Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
1. Tomorrow is Record Store Day and I’m going to hope that not everyone wants R. Carlos Nakai’s Canyon Trilogy on vinyl (for the first time!) and try my luck in the afternoon, vs lining up at an ungodly hour in the morning. I also have my eye on some jazz and soul. We’ll see!
2. Here for this: The mystery of the lost Roman herb
3. I haven’t gotten in any water out in nature in a long time and I can tell. Maybe I need to find a waterfall this weekend:
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1. How have I never heard of Tony Hart before now? He had a children’s art show in Britain and he’s a delight. Watch him draw with PASS-tels.
2. “There’s still some good in the world, Mr. Frodo.” Hiker’s dog lost in a wild New Zealand forest rescued by helicopter after strangers fund search
3. This sounds like a fantastic movie idea. 
1. I might be a little too excited about a woman in a rocket named after the moon goddess, but in our theme of space and parodies this week: Shoot Men Into Space. Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” for 2026.
2. Via Robin Sloan, the JR Kuyushi Railway Company site. Look at those trains! Let’s book the one that goes to the hot springs.
3. This is absolutely what Toyotas would sound like:
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1. This was fascinating: Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green. It covers color theorist Faber Birren, the Manhattan Project, and mid-century industrial design.
2. We didn’t have as much client feedback as expected on a big project, so this has been me all week:
3. But because it’s been a slow week, I’ve been hanging out in the basement with all my sewing and records:
1. This book review knows how to get me to pay attention: “This may be the only book in existence that discusses the game of Twister, the ethics of Aristotle and the mechanics of bureaucracies.” (The book–The Score by C. Thi Nguyen–sounds really interesting.)
2. Happy International Women’s month!
3. I liked this one (currently debating getting a new $$$ pillow).
1. Let’s plan a trip to Japan and go to Jeans Street in Kurashiki. “The road is dyed indigo, the color of Kojima’s iconic denim. The red and white lines at the road’s edge resemble the denim’s selvage— the reinforced end of a bolt of fabric that forms the outside seam of high-end jeans.”
2. These hand-drawn data visualizations from mid-1920s Turkey are beautiful:
3. I posted about reading to dissociate from the horrors yesterday but seriously, what would we do without books?
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
Carl Sagan, Cosmos
1. The most nostalgic combination of words possible: 1991 California Raisins commercial for the library (via Austin Kleon).
2. I need to print this out so I can remember what’s actually helpful for people going through something (don’t put the burden on them! I speak from experience but I still forget!): 
3. I’m probably painting the hallway this weekend but what if I took a boat ride in a laundry basket instead? And I were a goose?
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1 . Work is unnecessarily stressful right now and I think I’m going to do this today: 
2. Some good eye candy: The CalArts poster archive.
3. Exactly what it says on the tin:
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1. Hamilton Nolan sent an excellent newsletter this week: Remove Your Ring Camera With a Claw Hammer.
I get it. People are worried that they may be victims of a home invasion. Is your dad Charles Lindbergh? If not, you will not be kidnapped as you sleep. I guarantee it. In fact, I am so confident of this that I am willing to bet one thousand dollars, right now, that it won’t happen to you. That’s how I got the big vault of gold I have: positive thinking, and basic statistical literacy.
2. Perhaps thematically relevant to The Times We’re In: a dictionary of demons.
3. An American in China times a hospital and pharmacy visit. “It doesn’t matter if you’re living here or what kind of visa you’re on, anybody can go to a Chinese public hospital.” And you can just show up without an appointment?? (Cries jealously in American.)
@internationalsidequest 19 minutes. ???? Slightly chaos but worth it #fyp #healthcare ♬ original sound – Jen’s Side Quests
1. Is your blood pressure high? I recommend watching seven minutes of cheetahs running in slow motion. (Bonus, you can see the toy they pulled along for one to chase.) 
2. And then you can get your blood pressure back up with this essay from Mike Moneteiro about voting with your wallet.
Oligarchs like Tim Cook and Elon Musk have shown us their ass. But when you show someone your ass you end up also exposing your neck. America has one neck, and it’s capitalism. Which runs on your dollar. If you want to change how America works, change where you’re putting your dollar.
3. How about a Rebecca Solnit quote to take us into the weekend?
The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean that we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role, no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of love.