Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂

>Number One<

Be Loved

This is such a beautiful deep dive into the language of love through images, sounds, media, mediations of love, and language itself. It doesn’t hurt that between the gaggle of references are some of my personal favorite love stories that have shaped and trained how I view love and how I express it as well. Definitely worth the time to deep dive that this article will take to read (this would be a great relax on the couch with a cozy cup of tea read or a bubble bath read).

>Number Two<

Who Killed the World

Roger Rabbit is such a fascinating and well made movie from so many angles and it feels like in the past decade it’s been getting its due but one of the angles that sometimes gets missed is about transit, unions, and the killing of the street car. This brisk walk through the graveyard of American rail transit is just so more food for thought about one of the great movies of our time that stars a cartoon rabbit.

>Number Three<

A Quick Pick Me Up

I really appreciate this deep dive into the automat and diner culture that Kendra Gaylord did. I grew up in a place flooded by quick service diners that offered fast, hot, cheap, and relatively decent food provided that you didn’t linger in there too long (unless it was the wee hours of the night) and moving out of the greater NYC area meant that service completely evaporated into thin air. Considering we’re facing a crisis of fast food where now what used to be a quick, cheap meal (even if it was lower quality) is no longer even cheap so it’s important to consider why and how these spaces were maintained before we can look into how to bring them back as mainstays.

>Number Four<

The People Already Know

This will not shock anyone but if you block fossil fuel projects, then fossil fuel emissions will likely go down. The truth is that sometimes looking at a climate change and protesting these projects can feel like a battle which cannot be won and is hopeless but the truth is that these actions do work and the longer we can postpone a project, the more likely it will be to get cancelled or have other interventions. So that’s your nugget of hope for the day, sorry there isn’t more – yet.

>Number Five<

1000 Histories in a Painting

This will not surprise you but I found Sean Munger through his extremely interesting YouTube deep dives on history but then was delighted to the find that he also kept a substack where he occasionally dissected the historical context of a painting which can help to really understand and appreciate a picture. Of course this painting is beautiful and it can really “make you think” but without its proper placement in the ideas of the time it can only be beautiful. Learning about the possible reasons it was created, the way a person at that time might have been thinking about it, and the political context for why it is an object placed in a museum as one indicative of a time and not simply being of that time itself makes it better in my opinion.

That’s all for this month and hopefully I’ll see you back again next month with some more exciting and cool things!