SC Weekly – May 2025 – #3

~ a curated selection of discoveries ~

::: The Open :::

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoy this edition of SC Weekly (published on Sundays).

Please consider sharing with a friend who you think may enjoy this newsletter.

Thank you for reading and for your time.

With Gratitude,

~ Mark

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::: Personal Notes :::

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The Cover Reveal (and pre-order link) for my new poetry collection Take Care – forthcoming from Moon Tide Press.

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Overall, been a brutal time with regards to chronic pain. I have an appointment tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’m not letting them prescribe opioids. I’m not going down that path.

Why am I sharing? Because I know I’m not alone here.

I’ve been thinking about the way that pain results in a feedback loop:

Pain à mental health / cognitive difficulties à Pain à mental health / cognitive difficulties à Pain …

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::: Sources & The Future of Journalism :::

A quick note about the source ‘Futurism’

I’ve been reading this website a bit… and somewhat enjoying their newsletter with its tech-oriented content and New York Post style dramatic headlines. That being said, it crossed my mind that the content may be, well, a little biased.

I searched around and found there are quite a lot of websites talking about bias and credibility these days.

A few searches about Futurism suggest they lean Left and may have had some (not highly serious so far as I can tell) issues with fact checking.

In any case, we live in a world where you’re wise to be suspicious.

As a notable aside, I’ve read that a surprise benefit of LLMs, like ChatGPT, is that they pull material from a wide range of sources. In the future, these chatbots may get better at pulling from better sources; rather than comments on Reddit or questionable blog posts (which may have been written for pay or by non-experts), LLMs may lean on local news with on-the-ground sources. This could be a big win and bring about the return of local newspapers which are well-known to be essential watchdogs. Fingers crossed that “AI” may surprise us and be a win for the future of journalism.

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From my recent research, it seems that AllSides may remain the best source for identifying bias.

Your thoughts?

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::: ONE ART :::

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Practices of Assembly: Compiling Your Poetry Manuscript ~ A Workshop with John Sibley Williams

We're fast approaching John Sibley Williams' manuscript workshop hosted by ONE ART

Spoiler alert:
This workshop comes with a massive 50+ page workbook (to be shared post-workshop) that will help you on your journey to assemble a poetry collection.

To register:
Contact me directly. Pay using any of the donation options on ONE ART's website.

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Book Launch: Human Resources by Erin Murphy

ONE ART is hosting the launch of Erin Murphy’s new poetry collection— Human Resources.

Wednesday, June 18, at 7pm Eastern

Click this link to register!

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::: The Literary Community & Beyond :::

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‘Social Media Truths Every Writer Needs to Understand’ (LitMagNews)

A few comments I left on this post:

“This is even more depressing than I realized.”

“I've mentioned in many conversations recently that I am unwilling to make use of tactics I've used in marketing to "leverage" people in the literary community. I don't want to force people's hand. I don't want to make people do things they don't want to do. I want people to want to read ONE ART because they want to read ONE ART, not because I've used shady tactics to get them to read ONE ART instead of whatever else they may prefer to do with their time.”

“I wish more editors/publishers would agree to act in good faith on these issues.

We shouldn't be in the business of competing for audience. It should be a collaborative effort to lift up voices that we believe are worthy of more readership.”

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Been reading / listening to a bunch of interviews with Anna Kornbluh about her new book Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism.

There’s a section dedicated to throwing shade at writers of autofiction/memoir/personal essay that feels like a bit of a personal attack—which is interesting. I think she’s onto something.

[from] Jacobin:

“You are quite critical of those depicting the rise in autofiction and personal essays as a kind of “narcissism epidemic” fueled by social media.”

“Some cultural critics and mental health professionals explain this surge of the self as a result of a growing “narcissism epidemic.”

We get the required current note to avoid moralizing or pathologizing.

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Underwhelming philanthropy.

‘What to know about grant applications for the Amazon Literary Partnership—and how to apply’ (Amazon)

Not to be overly grumpy… but if enormous companies like Amazon really want to help The Arts instead of just giving away what amounts to pocket lint then they shouldn’t half-ass their philanthropic efforts.

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::: Podcasts :::

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A Must-Listen. Serious.

Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams: Rachel Maddow on Winning America’s Fight Against Fascism

The real deal.

Maddow makes our reality and likely trajectory all too clear.

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‘How to "fix" your face’
(Vox – Today, Explained)

Are you familiar with the concept of “baby botox”? Well, I certainly wasn’t.

Important psychological element here that we know a bit about but makes people uncomfortable.

We need to normalize natural healthy aging. I don't like how I'm aging and I'll be honest about that. But it is what it is.

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::: Music :::

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Kanye.

At this point, we’re all fed up with Kanye.

I’m still sad for him.

It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a chance his story will end with redemption.

‘Ye song glorifying Hitler gets millions of views on X while other platforms struggle to remove it’ (NBC News)

I wrote a short reflection about Kanye (and others who have really gone off the deep end) and I’ll plan to share that soon.

The disturbing album.

A disturbing single.

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For years… I’ve wondered about the references to “Jacob” in rap lyrics… Sounds like there’s a good chance the reference is directly to Jacob Arabo (and possibly not entirely an antisemitic stereotype). Jay Z and Kanye have referenced going to get jewelry from Jacob on several tracks… and it has always felt a little uncomfortable.

Given the current landscape… it’s no surprise that you can’t throw a rock without hitting Diddy. You’ll find Jacob “The Jeweler” referenced in this article regarding allegations against Diddy.

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::: Health & Wellness :::

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‘Scientists Just Found Who's Causing Global Warming’ (Futurism)

No surprises here.

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Financial health.

Studies have shown that 90% of retail traders lose money (lost of money) in their first year of trading. Often enough, they take themselves right out of the game. This where it’s important to distinguish trading from investing. I’m not a financial planner so I’m not going to go into great detail here.

A more recent study showed that retail traders spend an average of only 6-minutes researching before making an investment decision.

Be careful out there.

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A quick note to say that imho the trend of “loud budgeting” is a symptom of the absurd degree to which our culture has become comfortable with oversharing private details about our lives.

Time to rein in your data and keep a little privacy about your day to day for you, your loved ones, and your own sanity.

This isn’t just advice for poets trying to maintain a certain level of mystique.

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Unlock? Ruining the delicious sugary starchy foods.

Hopefully means leftover cold pizza is now a health food

Seriously though, this puff piece is a bit odd as some of these foods are notably much less good if consumed after cooked and then left in the fridge for hours. Mushy white rice, chalky shrunken baked potatoes… pasta is an exception where it works.

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::: The Trump Regime :::

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They seem to want to defund NOAA… which means weather reporting will be less accurate… which means knowledge of when disasters will strike will be less accurate… which means many people will die unnecessarily.

Have you noticed a theme?

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Here’s an article from October 2018 published in The Atlantic—

‘The Cruelty Is the Point’

“President Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those the hate and fear.”

“The Trump era is such a whirlwind of cruelty that it can be hard to keep track.”

“The cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected.”

“We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era.”

“It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump.”

“Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life.”

“The laughter undergirds the daily spectacle of insincerity, as the president and his aides pledge fealty to bedrock democratic principles they have no intention of respecting.”

“This isn’t incoherent. It reflects a clear principle: Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim. This is how the powerful have ever kept the powerless divided and in their place, and enriched themselves in the process.”

“The president and his advisers have sought to enrich themselves at taxpayer expense; they have attempted to corrupt federal law-enforcement agencies to protect themselves and their cohorts, and they have exploited the nation’s darkest impulses in the pursuit of profit. But their ability to get away with this fraud is tied to cruelty.”

“Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright. The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them.”

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The long tail of DOGE.

Elon will keep benefiting.

‘Elon Musk’s Boring Company Is in Talks With Government Over Amtrak Project’ (NYT)

“The Federal Railroad Administration, the nation’s railroad agency, has brought in the Boring Company, the tunneling firm founded by Elon Musk, to see if it could help with a multibillion-dollar Amtrak project, according to three people familiar with the discussions.”

“A Transportation Department spokesman, Nathaniel Sizemore, confirmed that the Boring Company was one of several firms being consulted for the purposes of awarding a new engineering contract. He declined to name the other companies.”

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‘Multiple Trump White House officials have ties to antisemitic extremists’ (NPR)

This isn’t really news. It’s a reminder.

Jews are a classic scapegoat. This White House isn’t interested in doing Jews any favors in the long run.

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‘Land of the Free? Fewer Americans Agree’ (Gallup)

“U.S. women are far less satisfied than men with their freedom, but both are now less content”

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Experts confirm we are officially living in a limited democracy.

We are living under “competitive authoritarianism”.

Can you feel it?

For now, many of us are able to speak our minds and say what we want to say. Most of us. Not all of us.

There are many credible threats to Democracy at this time.

We’re going to find out which way this goes whether we like it or not.

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“Anyway, when the adults show up we should have a serious sit-down re closing the fiscal gap — the amount the government needs to raise taxes and / or cut spending, as a share of GDP, to stabilize our fiscal health. The Treasury estimates the current fiscal gap is 4.3% of GDP. Stanley Druckenmiller, famous for betting against the British pound and delivering 30% annual returns over three decades, puts the gap at 7.7%.” – Scott Galloway

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“This week, House Republicans floated $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade to help pay for Trump’s $4.5 trillion tax cut. Even by Washington standards, the math doesn’t math. But considering the GOP’s slim Congressional majority and the political fallout from throwing an estimated 8 million people off the health insurance rolls, the proposal likely won’t go anywhere. These aren’t serious people.” – Scott Galloway

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Moody's cuts America's pristine credit rating, citing rising debt (Reuters)

We’re slowly losing our so-called #1 status … I think being humbled would help Americans in certain respects, but Trump’s methods are not the desirable path for this to come about.

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::: Small Explorations & Deep Dives :::

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‘Cringe! How millennials became uncool’ (Guardian)

Fun Fact: Scienticians have discovered that there are only 10-17 cool people in each generation. They are notoriously hard to pin down.

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In AI business news…

Dealing with LLMs is “more like traditional PR than it is like SEO,” says Message Lab founder Ben Worthen. (Semafor)

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The universe will likely end sooner rather than later… but none of us will be around for it. (Phys)

10^78 is something like one million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion… cool.

Don’t worry, by that time, we’ll have stopped talking about The Simpsons’ having made predictions and focus a lot more on how Futurama called it.

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Something light.

‘John Oliver wants to rename a Minor League Baseball team’ (MLB)

Oddly, I was just having a conversation before watching this Last Week Tonight segment about how unhinged minor league baseball games are and that my experience seeing the Reading Phillies a couple times was highly enjoyable.

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‘A Software Engineer Who Was Replaced by AI Was Forced to Live in a Trailer After Getting Rejected from 800 Jobs’ (Futurism)

Yeah, so, this is a fairly clickbaity New York Post style headline. But there’s truth to state of our economy embedded in this story.

“The dystopian tale that AI is making us obsolete is bad enough, but it's nothing compared to the reality: AI isn't taking over the tech industry; it's turning it into a sweatshop.”

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A follow-up article that references the aforementioned struggling software engineer.

‘AI Is Helping Job Seekers Lie, Flood the Market, and Steal Jobs’ (Futurism)

This isn’t new, but it’s probably making matters worse for anyone who needs to find a job.

“A whopping 37 percent admitted they didn't bother correcting embellishments the AI chatbot made, like exaggerated experience and fabricated interests. 38 percent admitted to outright lying on their CVs.”

“The news highlights a worrying new normal, with applicants using AI to facilitate fabricating a "perfect candidate" to score a job interview.”

“Meanwhile, it's not just job applicants using generative AI to automate the process. Recruiters have been outsourcing the role of interviewing for jobs to often flawed AI avatars.”

“In short, it's a frustrating process that's unlikely to make applying for jobs any less grueling. Hiscox found that 41 percent of applicants said AI gives some candidates an unfair advantage. 42 percent of respondents said the tech is misleading employers.”

“Remember: Just because everyone's doing it doesn't mean you won't get busted for it — or worse.”

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Flying?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how concerned are you about getting on a plane right now?

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::: Google Search Trends :::

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Song of the Summer

Top searched song each summer over the last 10 years in the U.S.

• 2010: Love The Way You Lie - Eminem ft. Rihanna

• 2011: Super Bass - Nicki Minaj

• 2012: Mercy - Kanye West

• 2013: Blurred Lines - Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke

• 2014: Fancy - Iggy Azalea

• 2015: The Hills - the Weeknd

• 2016: Panda - Desiigner

• 2017: Despacito - Justin Bieber, Luis Fonsi, and Daddy Yankee

• 2018: In My Feelings - Drake

• 2019: Old Town Road - Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus

• 2020: WAP - Cardi B ft. Megan Thee Stallion

• 2021: Fancy Like - Walker Hayes

• 2022: Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush

• 2023: Try That In A Small Town - Jason Aldean

• 2024: Not Like Us - Kendrick Lamar

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