Reads for Your New Year's Break
Some of my favorites from the last few months
“Read, or don’t. Sleep, or don’t. But you don’t ‘catch up.’” - Henry Rollins
For me, the Christmas and New Year’s holidays are an opportunity to indulge in long, unbroken periods spent pursuing one of my favorite and most enduring hobbies: reading.
Tons of recommended articles below. But first…
It had been a while since I took in any musician autobiographies, so I doubled down: The unexpectedly inspiring Dreaming Japanese by gaijin J-pop phenomenon and former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman, followed by the soulful-yet-rollicking Brothers by Alex Van Halen.
I highly recommend both as you don’t have to be a fan of hard rock or heavy metal to be entertained by either. (Though, I mean, it helps.)
Beneath the fond reminisces of debauchery. Friedman’s is a tale of making your presence and talent known — pre-Internet, no less — no matter where you are, where you come from, or what connections you have. As to the Alex Van Halen book, Brothers is a eulogy for a man’s genius-level younger brother, taken from us too soon, as they battled life first as young immigrants to America and, later, as musical partners enjoying fame on the global stage.
But you’re probably not going to run out and buy those. (Just a guess.)
Fear not, since I have more reads worth curling up with during the NYE break. Over the last few months, these works of longform journalism have stuck with me and kept me thinking.
Recommendations
“The Weeds are Winning,” MIT Technology Review, Oct. 10 — In college, two professors (a couple) hired my cousin and I to de-weed the sloping landscape at their Lamorinda home. (The weeds had grown so large one had taken to calling them “Triffids.”) So perhaps I have a very different relationship to this headline than a lot of my readers. Anyway, since agtech has become a mild obsession of mine, I absolutely devoured this article.
“The Fever Called Living,” Harper’s, Oct. 2024 — While too often dismissed as hypochondriacs or cranks, I see no reason why someone couldn’t suffer debilitating extranormal chemical or electromagnetic sensitivity to the same degree, say, sommeliers can detect “bacon fat... laced with honey melon” from a chardonnay. I can also see why such sensitivities would push someone into alternative, way-off-the-grid lifestyles.
“My Eulogy for the Open Web and Old Google,” Chris DiBona, Sept. 13, 2024 — I’ve long followed DiBona’s career ever since he was a figure on Slashdot and briefly met him in-person at an open-source conference in Santa Clara many moons ago. His post-Google output on Substack has been full of insight, history, and more than a bit of yearning for the Internet of long ago and the type of communities it once contained. In a similar vein, you might want to take in Katie Hafner’s “The Epic Saga of The WELL,” a piece that I would assign to not only grad students but direct reports, too!
“The Nazi of Oak Park,” Chicago Magazine, Sept. 3, 2024 — Think Apt Pupil without that adolescent sadism, blackmail, reverse blackmail, or David Schwimmer.
“A Controversial Rare-Book Dealer Tries to Rewrite His Own Ending,” New Yorker, Oct. 21, 2024 — The topic of “who owns culture” is an enduring one and those who manage to engage in this market really, really well tend not to be very sympathy-generating figures. I’ll leave it to you as to how one might evaluate Glenn Horowitz.
“‘It wasn’t sexual in any way!’ 50 years of streaking – by the people who dared to bare all,” The Guardian, Nov. 6, 2024 — You know you’re going to be in for a ride with a headline like this. ‘Nuff said.
“The Invisible Man: A Firsthand Account of Homelessness in America,” Esquire, Nov. 14, 2024 — This incredibly powerful piece left me in a deeply contemplative state for days. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’m hoping that whatever fee the writer earned from this article gets him at least some way toward shelter and peace. “There but for the grace of God,” as they say.
“How To Make Millions As a Professional Whistleblower,” GQ, August 21, 2024 — The first question I ask whenever any whistleblower comes forward to douse themselves in predictable media adulation is “Exactly how hard did they try to fix the situation before coming forward?” But this is only a meaningful question when you forget that not all whistleblowers are internal to the organization. So, you can see how the following creates incentives for an entirely new line of work: “Tucked into the Dodd-Frank Act … are provisions meant to encourage people who spot signs of potential financial wrongdoing to come to the government with information. The incentive? If the agencies take enforcement action based on a tip resulting in sanctions in excess of $1 million, the law says, one or more whistleblowers can earn an award equal to 10 to 30 percent of what’s collected.”
“Palmer Luckey: American Vulcan,” Tablet Magazine — One man’s up-from-the-garage mythos is another man’s… Well… “Luckey got to work modifying the inside of the trailer to better slake his desires. He took out the bathroom, since there was a public restroom next to the laundromat a few blocks away. He also took out the kitchen, seeing as he could just bike down to Jack in the Box when he ran out of frozen burritos, which he did so often that the manager gave him a loyalty card. On one end of the gutted trailer he stuck a twin mattress on top of some boxes; on the other he installed a six-screen computer setup. In the space between, he conducted his hardware modification experiments—or ‘modding,’ as it is known among hackers and gamers.”
“Murderbot, She Wrote,” Wired, Nov. 26, 2024 — To me, this was a story of how someone can achieve growth, renewal, and purpose through creativity. “She took the leap and started writing full-time. The moment couldn’t have been worse. In 2008 the economic recession hit. Suddenly she couldn’t sell a thing, not even a short story.” What follows is truly inspiring.
“Reliable Sources: How Wikipedia Admin David Gerard Launders His Grudges Into the Public Record,” Tracing Woodgrains, July 10, 2024 — Wikipedia took an awful lot of my time c. 2012 - 2018 and, if I’m honest, I’m quite happy to be further removed from that Kobayashi Maru of reputation-management assignments. The truly rare company understands that an online community isn’t something to be sneered at but, rather, engaged with — especially when it runs one of the most reputation-significant sites on the Internet. I’ll warn you: This one is long. But it’s also a well-researched and rewarding article that carefully outlines how Wikipedia’s rules can be weaponized by some who also present as the stalwart volunteer supporters of the site’s culture and mission.
“Henry Rollins Names the Most Personal Piece of His Music Collection,” LoudWire, Full Metal Jackie, November 25, 2024 — Rollins’s transformation from punk icon to author/publisher/speaker/historian is further proof that loud and extreme music is a credible path to becoming a public intellectual versus a signal of diminished capacity. (Really, it’s just science now.)