Hello, good morning or good evening, wherever in the world you are. This is Kat, and I come back to you with a Sunday morning issue of Kat’s Kable. As always, ten great things to read. 2026 is shaping up to be a bit of a golden year for the Kable - I feel the quality of writing has been absolutely amazing and I’ve been reading enough to give myself the opportunity to be selective with what I share. I had ~25 articles I liked this time of which to select 10. Which is awesome!
Anywho - I’m off to bake some bread and drink some coffee, and generally enjoy my Sunday morning. We have a pair of bulbuls who visit our small garden daily and we make it a point to say hi at least once every day.
1 A Hollow Bone - Emergence Magazine
Terry Tempest Williams is a superb writer - I read her essay collection Erosion a few years ago and felt moved. In this essay, she talks about her love for Utah’s Great Salt Lake, and how it shaped much of her relationship with nature - of course, the lake has significantly receded now, and it’s a far cry from how large it once were.
2 One Man’s Quest to Transform the West Texas Desert - Texas Highways
Samira sent me this as part a special Kable collection she made for me (!) and it’s awesome. And inspiring. Similar to the Great Salt Lake, the lands of Texas have also become “badlands” over time in large part due to extensive grazing - decimating the grass faster than it could grow back.
“An urban dweller ventures to far West Texas with a dream to transform a barren desert into a lush forest”
3 What 100 Million Volts Do to the Body and Mind - The Atlantic
Phew! What does it feel like to be struck by lightning, especially when you are struck when indoors (it’s quite possible) and nobody believes you. There’s a recent conference for lightning strike survivors that’s been started in the US, and it’s been a great place of solace for many of the survivors who aren’t able to get great medical support, or even support or acceptance from their family, even.
4 god, I just want to get smarter - Kindred Spirits (Sindhu Shivaprasad) on Substack
I really liked this piece by Sindhu. She talks about how for her, the concept of smartness means that you do what you do today to “maximize your free future freedom of action”. It’s not about being book-smart, or being clever, it’s about playing the long game. I also like how she ties this into James Carse’s finite and infinite games concept - play the infinite game with the aim to keep playing, not to “win” per se, and set yourself a long-form inquiry, not a goal. Lovely!
5 How Did Hendrix Turn His Guitar Into a Wave Synthesizer? - IEEE Spectrum
Fun technical deep dive into the things Jimi Hendrix did to and with his guitar to get a lot out of it. For me, this essay helped contextualize his innovations in the broader guitar space - for years/decades, musicians and engineers struggled with how to make guitars noticeable in large ensembles and even though electromagnetic pickups had been invented, they were far from ideal. The piece says: “Hendrix’s mission was to reshape both the electric guitar’s envelope and its tone until it could feel like a human voice”.
6 Moll and the Indian Slave Trade in Colonial America - Patrick Wyman’s Substack
I’m a repeat sharer of Patrick Wyman’s writing. In particular I loved The Invention of Agriculture in the New Guinea Highlands from issue #248.
In this essay, Wyman talks about the enslavement of the native Americans at the hands of the Europeans, which has been a topic given far less attention than the enslavement of Africans brought to the continent.
7 Knud Rasmussen and the making of modern Greenland - Engelsberg Ideas
“The explorer Knud Rasmussen helped define Denmark’s Arctic ambitions while documenting Inuit culture at the very moment it was being transformed.”
Very instructive read about Rasmussen, someone I honestly had not even thought of as a key player in the times of Amundsen. Rasmussen was from Greenland, identified strongly with Danish identity and aims, and furthered Danish exploration of Greenland while also being a voice for the Inuit. Fascinating.
8 A Brief History of Sourdough - Fermentology
Another lovely piece shared with me by Samira! I’m just about to go feed my sourdough starter since it’s Sunday morning and we’ve got to go get/earn our bread tomorrow onwards (lol). I knew roughly about the history of baking and bread - and how sourdough starters existed even though we didn’t really know how they worked - but this essay goes into a lot more detail about the history - encompassing Egypt, the Roman Empire, Jesus and even the early miners of North America.
On a related note, this kinda reminds me of our current AI founded on neural networks. We can all agree that AI “works” (even if it’s just to classify pictures of cats) but we also can agree we don’t have a clue as to how or why. Should that stop us from using it? Did people stop using sourdough just because they didn’t know about microbes or have a microscope? It’s obviously not the same thing - as something invented by us should have a higher bar, but still.
9 The yoghurt delivery women combatting loneliness in Japan - BBC
“As loneliness deepens in one of the world’s fastest-ageing nations, a network of women delivering probiotic milk drinks has become a vital source of routine, connection and care.”
There are more than 31,000 Yakult ladies in Japan!
10 A Tour in Search for the Soul of Seoul - S(ubstack)-Bahn
I really loved this essay about Seoul, and its architectural history, and how it’s been viewed super differently by everyone involved in ruling over or trying to conquer Korea. Two entities - Jongmyo Shrine (a Confucian shrine founded in 1396) and Sewoon Sangga (a complex of brutalist shopping mall buildings) - have come under public scandal recently, especially as Sewoon Sangga faces demolition and redevelopment.
This is Jongmyo Shrine - I honestly can’t believe this is in Seoul, one of the densest cities!?