Hello hello there. This is Vishal with another issue of Kat’s Kable. This past week has been busy! I just did not find the time to write the full newsletter, so I thought I’ll at the least send out the once-in-a-while abridged version today. I’m slowly realizing, somehow, that I don’t have time week-to-week for all the things I want to do in life, and that’s quite sobering to be honest. I don’t know if it’s because I’m trying to juggle too much, or simply that I’m slowing down with the things I do. Anyhow.. I’m still keeping up a regular schedule with Kat’s Kable and I’m quite pleased with myself about that. How was your week? Are you getting the time and motivation to do all the things you want to? I’d love to hear. As always, just reply to this email to say hi.

If you got this from a friend and want to subscribe, here’s the link. Also, if any of the links are paywalled and if you don’t want to pay for a subscription, try opening the link in incognito mode in your browser. This works if the website has a “soft” paywall. If that doesn’t work, you can access the website using a different browser on the same device, or use a different device altogether. Another, slightly involved, method is to try to disable JavaScript and reload the page. This works on some websites for me.

1. Ways of knowing (Rosie Spinks’ Substack) – I really enjoyed this essay about journalism, debate and discourse.

2. Music in the age of algorithm (Mint Lounge) – Fascinating insights into how Bollywood music is changing due to the increasing popularity of shortform video content like Instagram reels and its trends.

3. The search for the perfect sound (The Washington Post) – fantastic! This is about one person’s search for the perfect sounding records. It’s always cool to me when people have specific passions and put a lot of effort into pursuing them. The article is also interactive–it lets you play two different versions of the same song and asks you to identify which one is the vinyl recording (vs. digital).

4. America’s Lost Crops Rewrite the History of Farming (The Atlantic) – Before we had corn rule the roost in North America, there were a host of other smaller grasses whose seeds served as the mainstay of Native Americans’ diet. Those help us figure out the real “discovery” of agriculture in N. America. The article reminded me of an article I shared earlier, Patrick Wyman’s [The Invention of Agriculture in the New Guinea Highlands](https:

//patrickwyman.substack.com/p/the-invention-of-agriculture-in-the) (issue 248).

5. The Double Life of an American Lake Monster (Wired) – Fun and informative article about the sea lamprey in the US, a wildly invasive species.

6. The Maintenance Race (Works in Progress Magazine) – Steward Brand here writes about the Golden Globe around-the-world solo sailboat race of 1968. It’s a very fun read.

7. Making energy too cheap to meter (Works in Progress Magazine) – Also from Works in Progress magazine, this is an interesting perspective on how we should embrace our ergophilia (love of energy and high-energy processes), as opposed to the messaging that we should reduce our energy consumption as much as we can.

8. Learning to Love Kohli (Prashant DP’s Medium) – If you like cricket, you’ll probably like this write-up. I’m always curious to know more about people’s relationships with sports stars, as it seems like such a strange and yet such a natural relationship to have.

9. Serena Williams Says Farewell to Tennis On Her Own Terms—And In Her Own Words (Vogue) – This is something “said” by Serena, as in it’s in an interview and been transcribed and edited into an article.