Everything is Dumb
Hello!
All the numbers 1 to 500 ranked from worst to best by a middleschooler. Inspired by my love for lists and middle school students.
"The basic issue is that right now everything is dumb. You can complain about that, or you can embrace it." Matt Levine's "Money Stuff" remains my favorite newsletter. His voice is hilarious and informative, like there's an efficient market in financial absurdity and he's just taking it all in.
A complete, searchable collection of Peanuts comics. The first comic when you search "two" is a favorite of mine.
"Suppose one of the four fundamental forces in the universe suddenly disappeared? Which would make for the most interesting science fiction story?" A twitter thread from John Carlos Baez.
"Cause all the greatest artists, they were amateurs," a great line from a loud song ("Dimed Out") by one of my favorite bands, Titus Andronicus.
My friend Jesse points me to "The Most Unwanted Song," which took a focus group's list of things they dislike in music and put it into a 25 minute track.
"In this country, we're addicted to that moment of math, that periodic instant when the body politic's results are in." That's Sarah Vowell back in 1997 on "The Most Unwanted Song."
"There's nothing more rewarding than a fresh set of problems," Donald Barthelme. (You've read his story, "The School," right? Right?!)
"I will say that there is a kind of writing that’s consistently overrated by our literary establishments: it’s the kind of writing you get when someone known for work in a high prestige genre attempts to imitate a less prestigious genre without learning much about that genre or digesting its earlier examples," from Stephanie Burt. I recently read a book that I didn't like very much that reminded me of this line.
Bye!
Michael