FYI #61
Jhumpa Lahiri’s Writing Career Began in Stolen Notebooks, via the New Yorker
Elegy, Southwest, and its forebears, by Madeleine Watts. Lovely post about the books, artists, and films that influenced Watts’ forthcoming novel.
In LA, by Colm Toibin, via London Review of Books
The Last of the Sea Women, documentary directed by Sue Kim, via A24
Program for the Sydney Opera House’s 2025 All About Women event (8-9 March)
Stephen Colbert Returns: A Gift from the Comedy Gods, via Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out
Sinéad Gleeson & Douglas Stuart: Hagstone, via the London Review Bookshop Podcast
Dan Harris has hosted a couple of interesting conversations about money on his Ten Percent Happier podcast, What I do when I’m worried about money and The taboo around money is costing you money (with Wendy De La Rosa)
Fashion Neurosis with Nick Cave, with Bella Freud. This conversation, inspired me to listen to some Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds music, including one of the songs they mention, Final Rescue Attempt, from the album, Wild God.
Still in a Nick Cave vibe, from The Red Hand Files, 2025 is coming. The world seems to be in such a catastrophic state. Where is the hope? What is hope?
Hope is an emotional temper that emboldens the heart to be active, it is a condition, a mood, an aura of being. It is a feat of the imagination, both courageous and ingenious, a vitality that inspires us to take innovative action to defend the world. Hope is essential to our survival and our flourishing.
Democrats are Losing the War for Attention. Badly, Ezra Klein and Chris Hayes talk about the nature of attention and Hayes’ new book, The Sirens’ Call: how attention became the world's most endangered resource. They ponder the ways in which curiosity might be the opposite of doom, rather than hope.
The Instrument (part two), from a series of posts on writing, by Lucy Sante (h/t Austin Kleon)
Resource Lending Library, making design books accessible in NYC. Caught my eye as a fan of libraries, big and small.
‘Six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well’… from President Biden’s farewell address.
The tech oligarchy has been here for years, via Blood in the Machine, by Brian Merchant
Foreign Secretary launches UK Soft Power Council (media release).