Month: August 2019

Find the people who give you more energy than take

A version of this essay was published as part of my monthly newsletter a couple weeks back. Find other archives and join here to get updates like this first.

I just got back from a week driving around Campania in Southern Italy, including Naples, the Amalfi Coast and the tiny town of Tufo. I was there to eat and drink but, really, I was there to see the remarkable work my best friend Patrick McNeil is doing there. Patrick, whom I’ve known for 15 years, is a homelessness advocate in Philadelphia and a fiction writer. Meanwhile, with his aunts, he is maintaining his grandfather’s childhood home in the rural Province of Avellino, both by hosting guests and, most interestingly, with an artist’s retreat.

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Here are a bunch of rules to live by from other people I love

Short, sweet, meaningful rules to live by are a delight.

Last year I shared my own, inspired by the book, and it became a talking point among friends and family for much of the year. I love hearing anyone’s rules; even if I don’t agree with them, they’re telling of that person and a worldview. They make me think.

So, without naming any names, below I share a few sets of rules I heard from others because I just think these are so much fun. I’d love to hear yours too.

Continue reading Here are a bunch of rules to live by from other people I love

Authenticity is having no other choice

Is that pizza authentic? What about that neighborhood? Or the clothes they’re wearing? Or the slang they’re using?

To my ears, authentic doesn’t mean famous or even necessarily good. Authentic is not having a choice. Or not even being conscious of the choice.

Someone is authentic when they are true to themselves; they haven’t conjured up some sense of self. Rather, they’ve remained more or less true to their experience. A product or service or idea or experience is similar. It’s doing a job without being overly aware of itself.

Authenticity is having no other choice.

A few things I’ve learned and love about whiskey

Whiskey is my alcohol of choice. That’s a preference founded on years and perfectly-me nerdy intention, as you might have read.

For most of the last decade I’ve casually tried to learn more about the culture, stories and experience. Below I share a few concepts that have stood out to me as most interesting.

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The importance of journalism’s double-sided marketplace

This is adapted from a recent tweet thread I shared.

Someone recently described to me the “dishonesty” of the two-sided marketplace business model of modern journalism — of selling both subscriptions and advertising.

The argument is that by having two “customers” (individual readers and company advertisers), a publisher can never do right by both at the same time. There was a reference to Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent.” I disagreed. Let me share why.

Continue reading The importance of journalism’s double-sided marketplace