Keeping it short today. Was harder to write than I thought it would be.

This past week, my hometown of Selmer, Tennessee, was hit hard by at least one tornado (probably/likely two different tornadoes). My family was fine; in that eerie way that only tornadoes can seem to achieve, there wasn't so much as a scratch at my mom's house while just across town property and lives were destroyed in big ways.

I've been sharing this video a lot.

It's just a powerful reminder of what can happen in these big storms. And also a reminder of how much more common this seems to be now than it ever was when I was growing up there.

It's wild to think that this storm might add our name to the long list of town names that are recognizable in the public consciousness because of the destruction it wrought. I don't really know what else there is to say about it other than the general reminder to be mindful of storms this time of year and, if you find an opportunity and you have the means, there are a lot of people in Selmer who are hurting right now; they could use your help.

1. I felt the struggle depicted in this New York Times article about GenXers and the feeling of “well now what?” that followed the shifting trends in creative work. I felt it in my bones, I tell you. Perhaps it’s because of my relative closeness to the generation due to my older Millennial age range. Or maybe it’s because I failed to learn the lessons of this generation from afar and then sought to join the ranks creatives after its heyday had already passed me by. Either way, there’s something simultaneously heartbreaking and reassuring hearing how many of them are doing OK but just not in the way they expected.
2. I thought this piece from The Atlantic a nice companion piece to the Gen X story above. I have a recurring thought while watching films set in the ‘90s or earlier: Life was so much more interesting when everyone wasn’t toting around a cell phone. Don’t get me wrong—I’m no luddite. When Sunday’s regular screen-time report shows up on my phone, I’ll wince because I already know too much of my days was spent looking at it. But, for the sake of the movies, there’s a greater sense of narrative tension when people in a hurry must rush off to find a pay phone to relay news. Or make a call to someone’s house and can’t reach them. These were always problems to be solved back then. Now, we don’t know that stress. Our assumption is the person has definitely seen our outreach because it’s coming straight to their phone, even if it’s not a call — Slack, Teams, text messages, etc. all go to the same place. This piece presents one of those simple ideas that sounds radical: If you work a job that doesn’t actually require around-the-clock availability, you should feel empowered to ask employers to make an actual phone call if they need you after hours. It’s an interesting idea, but the logic is as sound as it is simple: Why waste time nervously checking your inbox for an email that may never arrive? Go live your life, and if the phone rings, deal with work then.
3. This time of year is one of my favorites. As college basketball winds down, baseball is picking up. I love the game so much, but there’s a disturbing trend going on (one about which I’ve shared links before): pitching injuries. A buddy of mine is an orthopedic surgeon who’ll soon be one of many surgeons performing Tommy John surgeries for injured hurlers, and while the procedure itself is remarkable, it’s concerning that this isn’t just affecting big leaguers; it’s trickling down to teenagers and kids. This New Yorker piece sums up the state of affairs quite nicely.
4. Another favorite sporting pastime set in early April is the best golf tournament in the world: the Masters. I really enjoyed a recent Texas Monthly profile of the world no. 1 golfer, Scottie Scheffler. There’s a difficulty in writing about golfers for a general audience (because so many casual sports fans—not to mention normies out there who don’t care about sports at all—find the sport boring). I think it’s even harder when the golfer is as ridiculously good as Scheffler is: He just does all things on the course well. He’s not so much flashy as he is relentlessly avoiding mistakes. And that’s just not the stuff that epic tales are made of. But there are bits of really nice writing, specifically in the early paragraphs when the author was describing Scheffler’s eulogy for another pro who’d unexpectedly taken his own life. He wrote:

The golf course is typically a place where Scheffler, the best player in the game today, a vicennial solar flare, tries hard to avoid what he perceives as the self-sabotaging act of personal reflection. There is no past in the grass or sand. There is no future in the trees or creeks. Only the present matters, as it did on that Tuesday morning in Ohio, when Scheffler considered his thoughts about a colleague for whom the past and future had felt like too much.

5. As if just knowledge of the deportation flights in violation of a federal judge’s orders isn’t bad enough, this ProPublica piece dives deep into the conditions in the air on these chartered planes from those with the most intimate knowledge: the flight attendants. It’s incredibly disheartening, in case you were wondering. But essential reading.
6. How does a story like that ProPublica one happen? Because people see something and want to say something. But it’s no small (or easy) thing for people to leak news, and this story from NiemanLab serves as a tip sheet of best practices for those who might want to leak information to journalists in these turbulent times. Technology makes the “how” of actually sharing quite simple, but its ease and simplicity also makes it traceable, which is kind of a dealbreaker for many who’d like to provide information but also not get fired in the process. It’s interesting to see just how thoughtful journalists are in keeping their sources safe and how tools are used to make that possible.
7. Inside you there are two wolves, as the meme says. One has sampled cigarettes but steered steadfastly clear of them. The other is a harsh critic of those sissy smoker-wannabes blowing out vast clouds of vape smoke. Nobody else? Really? It’s just me then? Fine. I have almost zero experience with cigarettes. But when called for, I will boast my bona fides like Jake Peralta in one particular episode of Brooklyn 99.[^1] It’s from this background that I found a recent edition of Max Read’s newsletter (the perfectly named Read Max) so engrossing. It was all about his prediction that there’s going to be an uptick in the pro-smoking discourse coming our way soon.
8. I found this link to The Business of Fashion from the constantly excellent Why Is This Interesting? newsletter, and I just liked it for the stuff I learned. It’s all about how Chanel, the luxury fashion brand, sponsored the Boat Race, which is the annual rowing competition between Oxford and Cambridge universities. Not only did I learn that it’s apparently a tradition so old and established that it actually gets to capitalize “Boat Race,” (which is a real power move when you can turn such a generic term into your own proper noun) but also apparently Chanel has never sponsored anything before.
9. Even if your dream gig wasn’t to be a fancy magazine writer, I dare you to read this Slate review of former Vanity Fair EIC Graydon Carter’s new memoir and not come away from it thinking they had the greatest gigs of all time.
10. Know what’s the total opposite of Chanel, heyday Vanity Fair, and Airmail? A totally free, decidedly unglamorous streaming service that works a lot like cable TV of yesteryear. That’s what Tubi is, and this Washington Post story on it captures the devoted fanbase’s delight in what the service does differently from its competitors. I don’t prioritize watching Tubi, but I certainly have (most recently for the Super Bowl) and will again.

More From Me

Over on my blog, I’ve been writing about various topics of interest to me.

Meet Me In St. Louie

Culture Diary

Here’s a collection of what I’ve been consuming in the past week.

The legend for my list was stolen from Steven Soderbergh, where ALL CAPS represents a movie, Sentence Case is a TV show, ALL CAPS ITALICS is a short film, Italics is a book, and bold is a live performance or show. A number in parentheses after a TV show highlights how many episodes I watched. An asterisk after an entry means it’s a rewatch. The source of the movie or show, whether streaming service, physical media, or in theaters, is shown in parentheses as well.

3/18: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, S13 (Max)

3/19: Survivor, S48 (Paramount+); Adolescence (Netflix)

3/20: NCAA March Madness (Mizzou vs. Drake)(Max)

3/21: Severance, S2 (AppleTV+)

3/22: Adolescence (Netflix)

3/23: Adolescence (2)(Netflix)

3/24: The White Lotus, S3 (Max)

3/25: The Sequel, Jean Hanff Korelitz (public library); TRAP* (Max)

3/26: Survivor, S48 (Paramount+)

3/27:

3/28:

3/29: Top Chef, S21 (Peacock); Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen (Peacock); CASINO* (4K UHD); The Studio (2)(AppleTV+)

3/30: The White Lotus, S3 (Max)

3/31:

4/1: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, S12 (Max)

4/2: Survivor, S48 (Paramount+); The Studio (AppleTV+)

4/3:

4/4:

4/5: Top Chef, S22 (Peacock); Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen (Peacock); INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK* (Blu-ray)

4/6: The Americas (Peacock); The White Lotus, S3 (Max)