A week off for housekeeping
Plus: a new book on the internet, 90s fonts, and more
Good morning! It’s Wednesday, and here are this week’s five items for you.
1. A take I haven’t written elsewhere
A week off for housekeeping
Friends, readers, fellow sufferers of now-itchy bee stings on the foot:
It is summer, and it is hot, and I simply do not have it in me to think up some novel angle on the will he or won’t he narrative about President Biden that has been running everywhere, ad nauseam, for the last two weeks. Frankly, I don’t think there is a novel angle at this point. I merely live in idle hope of personally witnessing an all-out convention fight. I hope they get some smoke machines since naturally no one dares make a smoke-filled room the old-fashioned way.
All that to say, given the totality of this news cycle and the aforementioned heat, I’ve decided to take this week off to think over some possible changes I’m considering for this Substack. As of now, I don’t expect to alter this top item or the weekly cadence; I’m more assessing the smaller sections and the framing that new readers encounter, like the about page and the tagline.
Relatedly, if you’re good at taglines and have ideas for me …
(Seriously, leave a comment. I hate self-branding and am seeking suggestions in all my best group chats, and what is this, really, if not my largest group chat?)
One other note, while we’re at it: I’ll be taking off a week in August, too, for vacation.
2. What I'm reading this week
The Web We Weave: Why We Must Reclaim the Internet from Moguls, Misanthropes, and Moral Panic, by Jeff Jarvis (forthcoming October 2024). I’m reviewing this for CT and am getting to work on it a bit early as the publishers of other books I intend to review have not been so prompt with the advance copies. At about 100 pages deep, I’ve been somewhat surprised by the book’s direction: It’s more media criticism than I expected, as well as more optimistic about the internet than even the subtitle led me to anticipate. I’m very curious to see where it goes next.
3. A recommendation
Are you reading Tyler Austin Harper already? If not, let me recommend you do. I’m fairly sure I read some of his earlier work at The Atlantic, where he relatively recently became a contributing writer, but I first engaged seriously with his class analysis on polyamory, to which I responded here. He replied graciously on Twitter, where he’s also been posting some reliably good takes on the President Biden debacle over the past couple weeks, to which I direct you in lieu of writing one myself.
4. Recent work
Study up for the NATO summit | Defense Priorities (newsletter)
Been working on some longer-term stuff at CT (I’ll have longish pieces in the next two print issues), for my CCPL fellowship, and personally. More to come sooner or later!
5. Miscellaneous
Those fonts! That style! Theologians who want to speak with you!
I've been enjoying reading this in the last couple months as it is-- so, no ideas for newness, bc still new to me.