The Best Things

So for all the years I've been writing these letters, I've always tried to include a "best thing I saw all week" down in the p.s. at the bottom.

Back when I started them, it was easy. I was reading tons of articles from a huge variety of places, and the real challenge was picking out which of them to share.

But over the years, as the world has changed, and I've changed, I've found myself reading clever things less, and taking in art more.

Some of it is that nearly everyone online I used to follow has had to stake out a strong cultural/political position as part of their writing, and I'm not looking to take in any more screaming culture war than I already get. Some of it is that it's gotten harder to find good, smart takes amongst the AI/SEO-driven landscape of modern media. And some of it is simply that I want less screen time, and more real-world time.

But the combination of all those things has meant that each week, instead of filtering through a pile of great things to share, I'm often scraping the bottom of an empty barrel.

And that is silly.

Because I absolutely do have things I'm taking in that I would love to share - they're just not five-minute-reads or long, thoughtful articles. They're albums. Photographs. Short films. Video games. Experimental art.

... so I'm just going to do the very obvious thing, and share those instead. :)

One of the weirdest things about being a person on the internet is the way you can feel "the box". The pressure to keep making the same things that people came here to see, signed up to get in their inbox each Sunday.

But I'm not the same person, and well, you're not either. And hey, you're still here. So maybe we should just keep meeting each other where we are, as we change.

So I'm making the change. I hope you enjoy it - and I hope you find some things in there that you really connect with, too. :)

With lots of love,

-Steven

p.s. The best thing I saw this week was this set of insights from Kurosawa on art. I also learned from it that "Zen" in Japanese, means "All", and that changes a surprising number of things for me.

p.p.s. Aunt Dee finally wandered off, earlier this week. Thanks so much for all the kind words so many folks wrote back. 🙏 We're all in this together.