Reading List: Ten-Year-Old Viral Internet Dramas, And Other Reasons For Preventative Botox.
Good morning, sweeties! I’m about to head up to Calgary for Canadian Thanksgiving, which I must mention, as I do every year at this time, is a real and actual thing. Yes, I get two turkey dinners in a year—three if you count Christmas!—and yes, it is glorious. So here are a few of the pieces I have loaded up on my Kindle for the long journey to the Great White North.
TO THE LONGREADS!
Erin Griffith, Can a Jean Jacket Revive Wearable Technology? (The New York Times) - I LOVE this playful and open-minded look at wearable technology. It would have been a heckuva lot easier to cynically mock a fleece-lined jean jacket that controls your phone, but Griffith instead uses it as an opportunity to discuss the recent hardware design response to our ever-present screens, with designers attempting to lift users’ gazes to look around. Also, I learned that there’s a band called Hot Chip? Really? (Braces self for deluge of “omg, how do you not know who this band is” emails.)
Ronan Farrow, The Black Cube Chronicles: The Private Investigators; The Undercover Operative; and The Double Agent (The New Yorker) - I cannot WAIT for Farrow’s new book Catch and Kill on the espionage insanity allegedly perpetrated by the Harvey Weinstein camp as Farrow investigated sexual assault claims. And if these excerpts are any indication, it’s going to be a fantastic read.
Emma Goldberg, Hating Comic Sans Is Not a Personality (The New York Times) - Yes, this is another NYT piece in one Reading List, but I had to share this one because I FEEL PERSONALLY ATTACKED BY THIS HEADLINE. But also what’s up fellow font nerds, let’s dive on in to this history of the worst font ever after Papyrus!
Charles Sykes, The Humiliation of Lindsey Graham (POLITICO) - I haven’t read this one yet, but anything that can help explain the capitulation of once-principled politicians goes to the top of my Kindle. And the fact that the piece is written by the author of How The Right Lost Its Mind makes it even more compelling.
Miles Klee, ‘Balloon Boy’ Predicted The Entire Trash-Fire World We Currently Live In (MEL Magazine) - Do you remember where you were when Balloon Boy hit the skies in 2009? I was as I often was: sitting at my desk at a start-up, glued to Twitter. That was TEN YEARS AGO and ooooof, I’ve aged eons in typing that sentence. And BTW, in case you forgot, the entire thing was a damned PR stunt and the kid was hiding in the garage. Sigh.
This year, and every year, I am thankful for you, dear reader. Be kind to each other.
xoxo Amy