📖 What I’m Reading:

​Stanislov Petrov – Wikipedia​

• My #1 most underrated historical figure and story. “An investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned. Because his decision may have averted a retaliatory nuclear strike, Petrov is often credited as having ‘saved the world’.”

​Against Treating Chatbots as Conscious – Erik Hoel​

• The new ethical frontier.

​Why the 5% Rule is the New 4% Rule – Nick Maggiulli​

• New data on retirement spending.

Book finished: Libra by Don DeLillo – 5/5

• Novel where the author takes everything public about the JFK assassination and fills in the gaps with fiction. Stunningly well written in many places. But also a bit overwrought sometimes. I liked it way more than I liked White Noise by DeLillo, which I thought was head-in-its-own-ass drivel. Libra provided a super compelling version of events for the assassination, but more than the factual plausibility, what I enjoyed most was the depiction of the characters' paranoia and neurosis and the collective American kind of patriotic narrativization of history. How history is more infused with personal psychoses than we realize. And how isolation and rumination breed fallacy, fantasy, prejudice, paranoia, etc. Cool book.

☝️ Word of the Month:

hagiography (n) hay-jee-OG-ruh-fee

An uncritical biography, treating its subject with undue reverence; a biography of a saint.

From Greek hagio (holy) + graphy (writing).

"There's a whiff of hagiography in the sometimes sympathetic portrayal of the gang. But then, one man's terrorist...”

🎵 Jams of the Month:

Francis and the Lights

• ​See Her Out (That’s Just Life). What a composition. I thought it needed drums so I made this version.
• ​May I Have This Dance. Like Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins or something. Groovy.

The Menzingers

• I saw someone in the airport wearing a Menzingers hoodie. I thought, there’s a band I’ve heard of but never checked out. I’m glad I did. They rock so hard and I think could even fit in with the more pop-punk, Yellowcard, Blink, My Chemical Romance, etc. group of bands.
• ​After the Party. Such angst.
• ​Lookers. Catchy chorus.
• ​Charlie’s Army. Reminds me of Stacy’s Mom.
• ​Thick as Thieves. A perfect rock song.

💬 Quote of the Month:

“Most letters from a parent contain a parent’s own lost dreams disguised as good advice. My good advice to you is to pay somebody to teach you to speak some foreign language, to meet with you two or three times a week and talk. Also: get somebody to teach you to play a musical instrument. What makes this advice especially hollow and pious is that I am not dead yet. If it were any good, I could easily take it myself.”

-Kurt Vonnegut, in a letter to his daughter

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ps: moves of the month (Instagram)

pps: tiny desk stage dive (YouTube). Sneaky athletic.