Fresh(ish) Stacks: 3/8/23
A year-old interview with POTUS, a beautiful send-off for a hip-hop legend, + 5 more
Consider me your farm cat for the Internet.
Each week, I scour the wilds of the worldwideweb, looking for treats to leave at your doorstep.
I do it because I love you.
I found a new rabbit hole to stalk.
One that I’m sure to return to. If you’re reading this, you likely found it as well. It’s called Substack.
The results of my hunt this week: a history prof interviews the current President of the United States (on Substack?! yes, on Substack); a hip-hop institution offers a beautiful tribute to one of its members; plus five other posts worthy of your attention.
De La Soul said goodbye to Dave.
Oof. I can’t think of a more tragic story in music than what’s currently going on with
. After years of contract and court battles, the legendary group (and I mean legendary—enough to be part of the recent Grammy celebration of hip-hop) was finally able to release their catalogue on streaming services this month.But just weeks before the big drop—mere days after the Grammy performance—the group lost one of its three, Dave (Trugoy) Jolicoeur.
On March 5, the group released a tribute letter to their friend. This is that letter.
Sherman Alexie shared a sobering poem.
I’ve followed
on Substack for awhile. His is the kind of poetry I can get behind: direct, insightful, compassionate. “When I Was Drunk” shows off his skills beautifully while tackling a difficult and increasingly universal topic: addiction. Pour yourself a glass of water and give it a read.Heather Cox Richardson sat down with Joe Biden (last year).
, a history professor at Boston College, has a purple badge next to her name on Substack. That means she has tens of thousands of subscribers. I don’t know the chronology of that feat—whether she crossed that threshold before or after this interview—but I imagine talking to the President of the United States didn’t hurt her numbers any.Whatever benefit she got out of the conversation, I say she deserves it. Sure, she doesn’t exactly stick it to the world leader the way you’d hope a good journalist would. But she’s not a journalist, and this isn’t that kind of interview. Instead, she makes Biden comfortable. In doing so, you get what I think is a pretty good picture of who he is—how he sees himself and the country he leads. The 30-minute interview is worth your time.
Favourite Biden quote from the interview:
“I used to think you could defeat hate. But all hate does is hide… Hate just hides under rocks. When people come along and breathe oxygen into it, it comes roaring back out.”
Alex Dobrenko beats us all to the punch (in the proverbial gut of AI-discourse).
Depending on how much time you spend online, you’re either mildly annoyed or ready to flush the whole Internet down the toilet because of the amount of content about artificial intelligence right now. It feels unavoidable and, at the same time, completely void of any actual benefit to anyone.
Unless I’m way off and you just can’t get enough of all this talk about ChatGPT/Bing autofill-harassing journalists, etc., reading this post from
will prevent you from throwing your device out the window. Think of it as a money-saving venture.
Sam Kahn shows us how romance should read.
Romance, as a genre, isn’t known for surprising its readers. Sam Kahn from
bucks that trend with this short story covering more of a relationship than the title suggests.This story works for me for a number of reasons, but a main one is its simplicity. It doesn’t try to reel me in with a one-two-punch first paragraph. It sticks to a pretty traditional, past-tense, first-person perspective. Sam doesn’t rely on any linguistic gymnastics. He just tells the story like it is. Its power comes from what happens.
Amran Gowani “exact[s] merciless [satirical] revenge” on his “unmedicated” neighbours.
is braver than me. The Chicago resident and humourist will skewer anyone who needs skewering, regardless of address. This post provides the best evidence of that.
A true piece of satire—in the tradition of Jonathan Swift— “A conspiracy of dunces” reads as a friendly “welcome to the building” letter from the most unhinged tenants in the building. That might make it sound petty, but Gowani avoids the cringe by being so damn funny. If I were him, I’d watch my back, though.
Ted Gioia makes me want to (try to) read Gravity’s Rainbow.
There are a few novels known primarily for being tough to read. They’re door-stopper long. Their characters number into the triple-digits. Their footnotes have footnotes. Their plots throw you off—intentionally.
Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow does all of this and more, so it’s not surprising that it has a limited audience. But like many of the books in the same category (Joyce’s Ulysses, Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest) the difficulty is half the fun of reading it. At least, that’s what I got out this post by
. I know I'm probably alone (or at least close to it) on this, but I'm sold. Bring on the impenetrable!Your turn.
Any other Substacks or articles you think are worthy of being caught under this paw? Leave a link in the comments below!
And if you enjoyed what you found here, consider opting for a paid subscription. I can’t promise the next post from your Internet farm cat will stay this side of the paywall. Better safe than sorry!
Andrew, many thanks for the shoutout. And thank you for doing this! This is really a great service. So much good stuff out there but it is not easy to find.
All very best,
Sam
Sherman Alexie's poems are awesome. I read letter From An American while having coffee. It's refreshing to get the news in such a sedate, straight-ahead manner. And maybe that's the best thing about this booming corner of the internet- you can get a poem about traffic in a Seattle suburb with one click, and noise-free summations of current events with another.