Links for June 5th
Clock radios, great photos, sports reporting, Cheez-Its, the College World Series
Hello, some Brooklyn Heights vibe here.
Links
I really enjoyed this meditation on the clock radio, and other objects that were innovations but practically no longer exist.
These photos from Colorado are just great — like what a vibe. (Also the Lomography website has this nice little section that’s actually very pleasant to read stuff from, where they interview amateur film photographers.)
Naomi Osaka’s decision to withdraw from the French Open kicked up quite a bit of discussion about sports press conferences, media access, and what the press is owed. Setting aside Osaka’s personal case (as her mental health obviously is more important than the French Open or a press conference), while a great many press conferences in sports and politics are often insipid and sometimes offensive, and the burden to improve must be on the reporters and editors because the press isn’t owed anything, I still was a little surprised so many people were ready to throw them over entirely. Pressers aren’t ideal, but figuring out an alternative, or mixing it up in terms of who’s there and asking questions, would be better than just giving them up, I think. Quality reporting can be a real gift to the reader (and, sometimes, the subject), and it requires a lot of work and opportunity. Anyway, this piece, I thought, was a gentler and fair look at some of the invisible benefits of press access, particularly informal interactions between (good) reporters and subjects, featuring some interesting quotes from Bob Costas.
The Intercept went back and kicked the tires on one of the mysteries in New York last June: why the police didn’t seem to respond very much to looting over two nights in SoHo and the Bronx.
Charlie Warzel broke down some of the ways the internet continues to flatten time in rough, chaotic ways.
Cheez-Its — the king of snacks — are apparently 100 years old, and had green-and-white packaging initially.
Lastly, check out this insanely good play (to save the win!) at the softball College World Series last night.
Light book commentary
None at the moment!
General note: In case I forget to say this next week, I’m going to be taking a pass on this newsletter June 19 and 26, and ideally will return with a lot of book commentary. I really was going to do this newsletter, like, from July 4 to Labor Day last summer, then I kept forgetting to say the next one would be the last, then it got to be the holidays, and here we are, nearly a year later! This doesn’t take me very long to do, and doing so has weirdly helped me think through my writing voice, so that’s a plus, but more importantly, hopefully this has provided you with a decent link or two. Thanks for subscribing!
A note on all this
Thanks for subscribing. Hope you enjoy. The goal here is just to offer up some links you may have missed, and maybe the occasional commentary on something in politics or a book I may have read that you, the reader, might enjoy. If you have thoughts on any of this, hit me up at katherinemillernyc@gmail.com or just tweet at me.