Here are this week’s links from my newsletter, in list form.
The David Foster Wallace commencement speech “This is Water”
George Saunders’ ‘Congratulations, by the way”
If you read only one thing from this newsletter, make it Rebecca Solnit on Donald Trump.
Hunter S. Thompson said there’d be days like these.
This frightens me.
Russia’s VEB is not a bank.
A callous legislative session could make Texas a turn-off.
The most harmful thing about a secret isn’t its content.
Friend Liz reflects, a year after going public about being raped.
Goodbye, Frank Deford.
A race to save what’s on old VHS tapes.
Barack Obama and the Most Interesting Man in The World, a bromance.
“Life loves the liver of it.”
There’s something zen about the return of Jim Carrey.
Silicon Valley‘s played out Asian stereotypes. The geography of hip hop.
All-you-can-eat, in New York.
People today are 10% heavier than we were in the 1980s, even with the same diet and exercise levels.
McSweeney’s nails it with a parody of baby boomers (h/t @dannydb).
Profanity is pain-relieving.
Not quite back at work but a side project, a video series called “Elise Tries,” launched last week. It explores curiosities across my patch of Korea and Japan, and the pilot features a harrowing few moments with raccoons. Future episodes are less dangerous but arguably more humiliating.