First of all, welcome! This is the first issue of Kat’s Kable. Sorry, it’s a terrible name, but hey if this doesn’t work out, at least I’ll have something to blame it on. I read a lot on the internet, and end up sending a lot of articles and short stories and poems to friends that might like it. I thought it might be a good idea to make a weekly (for now) collation of it all, and I’d like to know what you think of it.
- The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens - “you fools. I am plugged into the mainframe, wired to the primary source. Of course have seen that meme, and all 5000 of it’s variants, 3 and a half months ago. I have seen the rise and fall of that meme, the boom and bust, the drama, the pain, the shitposting, oh god, the shitposting. I have seen this meme in it’s rawest, freshest, unpasturised, most primal state. Do not insult me with these rank, stale puddles, that sit at the very base of the meme trickle down economy.”
- Love, in other words, by Harper Lee - Apparently the first ever article written by Harper Lee, this is a delightful read. It’s more a series of ruminations than a concrete ideology of love. “Having at long last realized that he must love or destroy himself, man is proceeding along his usual course by trying to evolve a science for it. The ultimate aim of psychoanalysis, when its special brand of semantics is put to rout, is to release man from his neuroses and thus enable him to love, and man’s capacity to love is measured by his degree of freedom from the drives that turn inward upon him. As one holds down a cork to the bottom of a stream, so may love be imprisoned by self: remove self, and love rises to the surface of man’s being.”
- Save the Sounds Museum - more a listen than a read, this is a repository of sounds that have become suddenly archaic, archaically modern, so to speak. Brought a smile to my face.
- Siddhartha Mukherjee on schizophrenia - delightful writing, and an in-depth analysis of a dilapidating illness. Madness truly does run in that family.
- How a Ragtag Gang of Retirees Pulled Off the Biggest Jewel Heist in British History - fun, fun read. I’m not advocating anything, but you’ll always be good at things you love, no matter how old you are.
- Yogi: What did Berra say, when did he say it and what does it all mean? - Yogi: “You know, he must read the papers a lot, because he said, ‘Hello, Yogi.’” Reporter: “And what did you say?” Yogi: “I said, ‘Hello, Pope.’”. A 1984 piece from SI on Yogi that’s full of koans.
- Watching Rocky II with Muhammad Ali - Breaks my heart again to see Ali so active, so energetic and energising, yet reduced to a sliver of what he was. An interesting piece, very unlike the usual tribute piece on Ali.
- Admissions Failure - “Colleges rarely have time to interview anymore, or they speak of interviews as only the exchange of information, not the exchange of ideas.”
- How Batman made me fall in love with Comic Books, by Neil Gaiman - my favourite comic writer talks about how important Batman was to him. Might he not have written Sandman if he hadn’t come across B? The thought scares me.
- Inside The Playlist Factory - I’ve spent the last two months in Singapore and have grown addicted to using Spotify, and the seemingly infinite tailored playlists. Turns out most of these are created by expert individual curators. My dream job!
That’s it for the week. If you have anything you’d like shared or feedback of any sort (which is most welcome, I’m very new to this), feel free to reply to this email.
Cheers!