📖 What I’m Reading:

​Inside America’s Death Chambers – Elizabeth Bruenig​

• Best piece on the death penalty I’ve ever read.

​Elagabalus – Wikipedia​

• “Elagabalus developed a posthumous reputation for extreme eccentricity, decadence, zealotry, and sexual promiscuity. … Elagabalus ‘abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury’ … ‘Elagabalus was not a tyrant, but he was an incompetent, probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had.’”

​A Consensus Statement on Potential Negative Impacts of Smartphone and Social Media Use on Adolescent Mental Health​

• 120 international researchers agree: phone bad.

​‘They’re Not Breathing’: Inside the Chaos of ICE Detention Center 911 Calls – WIRED​

• “Immigration detention isn’t supposed to be punitive, says Anthony Enriquez, vice president of advocacy at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. ‘But the conditions of confinement in detention are so brutal,’ he says, ‘that people have attempted suicide while waiting for their day in court.’”

Book finished: Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello: 4/5

• I have a hard time reviewing books like this one because I don’t particularly enjoy reading them, but I really can’t estimate the benefits they may give me down the road. It’s possible I learned one or two small things that over time will noticeably improve my life. I think that’s true with this book. (I also did somewhat enjoy reading it. Made me feel peaceful.) Author’s main point is that you shouldn’t identify with your thoughts or emotions. You should identify with the self that observes those thoughts and emotions. Then, you’ll notice these things come and go, and you’ll develop your awareness muscles to more fully experience life, which is a blissful thing to do. Notes here.

☝️ Word of the Month:

bupkis (n) BUHP-kis

Absolutely nothing; worthless.

From Yiddish, short for kozebubkes (goat droppings).

“Sorry, your stock options are worth bupkis.”

🎵 Jams of the Month:

The simple and wholesome aggression of Turnstile​

• ​NEVER ENOUGH (Spotify)
• ​DULL (Spotify)
• ​BIRDS (Spotify). Try to time it so you walk in the gym at 1:25.

The Brooklyn shoegaze fuzzy bliss of Hotline TNT’s new album

• ​Break Right (Spotify). Piano such a nice touch.
• ​Candle (Spotify)
• ​Dance The Night Away (Spotify). Simple melodies, complex textures.

These bangers:

• ​Victory Lap – Fred again…, Skepta (Spotify). Fred out of nowhere with the rap song of summer.
• ​Never Really Over – Katy Perry (Spotify). Heard this in a Nordstrom Rack and ascended.
• ​The Promise – When In Rome (Spotify). Classic. 2:40 bridge into final chorus with backup vocals goes so hard. Sturgill has a good cover, too.

💬 Quote of the Month:

“Mark Twain put it very nicely when he said, ‘It was so cold that if the thermometer had been an inch longer, we would have frozen to death.’ We do freeze to death on words. It’s not the cold outside that matters, but the thermometer. It’s not reality that matters, but what you’re saying to yourself about it.”

-Anthony de Mello

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ps: your margin is my opportunity (X)

pps: the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life (Bluesky)