These Are a Few of My Favorite Links: 03/29/22
Every other week, I send an email that solely features great links for you to peruse throughout the week and weekend. Enjoy!
Rare Thoughts on Writing From Cormac McCarthy
A couple weeks ago, I linked to a news piece about McCarthy’s two new books, being published this fall. The books will sell themselves onto every bestseller list, which is for the best, because McCarthy famously eschews publicity of any kind. He’s given a handful of interviews over the last couple of decades. So when two high school students wrote him an email asking some questions about his writing, they were floored to receive an answer.
This is a delight to read.
Her World Began to Collapse, So She Started Keeping a Diary
I’m currently entranced by Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile, which is about life in London during the German air raids of 1940-1941. For months on end, German airplanes bombed the city, during which hundreds of ordinary citizens kept diaries as part of the Mass-Observation Project.
Despite the creepy name, the project is an incredible work of history, so I’ve been thinking a lot about diaries lately.
Which is why this article from The Atlantic caught my attention. Give it a read; consider keeping a diary (less of your inner world and more about daily life and reactions to what’s happening in the outside world).
Arnold’s Video
Arnold Schwarzenegger is from Austria, but has had deep, lifelong ties to Russia. This video, directed at the Russian people, is an absolute master class in communication. He’s empathetic, never condescending, truthful, assertive. My first thought was actually, “Why couldn’t he have been our celebrity politician?” Then I remembered he governed California for eight years. Maybe he was a better politician than we gave him credit for.
Proseball Season
This is an old piece, but one that I enjoyed. Baseball, among all the sports, has been subject to crusty old guys writing flowery, metaphor-filled prose. In the late ‘80s, a particularly fruitful period for these types of books, the Chicago Tribune took the genre to task.
Notes on the State of Jefferson
I have a couple close ties to northern California and I’m always a sucker for stories about America’s numerous secessionist movements throughout history. These types of groups wax and wane every handful of years; if any state were to follow through, I’d put my money on the non-LA/SF areas of California. This is a fantastic piece.
The Trojan Horse Affair
Serial Productions, now of the NYT, has done it again with its latest podcast series. It’s free to listen wherever you get your podcasts. I won’t say anything about it, which is how I went into it. If you’re at all like me, you’ll quickly get sucked in.
Thanks so much for reading! I sure appreciate the time and inbox space.
-Jeremy