You can preorder #TheSmallStuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life at the link in bio now. #books #booktok #gratifying #personalgrowth TikTok video by The Small Stuff

I bought some!

www.tiktok.com/t/ZTkUaLhW6/

Stracciatella. Pistachio was a while back.

The Romance of the Gas-Station Sign A few glowing roadside numerals set the national mood.

I wrote about the strangely romantic, improbably shared experience of the American gas-station sign—and why it might be ending.

Good morning my darlings.

Tires for a movin’ van.

Top Regent Defends Firing of Wisconsin University Leader

If you’ve been following this story about the firing of the President of the Universities of Wisconsin, one detail you may not have expected is that my cousin Amy is the president of the UW Board of Regents.

Strongly in favor

Oh hey I did the @chronicle.com College Matters podcast this week. You can listen to my mellifluous voice here:
pod.link/1766357400/e...

Right, photography was, in many very clear ways, much much better in 1968 than it is today.

I can't stop thinking about these photos. Six decades of massive technological improvement separates them, and yet the Artemis photographs are not better, as images. They are arguably much worse. They feel fake, uninspired, somehow eviscerated of the awe of Earthrise and its cousins.

Enemy.

I invite you to reflect upon the insane universe we have built in which people need to undergo training to learn how to give their employees raises. Not how to do so fairly or motivationally, but in the mechanical sense of how to enter numbers into an ERP system.

❤️

Literally about using things like doorsteps, too.

Whew

deep cut

The LA crazy works because everyone respects the vehicle, the road, and the system. You are your car—and also, the universe doesn't care about you.

Weirdly affecting to be reminded of the time when "tape" meant what "content" means today.

I was in Palo Alto last week, and as a former Angeleno, reminded that Bay Area humans drive like midwesterners, not Californians.

Introduction to Derrida | Guest Lecture with Dr. Iain Thomson YouTube video by theory underground

My friend, the philosopher Iain Thomson, did this little intro to Derrida video, and it’s a fun listen—but also made me feel like the Derrida Age, which I very much remember, was such a long time ago.

I suppose it was.

I just recently resuscitated this from link rot.

When will you have time to write your app?

Apparently you can pay someone to hide plastic eggs in your yard.

How We Maxxed Maxxing “Looksmaxxing” and its cousins are fake trends but real expressions of the internet’s intrinsic drive toward extremism.

I got to thinking about the -maxxing online verbal tic—the thing "Looksmaxxing" made widespread. The truth is: online life is intrinsically extremist in every way, and Maxxxing is finally honest about that perversion.

Totally.

Neither of those conditions is true here.

I don’t understand Bluesky. Look at my feed. I get zero engagement. This random post has tons of it. Why?

I just opened a new non-fiction book about a topic of interest outside my personal expertise and professional orbits. The preface was so self-indulgent and off-putting I may not continue. Can’t remember this ever happening before.

The makeup and wigs are an embarrassment.

I cannot quite process how terrible For All Mankind now is. This show was well-conceived and executed for its first couple-few seasons, but then fell into the pit of despair that has ruined all television. I feel as if the me who enjoyed it at the outset was a stranger or a dupe.