SC Weekly – January 2025 – #3

~ a curated selection of discoveries ~

::: The Open :::

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoy this weekly newsletter (published on Sundays).

If you’re a subscriber, please consider reaching out to a friend you think may enjoy this newsletter and encourage them to sign up.

If you can, please consider signing up as a Paid Subscriber.

I’ll be just as happy if you donate to ONE ART: a journal of poetry.

Thank you for reading and for your time.

With Gratitude,

~ Mark

*

>>> Please Note <<<

This newsletter may be too long to appear in its entirety in an email.

Click the link or go to the Stay Curious homepage to read in full.

*

::: Personal Notes :::

*

I’ve been sick for about 5 days now.

Has that stopped me doing what feels important daily? Absolutely not.

Has this prevented me from doing as much as I’d like to accomplish? Yes.

I hate being sick… it’s a huge waste of time.

*

I’m sure everyone is getting “excited” for the Trump 2.0 “game show” in which many of us are unwilling participants.

Good times will be had by… billionaires.

*

Poetry Moment: 'The Rocky Mountain Locust Surge', by Mark Danowsky (WPSU)

So, this is something that feels really cool.

Today, a poem of mine is featured on public radio thanks to Marjorie Maddox.

First time having the experience of a poem of mine being read and shared in this manner.

Shout-out to Richard Peabody (Editor of Gargoyle Magazine) where this poem first appeared, in 2016.

Click this link to read the post and listen. (4-minute recording)

*

Louisa has two poems in Cultural Daily

Special shout-out to BK Tuon!

*

::: ONE ART :::

*

ONE ART Poems in Verse Daily!!

*

ONE ART’s February 2025 Reading feat. Alison Lubar, Sean Kelbley, Jacqueline Jules, Dick Westheimer, Julie Weiss

>>> Get your tickets here <<<

*

“Stealth Formalism”: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Formal Verse
Instructor: Nicole Caruso Garcia
Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Time: 6:00-8:00pm Eastern
Price: $25 (payment options – Stripe / PayPal / Venmo / CashApp)

Note: This really truly is not just for poets who write formal verse. Nicole and I are very much hoping there will be many free verse poets who join the workshop.

*

::: Podcasts :::

*

Intelligence Squared: The Teen Mental Health Crisis and How Adolescence Shapes Us, with Lucy Foulkes and Pandora Sykes

Part 1

Part 2

Thought-provoking and important conversations. Notably, Foulkes disagrees with Jonathan Haidt’s positions which many have noted are both oversimplified and lean towards fearmongering. Part of the issue is that Haidt suggests social media is the primary cause of the teen health crisis and studies really don’t bear out that this is the direct cause. There’s simply too much “noise” (in the science sense) to determine how much impact social media has on adolescent mental health.

An important note, too, in the discussion touches on the problem of overuse of therapy language being used in mainstream culture minimizing the realities of people with conditions such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) which are much different and far more severe than your average person saying they are “anxious” about X or vaguely “depressed”. Western culture (and yes, social media), as the discussion notes, has made people feel the need to amplify symptoms… so people will go to a therapy session and proclaim that they have a rather drastic mental health issue (because anxiety or depression don’t seem complex or individualized enough). We need to get back to a place where language normalizes in the sense that a person with anxiety or depression or ADHD can feel seen for who they are, for their issues, and not overshadowed by people with mild symptoms overstating severity or pathologizing, in some instances, certainly as a means of attention seeking in a world that has put far too much transactional value on an the attention economy.

Look up the percentages of people with some of the conditions that you’re hearing about more and more often. These are not conditions that statistically have high rates and it’s not likely that we’re having a massive spike. Anxiety, I’ve learned can mask as just about anything. Anxiety can make you feel completely insane. Trust me, anxiety is enough of a diagnosis in and of itself.

+ A goods point were made about kids and age restrictions on smartphones and social media bans and having phones in schools. All very complicated in reality. Kids are smart and clever. I had a sense banning social media was not going to prevent kids from having digital social interactions… it’s just not going to work. An easy loophole example given was kids using a shared Google doc as a way of communicating with one another. I remember hearing this got popular early on with laptops in classrooms because it looks like the students are working since they’re on a Google doc page. And of course they can do the same at home. If it’s not Google docs it’ll be something else. Anything that has a chat feature has the potential to be used in this manner. Maybe the better path is to encourage “best practices” and hope for the best.

*

The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway: Conversation with Cal Newport

More thoughtful, thought-provoking, and overall worthwhile than expected. Scott makes an interesting remark about gender and judgment. Cal makes a great point that prompt engineering (with LLMs like Chat GPT) is unlikely to be something everyone needs to learn because real game changers are straightforward to use such as email or a Google search.

*

Thanks For Asking: Ep. 01 - Interdependence, Trump Flags, and Taylor Swift

I found this heartening.

We need to remind ourselves not to reduce people to a handful of their opinions as if that's their entire personality or personhood.

*

The Gray Area with Sean Illing: The screens between us

“What is the first thing that you touch in the morning? What about the last thing you touch before you go to sleep? For many of us, it’s our phone.”

Distressing but worthy of deep reflection.

*

Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov: LA’s Wildfires, Trump’s Bold Agenda, and Historic Sentencing

Even-headed talk of what is likely to come, Trump's cabinet, and measured fear.

*

Untangle: Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness. With Ingrid Fetell Lee

Design to improve everyday spaces. Clearly important. Made me a little sad for myself spending quite so much time staring at screens while inhabiting a somewhat bland space.

*

::: Music :::

*

Sunday (1994) remains my strongest recommendation. Best new music I’ve found in memory.

*

The new album, Humanhood, by The Weather Station is subdued and it’s interesting that it has arrived with Trump 2.0. Doesn’t feel like a coincidence.

*

::: The Literary Community & Beyond :::

*

‘The Differences Between a Beta Reader and an Editor’ (C. Hope Clark, FundsForWriters)

*

‘A.J. Brown’s sideline read skyrockets to No. 1 hottest seller on Amazon’ (AP)

Clearly, all writers have to do is get a pro sports player to read their book in public and you’re golden.

*

David Lynch, a true original, has died.

*

::: Health & Wellness :::

*

Chronic Pain Is a Hidden Epidemic. It’s Time for a Revolution. (New York Times)

Good read.

Hit home for me on a personal level.

*

10 to 1 (Forbes)

Under Trump, we will have dirtier air and less pure water.

Air monitors in households are recommended and purifiers are recommended for monitoring the safety of your conditions and inform others in your community of your findings.

*

The bigmouth buffalo fish is, presumably, an inspiration to Big Tech CEOs who aim to live forever.

*

The Washington Post reports:

“By 2060, 1 million U.S. adults are projected to develop the memory-destroying condition each year. After age 55, 4 in 10 adults are likely to develop some form of it.”

“How to reduce your risk: Experts recommend these 15 science-based strategies. They include adopting a plant-based diet, regular exercise and having plenty of social interactions.”

*

Whoa, there are places in the U.S. where you can get real attention from medical staff in Emergency in under 2-hours (!?)

My average experience for time waiting is about 3-3.5 hours in Pennsylvania. So, the data seems accurate.

When I lived in West Virginia, I ubered a lot of nursing staff and they’d tell me that people basically used Emergency as their Primary… which, of course, is not ideal. And, unsurprisingly, they’d see the same folks in there all the time. Sad. A little too much like being a regular at the local pub.

*

::: Small Explorations & Deep Dives :::

*

‘A Los Angeles Teen Started a Recovery Fund for Wildfire Victims. Now It’s a Movement’ (TIME)

*

Dear Society, how can we end gun violence in schools? This should have been solved a long time ago. We all agree.

‘Teen With School's Highest SAT Score Killed In Shooting’ (Philadelphia)

*

Evolutionary shift?

As usual, the burden of proof means science is behind the armchair philosophical types. I’m sure this is far more complicated than I’m giving credit for, and yet my impulse is to say that we knew evolution within a lifespan, based on “nurture” (environmental factors and not just biological factors) was very much a reality.

*

Meta's New Translation AI Is Nearly a Babel Fish The system can do real-time speech-to-speech translation in 101 languages

*

In a decade, society will be left with less and less of the generations above me… those who, for my entire life, have written the most important work. It’s distressing. One can only imagine the shape of the country let alone the globe a decade from now…

*

::: B-Sides :::

Here’s Exactly How Much Money the U.S. President Makes (RD)

“During his first term, Trump reportedly donated a quarter of his presidential salary to institutions like the National Park Service and the Department of Homeland Security.”

I know we’re all a bit shocked about the National Park Service donation. I’m sure it’s a tax write-off and was suggested by someone he admires who likes trees more than golf.

*

Local Hero.

‘Ya Fav Trashman bringing out his newly-bought truck for MLK Day of Service’ (Billy Penn)

*

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

Poetry Town – 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)

*