Media Round-Up #2

Well, I missed two (three) weeks of media round-up after fully committing. What can I say? I am exceedingly human. It is increasingly important in my life for me to have strong anchors, and this has become one of them, and it’s a testament to how hard the last few weeks have been that I missed it.

I have many thoughts on farming overwhelm that I’ll share soon. In the meantime, I offer you a very eclectic mix of things:

→ Truly could not put down Chip War. Compelling. Fascinating. As someone who is constantly looking for the unseen yet ubiquitous underpinnings of this world, this is one of them. After my episode with Vince Beiser about sand, I became aware of how much our world runs on little silicon chips, or semiconductors. This book explores it in depth and the implications it has for our future. Also, check out this episode with Ezra Klein if you want the short of it.

→ Julia Gets Wise with Ruth Reichl: Ruth Reichl is an institution to herself, but this interview caught me off-guard. Off-guard in that Ruth and I share a similar relationship with our mothers, off-guard in that she talks so much about leaning into our fear, something I’m actively working on. Great episode. H/t to Anna Borgman for this one.

→ Tired? Distracted? Burned-out? Listen to this. with Ezra Klein: I am still on my bullsh*t about attention and the only person that can sate it seems to be Ezra Klein. Why? Because I don’t want the reclaiming of my attention to be about becoming a more productive worker, I want it to be about becoming a more present and alive person. Ezra seems to get that. I wrote this on attention this week in my intro for my podcast with Steven Kurutz (which is quite good and you should listen to it): “I think that, curiously enough, this quest for ever cheaper goods is a part of something else that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, which is our own attention spans. When one of the biggest things we manufacture is desire then one of the biggest monetary drivers is marketing. Cue social media, where we’re being mined for our attention, our eyeballs, as marketers look to capture the next big thing.” Perhaps even more compelling is just how these algorithms work and how the internet grew up alongside the attention-for-money economy - a $500 billion industry. Or listen to the episode that started it all.

→ Two incredible pieces from Noema Magazine, quickly becoming one of my favorite things to subscribe to.

First - this beautiful piece exploring lithium - a critical mineral in batteries.

Second- this equally beautiful piece exploring our relationship with viruses.

→ Big seed! I found this interview with Dan Barber about the seed industry interesting in its parallels to the meat industry. I think there could have been more depth in regards to soil health as it pertains to the flavor = nutrition conversation (not to mention a little Fred Provenza) and while I didn’t agree with everything, it was absolutely fascinating. h/t to Matt Skoglund.

→ Adam Wilson on Extending Welcome to the Unchosen: This piece is just so beautiful and the framework reminded me of something Francis Weller said, which I’m approximating here, “how we can turn the wound of not belonging into an invitation of welcoming”, which has actually become a core tenet of how I try to live my life. I spent a lot of my youth not belonging in deep ways and perhaps this makes me more sensitive to the othering I see around me. Adam offers: “Fear and longing offer us trustworthy signposts. Building cross-class and cross-species relationships of mutual trust and care will not be easy or painless or fast, but the slow work might help us remember how to be human in a time of social and ecological collapse. The work might teach us how to make home in a displaced time.” Yes. That.

→ Blue jeans? I guess so. Somewhere in between this piece about Abercrombie + Fitch, of all things, and Anne Helen Peterson’s culture study on blue jeans - well, I’m not sure what I took away, but jeans definitely feel representative of how times change through history. I remain committed to my Imogene + Willie American-made jeans. (Also - If you enjoy Anne Helen Petersen - this piece about People magazine becoming a part of an SEO farm empire fascinated me).