Random this, random that
I felt that after the previous Story and Pictures y’all might need a break from the really serious stuff, and summer feels like a good time to clean up and share my figurative stack of Open Tabs. There should be something of interest to everyone. I’ve included a link to Journey founding member Ross Valory’s latest music video release, his homage to a classic, with damn cool video by director Michael Cotton.
I’m never without a pen and notebook in my pockets.
I’ve done that for decades, I’ve written about it and promoted it to beginning writers in my classes. What’s a little trippy about our digital everything world is how popular notebooks are right now, led by Moleskin and specialty offerings from Field Notes. Field Notes has a great quote it uses as a tagline, and which really suits me and my funky memory: “I’m not writing to remember later, I’m writing to remember now.”
For any skeptics or dismissers as to the power of writing notes, I give you…science.
There’s a developing theory about performance success.
I don’t have anything pithy to lead into it, I just think this is kinda cool.
This piece about the Sackler family connects with me.
Those of you who’ve read my book Move To Fire, which has the concept of bankruptcy as a shield at its core, will understand why.
Since Exxon is in the news,
via the Supreme Court’s ‘oh, don’t worry about that’ attitudinal shift towards federal protections of the planet, this long-open tab deserves a little push. Sometimes a pull quote distills the importance of a piece in a way I can’t match, to wit: “…Our findings demonstrate that ExxonMobil didn’t just know “something” about global warming decades ago—they knew as much as academic and government scientists knew. But whereas those scientists worked to communicate what they knew, ExxonMobil worked to deny it…”
Annnnndddd….That aberrant DNA with the pumpkin tan
is always in the news, the debate being the current focus. I'm going to forego any words on that, and instead go with this because although it's from a few months ago, the video Jimmy K shows didn’t get the airplay it should have. Allow me to assist. (it starts about 20 seconds in and goes to ~3:30, and it's well worth every second).
People my age almost certainly remember this song,
and many others have heard it. It’s a nice piece about how something comes together. And while the Dylan pull quote is cool, I posit that his Make You Fell My Love is also a pretty damn fine song too.
From the “Well, of course” department:
I was a terrible student.
The reasons are close to legion and include that I was a kid prior to the widespread recognition of different learning disabilities and that stressful home life environments could seriously alter educational performance. Back then the determinations were often “he’s not applying himself,” or my favorite, “He’s lazy.”
But I digress.
The lede here is not really about school, it’s about how as an adult I don’t just appreciate science, technology, and medicine, I’ve had periods in my professional life when I worked for and with people at the top of those industries.
Stories about DNA, genes, and gene editing receive lots of attention now in stories ranging from mRNA Covid vaccines to work and research in CRISPR, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, a technology that research scientists use to selectively modify the DNA of living organisms. In this excellent American Scholar essay (lengthy but worth the time) the author writes about a diagnosis of his brother’s syndrome before the syndrome was really understood, and the effect of that on his brother’s life. It’s a really good piece.
It’s already expanding like a weed.
Matter of fact, you may have already read an AI written story…
Braiding Sweetgrass
Feels right that I should end this special Open Tabs list with a story from one of the oldest Open Tabs on my browser. A book that you may not have heard of has been on the NY Times bestseller list for over 200 weeks. I first read about it in the Washington Post in October of 2022, but that story is behind a paywall, so here’s something from the publisher to give you an idea of why this book is huge (2,000,000 copies so far). I finally have my own copy.
Hope you discovered some things that interests you. As always, thanks for giving my words some of your time. I never take your time for granted. If you’re a recent subscriber you can check out previous posts by going to michaelwharkins.com
Here’s friend Ross Valory’s latest release to send you away with a smile and memorable riff.
MWH