Eating, reading, and the objects of our life
Postcard #2
Hello and welcome to the second edition of THE POSTCARD, Unregistered’s fortnightly roundup of recommendations.
Thoughts, tools, and treats
This week’s links are about eating, reading, and the objects of our life. Plus: a discussion about travel writing, featuring Sam Kahn and yours truly.
Learning to eat
After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, The New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells leaves his post–for health reasons: „We can pretend that we’re existing in some very rarefied realm of aesthetics and sensation. But the art is happening in your body. It’s happening to your body,“ he explains. „You want to be able to let it happen to you. Which is hard to do if you’re, you know, scared of bread.“ In his last column as a restaurant critic, Wells reflects on how digital gadgets and apps stripped the human touch out of the experience of dining out.
Learning to read
Speaking of digitalization: In case you lost the ability to engage in a printed book or never learned deep reading in the first place, author and coach Brad Stulberg offers an excellent guide to developing a reading habit. You may also want to check out Brad’s monthly reading list, a free newsletter.
What happened to travel writing?
Over at Inner Life, Sam Kahn kicked off an insightful discussion about the fate of travel writing. I chimed in, and Sam generously replied. Read our little dialogue here and all comments here. It turns out that the genre reinvents itself as „ex-pat writing“ in blogland.
The objects of our life
In 1983, 28 years old Steve Jobs gave a talk at the Aspen International Design Conference, now documented on the Steve Jobs Archive website, including an introduction by Jony Ive: „I find it breathtaking how profound his understanding was of the dramatic changes that were about to happen as the computer became broadly accessible. Of course, beyond just being prophetic, he was fundamental in defining products that would change our culture and our lives forever.“ What makes the link particularly interesting are passages about how Jobs developed his own taste and elevated that of his employees: „Along with several Apple designers, he toyed with the idea of filling a room with objects they loved, then directing new hires to spend their first day at work in that room.“
Firefox’s dark pattern
The Firefox browser claims to put privacy first. The latest version, however, casts some doubt on this.
Noteworthy
“Baldwin’s influence arose from his books and his speeches, and from the tone he developed in essays and television appearances, a tone that took its bearings from his own experience in the pulpit. Instead of demanding reform or legislation, Baldwin grew more interested in the soul’s dark, intimate spaces and the importance of the personal and the private.“
—Colm Tóibín, reflecting on the conflict between James Baldwin’s „longing for a private life, even a spiritual life, and the ways in which history and politics intrude most insidiously into the very rooms we try hardest to shut them out of“
A mystery link leading into the unknown
As Graham Greene said, one never knows when the blow may fall.
As always,
Dirk
P.S.: Feel free to send me pointers to articles, books, sites, pods, tools, and treats that could be interesting for this roundup. While I cannot promise to link them, I read and appreciate every hint.
It's a pleasure to read your postcards, Dirk. Thoughtful, very well calibrated, nuanced. We need more "diversity" of ideas instead of a fake diversity of "identities." Keep it going!