Lessons Learned from a Career in Design, Vintage Photos from California, Turning the Ship Around, etc.
In which I continue to push the things that I like, perhaps in hopes of finding my people.
🧩 Kinda feel like Winston doing a puzzle with this newsletter, for those that know. But, to quote another show I love, “all the pieces matter.”
🧑💻 This gets to the heart of what I am doing here, hopefully for my own benefit as much as yours. “Let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.” See also: “A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox.”
⚓️ Michael Abrashoff was in his mid-thirties when he turned one of the worst-performing ships in the navy into its best within three years, while retaining the entire crew. “I began with the idea that there is always a better way to do things, and that, contrary to tradition, the crew’s insights might be more profound than even the captain’s. Accordingly, we spent several months analyzing every process on the ship. I asked everyone, ‘Is there a better way to do what you do?’ Time after time, the answer was yes, and many of the answers were revelations to me.”
🖊 Milton Glaser is an iconic graphic designer, known for the “I Love New York” and the DC Comics logo. For the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Glaser penned a list of ten things he’s learned. Lots of valuable advice: you can only work for people you like; avoid toxic people; how you live changes your brain; and so on.
✍️ Tolkien conceived the “One Ring” over time, not in a masterstroke. “As you read through the drafts, the material just … slowly gets better! Bit by bit, the familiar angles emerge. There seems not to have been any magic moment: no electric thought in the bathtub, circa 1931, that sent Tolkien rushing to find a pen. It was just revision. I find this totally inspiring.”
🎭 Sufjan Steven’s album Illinois (or as the album cover says, “Sufjan Stevens Invites You to: Come on Feel the Illinoise”) is getting a stage show. I covered this tour for a music magazine back in 2005, and from my recollection it felt like that is what he was going for even back then. Also, if you’ve never listened, this is a great album to listen to on a Sunday morning, a long drive, probably anytime.
♟ Admittedly, I am a chess patzer, but if you ever want to play, I am game (pun, sorry). Open Culture has a guide for people that want to learn the game, from beginner onwards.
💊 On the trail of the Fentanyl King. “An Iraqi translator for the US military emigrated to Texas to start a new life. He ended up becoming one of the biggest drug dealers on the dark web.”
🔌 Joshua Spodek managed to live off the electrical grid in Manhattan from last May to this past January. “Before this experiment, I didn’t believe my lifestyle would let me disconnect from the grid for a day, let alone longer.”
🛹 More skate videos. Matt Tomasello and Richie Jackson both push (that’s a pun, too) the craft in creative ways.
🐘 “Shooting with a camera, not a gun,” photographer Graeme Green aims to focus (double pun, yikes!) on the “lion, leopard, black rhinoceros, African bush elephant, and African buffalo,” all endangered and at least once considered the hardest animals to track on foot, in his new book, The New Big 5.
📖 I’ve never read Gravity’s Rainbow, but now that it turns fifty (and now that I have some hefty tomes under my belt), maybe it’s time. A look at the massively (waiting for the pun police to take me away) influential novel.
📲 Are computers and iPhones and in general screens “breaking your brain?” “Fears about attention spans and focus are as old as writing itself,” so says this essay.
💸 Before trolls were assholes on the Internet, they were toys we were all obsessed with in the ‘90s (and ‘60s). You’d think the inventor of this massive toyline would have made bank. You’d be wrong.
👩🍳 Chef Jen is an excellent cook, blogger, and an even better friend. I want to cook all of the things.
🍦If you like seeing how the sausage ice cream is made, here’s a video on Ben & Jerry’s, and the one million pints they make per day.
🌞 A look at California in 1945. “California’s population growth was one of defining trends of 20th-century America. From 1900 to 1950 the population increased 500%, going from two million to ten million. Then things really exploded, and by the year 2000 the state’s population had climbed to 34 million, making California the most populous state in America.”
🎬 Steven Spielberg and composter John Williams on how became an actor in Jaws and Close Encounters.
🎞 Happy Oscars Day to those that observe. Even if you don’t watch the actually ceremony or often disagree with the results, I’ve found that the awards do cast a light on movies that would arguably otherwise get ignored. Loved watching this video of nominees reading comments from the film social network Letterboxd. Ke Huy Quan’s letter really got to me. Also, for what it’s worth, Letterboxd is a great way to keep track of what you watch and what people think about movies. I am on there, as is The Dinner Parting. It’s been nice to see strangers enjoying my work.
❤️ Until next week, friends. Remember to keep the Hoping Machine running.
Love,
Luke
