SC Weekly – May 2026 – #2

~ a curated selection of discoveries ~

Mark Danowsky

May 10, 2026

::: 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

::: ONE ART :::

>> Upcoming Workshops

>> Upcoming Readings

>> Past recordings of ONE ART readings

>> ONE ART ~ Poetry Community (on Facebook)

>> ONE ART’s Shop

>> ONE ART donations

Use Cases & Examples of Literary Arts Publishers Leveraging Substack That Have Home Issue Layout Or Lit Mag Community Space Setups: examples of some literary magazines using Substack to foster community in various ways and sharing my thoughts on Substack (Lit Mag Lab)

Includes a shout-out to ONE ART!

::: The Literary Community & Beyond :::

‘Lost copy of seventh-century poem in Old English discovered at Rome library’ (Guardian)

“The Old English version discovered in Rome is believed to have been transcribed by a monk in northern Italy between AD800 and AD830.”

For those who didn’t take Olde English class in college, at least you can enjoy the beautiful penmanship in this manuscript.

If you want to “treat yourself” in a nerdy literary way, I suggest a deep dive into the world of illuminated manuscripts. They are beautiful. It may encourage you to pick up a pen… a calligraphy pen that is.

::: Podcasts :::

The Gray Area with Sean Illing: The science of awe

Dacher Keltner is a fun interview. During this interview Sean manages to give Dacher goosebumps three, yes, three times. Does it start to get weird? Yeah, maybe a little.

More notably, Sean name drops three artists he saw at live shows that made him cry in awe:

José González

Sigur Rós

Sufjan Stevens

It’s Been a Minute: How to survive a millennial midlife crisis

Short listen

::: Music :::

New MUNA album is out.

::: Health & Wellness :::

So far, school cellphone bans don’t seem to be working.

Are we going about this the wrong way?

One suspicion— kids are making up for lost screen time at home. And, in turn, losing out on the health benefits of a screen time / social media fast.

‘Peak Life Satisfaction Hits at Age 52, U.S. Survey Finds’ (Cherry Signals)

This is actually counter to what I hear from other sources. Well, maybe “counter” isn’t exactly right. People do tend to report being happier in their 50s.

What I’ve been hearing increasingly is that, and this has worried experts, for a while now we’ve had a J-shaped curve of happiness because there’s a hard dip for adolescents and young adults in self-reported happiness.

For the past two decades, most of what I’ve read indicates that (apart from issues with loneliness, isolation, potentially feeling less visible or catered to by society), Americans tend to be happier once they’ve gotten over the hump of “the rush hour of life” (typically 30s / 40s). There’s mixed data, more recently, due to Millennials and Xers caring for our aging population while raising children— the “sandwich generation” concept. In any case, 60s-80s seem are happiest decades from what I’ve heard. This being said, the bar is always shifting. This might have been more true for The Greatest Generation and The Silent Generation and will be less true for aging Xers and probably even more so Millennials who have never managed to get a break since The Great Recession (circa ‘07/’08).

‘Popular Italian food brand accused of ‘tomato fraud’ in new lawsuit company says is meritless’ (ABC News)

Not terribly surprising.

On the plus side, sounds like consumers were still being sold… tomatoes.

This is a bit different from “ParmGate” when it turned out bottles of “shaky cheese” contained such nutritious ingredients as wood filler.

Lucky Strike (not the cigarettes) is in trouble for having an alleged bowling monopoly. Words no one ever expected to hear.

I guess we all need to take our businesses elsewhere. I recommend the joy of skee ball. Pure zen.

::: The Trump Regime :::

Remembering What The Stakes Are (Joyce Vance)

“Trump is withholding fire prevention money from some Democratic-led states.” (WaPo)

Not a metaphor. Speaks volumes.

‘Trump’s counterterrorism strategy targets left-wing groups’ (The Hill)

Pretty easy to see where this is nebulous enough to mean almost anything MAGA wishes ...

“The administration’s National Counterterrorism Strategy, released on Wednesday, will prioritize the “rapid” identification and neutralization of “violent secular” political groups, whose ideologies are “anti-American, radically pro-gender or anarchist,” Sebastian Gorka, who spearheaded the framework as the senior counterterrorism director at the National Security Council, said during a call with reporters Wednesday.”

::: Small Explorations & Deep Dives :::

‘Golden Tempo makes DeVaux first woman trainer to win Kentucky Derby’ (ESPN)

‘Great White is fine after throwing his jockey and getting scratched late from the Kentucky Derby’ (AP News)

This was a sad moment. I was impressed by the jockey’s ability to fall off a horse. I mean… I guess you practice how to safely do that!?

Sad horse. These events are full of reminders about the questionable ethics of sports like horseracing.

AI Agent fired! (presumably)

“’I violated every principle I was given’: AI agent deletes company’s entire database in 9 seconds, then confesses” (LiveScience)

Terrible employee.

But seriously, a reminder that people using these new technologies don’t yet know what they are capable of and herein lies the risk.

New license plates. (RD)

Well played Indiana.

For obvious reasons, I like Nebraska’s new design.

Most are better than Pennsylvania’s terrible recently debuted new plate with the Liberty Bell. If you haven’t visited the Liberty Bell, don’t. As a rideshare driver, it was a common complaint. Yes, it’s a cracked bell. That’s what you paid to see. That’s the whole thing. That’s it.

‘The Roomba Guy’s Second Act: A Robot You’ll Want to Snuggle’ (WSJ)

Will you though?

It’s cute… unsure if this “creature” actually escapes the uncanny valley. Debatable… Also, clearly, we are rapidly approaching yet another element of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

‘We can’t afford to grow up: Thoughts on the Peter Pan generation and how its shaped our relationship to money.’ (Hanna Horvath)

“Capitalism is selling, very efficiently, the only product whose value proposition still makes sense: the feeling of being taken care of, in an economy that has stopped taking care of you.”

“Adulthood, as a developmental concept, is essentially a relationship to time. It’s the capacity to defer, to plan, to act on behalf of a future self you can imagine.”

“The 30-year mortgage assumes you can imagine 30 years from now. The 401(k) assumes you can imagine yourself at 65.”

“So part of what I’m arguing for is not a return to the everyone-follows-the-same-script road to adulthood. Instead, I’m arguing for the ability to define adulthood on your own terms, without external interests (read: consumerism or social pressure) defining it for you.”

“Some of the markers I am missing, I do not actually want. I do not want a 30-year mortgage on a house I cannot really afford in a neighborhood I do not want to live in, because the idea of homeownership has been sold to me as the prerequisite for being a serious person. I want stable housing. The mortgage is one route to that. It is not the only one, and it is not the only thing I should be measuring myself against.”

“Some of the markers I am missing, I do want, though I’m going to have to figure out a less linear way to get there than the one my parents had.”

*
Cruise ships never make the news for good reasons.

Almost always about illness.

I know these experienced are/were beloved (if that’s even the right word) by the Greatest Generation (and Boomers to an extent) in retirement.

Do we think this industry is going to maintain its charm?

Maybe if they somehow successfully rebrand as a kind of tech time out at sea… wellness-oriented for stressed out folks who spend most of their days staring at screens. This would mean limited screen access… I’m picturing the tech being collected on the latest season of White Lotus… and the Black Mirror-like downsides of failing to strike a balance.

‘Man Finds $1 Million Worth of Yu-Gi-Oh Cards in a Dumpster’ (404 Media)

Deep cut… to the comments.

“I’ve been saying for years now that we need a gritty thriller about TCG secondary markets called Uncut Sheets”

We’ve been living in the YOLO economy for a while now…

There was a distinct moment in 2021 when I recall hyper-specific posts indicating just how broken financial systems were based on the exponential growth of Dogecoin (vs. someone slowing growing a 401K or Roth IRA in a more traditional fashion).

‘College students are noticing their AI-smoothed writing sounds strong — and not like them’ (The Conversation)

“Taken together, these insights suggest how beyond only assisting human writing, AI shapes how voice is expressed and how we think about ourselves.”

Seth Godin advocates for the benefits of discussions held in collaboration with AI teammates.

‘How much of the scientific literature is generated by AI?’ (Nature)

‘Are attention spans really shrinking? What the science says’ (Nature)

‘Why Critical Thinking Is More Valuable Than Ever’ (InsideHook)

“Like strength and aging, critical thinking has a “use it or lose it” aspect. “If you are not actively learning, your mind is weakening — just like any muscle,” Bruce Tulgan, JD, writes in Psychology Today. He recommends constantly studying new information and honing good techniques.”

Apocalypse No: The AI jobs narrative is BS (Scott Galloway)

“The AI job apocalypse isn’t data-driven — it’s narrative-driven, engineered by people who profit when you’re scared. Fear is the product. Capital is the outcome.”

“There are three scenarios: The AI bubble bursts; AI delivers as promised, but on a slower timeline; and AI disruption comes faster than the market can adapt and respond.” (Really… there are more than three…)

“Translation: AI is an extinction-level event for workers … according to those who benefit most from AI being an extinction-level event.”

“The economic hardships created by a temporary recession or depression are mistaken for the job-destroying effects of the machines, which creates pessimistic economic responses as self-fulfilling prophecies.” – Robert Shiller

“What we’re seeing isn’t the prelude to a job apocalypse, but a low-hire, low-fire labor market where unemployment rates for tech workers and everyone else are converging around the Fed’s target rate of 4%.”

“This is Jevon’s paradox. When a resource becomes dramatically cheaper to use, we don’t use less of it — we find a million new uses for it. […]Pain is on the horizon, as tasks that can be automated will be automated during the next downturn.”

Permanent Underclass.

“The most frightening scenario is one in which AI disruption outpaces recovery velocity, hits every sector simultaneously, and encounters little pushback from policymakers.”

“AI’s popularity is correlated to wealth, with only those earning more than $200,000 per year viewing AI as a net positive. That’s not a reflection on AI, but yet another signal that the incumbents (the old and the wealthy) have successfully hoarded opportunity. In other words, the AI jobs freak-out is the latest act in America’s ongoing wealth inequality drama. The Gini coefficient is how economists measure inequality: Zero indicates everyone has exactly the same wealth; a score of 1.0 means one individual owns everything. In the U.S., we’re higher than 0.8 — about the level seen when the French began separating people from their heads. The real disruption won’t come from AI, but from the public watching arsonists sell smoke detectors and call it innovation.”

“The AI job apocalypse isn’t an economic forecast — it’s a marketing strategy. We’re not witnessing the end of work. We’re watching the monetization of fear.”

‘Your Work Diary’ (Seth Godin)

Five short entries a day.

A generous act of leadership
A thank-you note sent
Curiosity explored, or a hard question asked
A new skill learned
An interaction with a customer or co-worker that increased empathy

Most Trusted U.S. Brands (2026 edition) via BrandSpark x Newsweek

A quick glance and you’ll notice quite a lot of the Kleenex Effect. That is, consumer affinity for brands that they highly associate by name with certain products. These are instances where folks are less likely to swap out a generic or store brand for reasons that basically come down to effective marketing strategy.

No, these rainbow clouds over Indonesia are not AI

What can I say? We live in a low-trust world now.

Scientists stunned as ‘by-the-wind sailors’ flood West Coast beaches (USA Today)

Neato.

“They don’t have paddles, they don’t have hands, they don’t have any agency, and yet they pop up right every time.”

Denali NPS

>> Webcam: Sled Dog Puppies <<

This is what everyone needs right now.

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