illness
Introducing Make Visible, the podcast shining a light on complex chronic illness. Join us every two weeks as journalist Emily Kate Stephens uses her experience of living with an energy limiting condition to bring us the latest research and insights from the world’s leading experts, scientists and healthcare professionals. Including ME/CFS, Long Covid, EDS, Fibromyalgia, POTS, and more, we delve into the science of invisible illness. makevisible.com
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“What if you weren’t allowed to have more than $2,000 at any given time? Could you make it work? For people who receive Supplemental Security Income, this isn’t a what-if — it’s reality. SSI beneficiaries are subject to strict requirements and risk losing their benefits if they have more than $2,000 in financial assets, even if they exceed that by just a dollar. Why is the limit so low, and is anything being done to fix it?” (Explain it to Me (prev. The Weeds))
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::: Music :::
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'A tipping point': Why Chappell Roan and other stars are taking on toxic fans (BBC)
Paramore singer Hayley Williams publicly backed the remarks. "This happens to every woman I know from this business, myself included," she wrote. "Social media has made this worse. I'm really thankful Chappell is willing to address it in a real way, in real time. It’s brave and unfortunately necessary."
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So-called “nepo babies” in Indie music and should anyone care?
Do I think you should care? No, I don’t think it should affect your enjoyment of the music. We don’t live in the 90s and selling out is perfectly acceptable and sometimes even laudable.
“So why does it matter if there are nepo babies in the indie genre? Hollywood nepotism is often mostly about getting an in to opportunities that the average artist cannot- such as a casting, a starring role, a record deal- and does not influence the quality of what these artists produce. Just because I love her albums doesn’t mean Clairo isn’t a nepo baby. The dissonance of nepo babies in the indie music scene is not due to their talent, but how counterintuitive it feels to the ethos of the genre.” (The Zillennial Zine)
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::: The Literary Community & Beyond :::
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There’s an easy way to learn about your state and local poet laureate programs. (Note: these listings are not comprehensive at the local level.) I linked to Pennsylvania but use the dropdown menu to see other states.
I was intrigued to discover that, “In 1919, Colorado became the first state to formally establish a state poet laureate position…”
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Capsule Reviews are in vogue
What is a capsule review? A short critique of a book, poetry collection, film, album, etc.
Typical length? 150-200 words.
If you’re going to write reviews—this is a good way to go right now. There’s a better chance someone will actually read it. Odds are still not favorable, unfortunately. Something we need to work on as a community.
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An interesting conversation.
“Why Do Lit Mags Fold? And How Do Writers Spot Lit Mags With Staying Power?” (LitMagNews)
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Another interesting conversation.
Q: Why do so many writers *not* follow submission guidelines? (LitMagNews)
See my comments in the comments.
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‘Not-so-great expectations: Students are reading fewer books in English class’ (ABC News)
Not a total shocker— English teachers are incorporating reading as many full-length books into their curriculums. After all, we’re in the TikTok Era.
“The time has come to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.”
Sounds depressing but maybe we can look at this as an opportunity to do something different. The five paragraph essay was always a copout.
I was a semi-lousy student in high school and it wasn’t just because I was smoking too much weed.
Reading book excerpts to get a taste of what good writing feels like isn’t a wholeheartedly bad idea. Reading a few paragraphs of Faulkner will get you the gist of someone maintaining an 80 word sentence written with creative sensibilities as compared to the mumbo jumbo that chatbots spew out.
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In film news…
‘Meet the Internet’s Scrappiest Home for Obscure Cinema’ (Vulture)
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‘6 Funding Opportunities for Disabled Entrepreneurs’
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‘Lifeline, Cash-Grab, Tool for Censorship: Three Incarcerated Readers on eBooks in Prison’ (LitHub)
Worth reading the whole article.
A reminder to ask ourselves what we want and expect of incarcerated persons. Have we actually set up a system to rehabilitate people or mostly just to punish? The answer seems clear.
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‘How This Simple Strategy Changed My Writing Process Forever’ (Authors Publish)
Includes this neat list of resources.
Here are some sources for historical facts:
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::: Health & Wellness :::
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“Although dying is inevitable, “ageing, the way we know it, is not”, says geroscientist Nir Barzilai.” (Nature)
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‘40 million deaths by 2050: toll of drug-resistant infections to rise by 70%’
“By 2050, around 2 million people — the majority aged over 70 — could die from drug-resistant infections each year.” (Nature)
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There are ways that people who are biologically male appear to be weaker. Not a surprise. There’s a trending article from NYT on “man flu” and this has been looked into previously.
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‘Scientists mapped what pregnancy really does to a mom’s brain.’ (WaPo)
They determined “mommy brain” is real though it may differ a bit from popular perceptions.
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The Minimalists pitch “Earthing”. Your thoughts?
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‘Traveling May Slow Signs of Aging, Study Suggests’
Analyzing tourism via the theory of entropy, defined as “the general trend of the universe toward death and disorder,” researchers from Australia’s Edith Cowan University found that leisurely travel can help alleviate chronic stress, release tension and fatigue in the muscles and joints, and encourage the overall healthy functioning of the body’s self-defense system. (Nice News)
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::: The Election :::
‘The first graders who survived Sandy Hook will vote in their first presidential election’ (NBC News)
“I’m casting a vote for the 26 who can’t,” Wasilnak said.
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“Kamala Harris clearly won the popular vote on TikTok after her performance at the presidential debate against Donald Trump,” CEO and co-founder Pepijn van Kesteren said in a statement. “TikTok is a hotly contested electoral battleground and users are seriously engaged. With over 170 million Americans using the platform — 40% of whom turn to it as their main source of news — this is the TikTok presidential election.” (Semafor / Zelf)
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::: Small Explorations & Deep Dives :::
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“[t]he average life expectancy of an urban street tree is 19 to 28 y[ears], which means that many trees die before they can deliver substantial benefits.” (‘Where Are the Trees?’)
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Speaking of trees… Google Trends indicates a lot of folks have been searching to track fall foliage. Here’s one resource. I’m sure there are many out there!
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‘For the First Time, Part of the Ocean Has Been Granted Legal Personhood’ (Hakai Magazine)
“The Brazilian city of Linhares has legally recognized its waves as living beings, marking the first known time part of the ocean has been granted legal personhood.”
“This means the waves should continue to form naturally and their water must be clean.”
“The new law requires the city to protect the physical shape of the river, the ecological cycles that make the waves unique, and the water’s finely balanced chemical makeup through public policies and funding. It also codifies respect for the waves’ cultural and economic role in the community, explains Vanessa Hasson, an environmental lawyer and executive director of the Brazilian NGO Mapas, which advocates for the country’s nascent rights-of-nature movement.”
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“The banana equivalent dose (BED)” (Seth Godin)
Sounds whacky but Seth gets to an interesting point.
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‘A day in the life of the world’s fastest supercomputer’ (Nature)
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‘Japan to start building 1st 'zeta-class' supercomputer in 2025, 1,000 times more powerful than today's fastest machines’ (Live Science)
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The U.S.’s busiest roads are not on the East or West Coasts.
To my surprise, they are located in metro areas in several parts of Texas, Florida, Idaho, and Tennessee.
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Failing in the clutch.
Why we choke under pressure.
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Still want a TikTok ban?
The People are having a change of heart about a TikTok ban.
In Spring 2023, about 50% of Americans were in favor of the ban. That number has dropped to around 32%.
Meanwhile, 28% were unsure back in 2023 and 39% perfect are unsure in 2024.
About 6% more people would like to see a ban.
I’ll count myself in the category of going from ‘seems like a good idea’ to ‘unsure’. I was unsure in 2023, too, in fairness to myself. Felt a little too old-man-yells-at-cloud. My main gripe with TikTok is that it seems even more addictive than Instagram for heavy users. After all, there’s a reason we are called “users”.
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‘Hong Kong: first person convicted under security law for wearing protest T-shirt’ (Guardian)
Luckily, Americans can wear whatever we want. You can even wear a shirt just like the one this person was arrested for in case you want to remind yourself about the value of democracy.
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Elon can’t be funny. (CNN)
Even if you think Elon is funny... and he bought Twitter basically to feel like he could control the one space where people think he's entertaining... it really is irresponsible to make jokes when you wield the power that comes with his wealth and influence.
Bro also has 12 children… get your priorities in order, bud.
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‘The next generation of Buffetts is poised to become one of the biggest forces in philanthropy’ (AP)
““Wealthy people don’t tend to give their money to other people to give away,” said James Ferris, founding director of The Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. But many of the wealthiest people are also hesitant to hand over their fortunes to the next generation over concerns that it hampers their ingenuity, he said.”
“The next generation of Buffetts will then have 10 years to give the money away.”
“The tight timeframe to give away his fortune after his death reflects one of Warren Buffett’s longstanding conditions for receiving charitable funding. He has instructed the Gates Foundation and his family’s foundations to grant out the full amount they received within a year.”
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Why are sharks coming to Boston Harbor? Researchers believe it’s a nursery ground: ‘A really cool success story’ (Boston Herald)
“Once unthinkable when the harbor was nasty and polluted, today’s cleaner waters have actually become a desirable shark habitat as young sharks migrate here yearly.”
Having just recently seen the Boston seaport—I agree it looks impressive. As an aside, I was not prepared for the everyday folks walking around to look the way people dress on Fifth Avenue in NYC.
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Canada has a strategic reserve of…
You guessed it—maple syrup.
And in the amount of 6.9 million pounds no less.
Production has been low in recent years due to poor conditions, but a bounce back is expected.
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Could YOU pass a citizenship test? Test your knowledge (AP)
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Philly continues to vie for “rudest city”.
Notably, the last few people who have visited Philly and told me about their experiences engaging with everyday Philadelphians have said everyone was very kind and helpful. Maybe people are more rude to others who are perceived as in-group (or just outside their group but still semi-local)?
Do you think your community has become more rude of late?
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‘Guide to the Best Pizzerias in the world’
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Americans can renew their passports online now. (AP)
“Americans can now renew their passports online, bypassing a cumbersome mail-in paper application process that often caused delays.”
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In military news…
“The US military is not prepared for the increasing use of autonomous systems on the battlefield, argue two early leaders of the tech agency run by the US Department of Defence [sic], the Defense Innovation Unit. In recent attacks, armed groups Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis all used drones that were likely boosted with AI capabilities. But the Pentagon spends most of its budget on an “outmoded and costly technical production system to buy tanks, ships and aircraft carriers that new generations of weapons — autonomous and hypersonic — can demonstrably kill”, they write.” (NYT)
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Step into my office because it’s getting weird…
‘Teenagers are using AI to learn math and science from celebrities’ (Sherwood)
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College majors with the most regret (ZipRecruiter survey):
· Social/behavioral sciences (44%)
· Humanities/arts (43%)
· Life sciences (43%)
· Law (41%)
· Education (38%)
87% regretted majoring in journalism.
“The majors that have the lowest median salaries five years after graduation, per the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, are all between $38,000 and $40,000 and include the arts, education, and various sciences that don’t involve computers.” (Morning Brew)
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‘McDonald’s touchscreen kiosks were feared as job killers. Instead, something surprising happened’ (CNN)
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Hot take:
I’m not at all a fan of the little hippo Moo Deng that the internet is losing its mind over… hippos are not particularly chill animals… and this thing is fairly gross looking imho.
Keep in mind—I love basically all animals and I’m a vegetarian. Hippos are on my shit list, it seems. Not for no reason… I mean… Hippopotamuses in Colombia … no on likes the “cocaine hippos”, right?
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A Real Life Treasure Hunt … in progress NOW!
There’s more to the story and it’s a fun read.
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::: Google Search Trends :::
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Top trending fall soup recipes
past month, US
1. Butternut squash soup
2. Chili
3. Corn chowder
4. Pumpkin soup
5. French onion soup
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Top fall movies
past month, US
1. Practical Magic
2. When Harry Met Sally
3. Beetlejuice
4. You’ve Got Mail
5. Coraline
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“adidas samba” and “adidas gazelle” are the top trending fall sneakers in the past month
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Top trending types of fall coats / jackets
past month, US
1. Shacket
2. Quilted jacket
3. Windbreaker
4. Cropped trench coat
5. Rain jacket
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Top trending types of fall footwear
past month, US
1. Kitten heels
2. Cowboy boots
3. Loafers
4. Ankle boots
5. Ballet flats
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Search interest in “cuffing season” spikes every October/November
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::: News of the Weird :::
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China continues to have fake panda problems.
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Consistent Recommendations:
Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American – daily news with historical context
ONE ART: a journal of poetry – daily poems
Verse Daily – daily poems
Chill Subs – down to earth submissions resource
** Want to subscribe? Get a discount using this ONE ART exclusive affiliate link.
Becky Tuch’s LitMagNews – literary community news & essential resource
Trish Hopkinson – resource for the literary community
Erika Dreifus – resource for the literary community
C. Hope Clark’s Funds for Writers –weekly email newsletter contains invaluable short essays
Jane Friedman – blog, email newsletter, resource for the literary community
The Poetry Space_ with Katie Dozier & Timothy Green (podcast)
Commonplace: Conversations with Poets and Other People (podcast hosted by Rachel Zucker)
The Gray Area with Sean Illing (podcast)
Hidden Brain (podcast)
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Re maple syrup reserve you might recall the great heist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_Heist