The Experiment
This week your newsletter is becoming the next thing
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your health and safety were never the top priorities of the Stanford Newsletter Experiment. Giving you fun stuff to read was. For a while, the newsletter was just about what I was paying attention to. Then, when a book project fell into my lap, the newsletter started featuring other voices, some of whom have written some of our most popular posts ever. In fact, since I stopped writing the opening essay, the subscriber base has grown 18.5% while maintaining the same open rates as last year, and Robin Whetstone’s Moscow memoir, Red Ticket, has been building an audience in its weekend slot. Given that the newsletter went on a four-month hiatus before adding new voices, this assures me that the experiment has been working.
The Experiment, all along, as been about valuing what we pay attention to. Now, as we include a rotation of new voices, the newsletter will become a table of contents, a jumping off point to original content, such as Elie Jacob’s funny and heartfelt tick-tock of what his workday has become and what Loriana Hernandez-Aldama learned beating cancer twice that we can use in our own lives. The name will change; starting next week this is The Experiment, so don’t let that confuse you. And at the bottom you’ll notice an expanded menu of ways to support this work. We’re still including recommendations of what to read, watch, and listen to, and until there’s a vaccine we’ll continue remembering some of the people we’ve lost.
And soon, I’ll be back every week with a new essay about this absurdist terror we’re all trying to survive. (Truly, you don’t know how much I’ve missed writing to you.) The experiment was whether I could build my newsletter into a digital ‘zine while I was on the book project. Starting today, we’re moving into the next phase of The Experiment. Every Wednesday, you’ll get the digest edition, and on weekends you’ll get the latest chapters in Red Ticket, Robin Whetstone’s harrowing and hilarious memoir of her time in Moscow in the early ‘90s.
The Experiment is for you. Let me know what you think, what and who you’d like to hear from, and when I screw up. Your input, advice, and help are always welcome. We’re not done growing, and we have some dynamite new writers to introduce you to. And if you’re enjoying this, please share it. Thanks for reading.
Yours,
Jason Stanford
Elie’s Day
by Elie Jacobs
My friend Elie lives in New York City in a comfortable one-bedroom apartment on the second floor. Since their baby girl, referred to popularly and herein as “Batgirl,” showed up, they’ve converted their place into a two-bedroom. The balcony, rickety, looking out over an airshaft where you can hear nothing other than the HVAC equipment on the building next door, is not an option for escape. They’re lucky, healthy, and rich with toilet paper. They even managed to get yeast, and by some bizarre luck, they had some Lysol (wipes and aerosol!) left from The Before Times.
In The Before Times, his wife went to her office every day. Depending on Elie’s schedule, they had a nanny come a few days a week and take care of Batgirl, now two and a half years old. The other days, Elie managed to balance his daughter and his clients well enough to make it financially worth not having the nanny come. Now, it’s a mess, and he was kind enough to write down exactly what his days are like.
***
Make This Your New Job
by Loriana Hernandez-Aldama
I met my friend Loriana when she was a co-anchor at Fox 7 in Austin. Then she got AML Leukemia, got a bone marrow transplant, and breast cancer, in that order. Having to survive in the time of corona? She’s got this down by now, and she’s here to tell us now we can, too.
***
RIP
I would like to pay respect to those we lose along the way. If there is someone you would like to be remembered in future newsletters, please post links to their obituaries in the comments section or email me. Thank you.
How we’re getting through this
Organizing Google Chrome tabs
Getting help applying to colleges
Touching up my appearance on Zoom
Listening to lofi hip-hop while working
Making salmon with yogurt curry sauce (so good)
Choosing from this list of 100 things to do in the LA Times
Reading about a Weekend at Bernie’s murder in a Texas prison
Looking at the IMF’s economic country-by-country forecasts for 2020 and 2021
What I’m reading
Axios: “Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index, Week 8: Second-guessing the death toll”
BBC: “Accenture: ‘Every business will be a health business’”
electrek: “New Honda Canada CEO dismisses electric vehicles as a ‘political agenda’”
Mark Manson: “Nobody Knows What is Going on”
National: “#Ditchyourstuff: why the global pandemic is bringing back the less is more approach”
“The pandemic is likely to produce a more sustainable, healthier era of consumption over the next 10 years, making consumers think more about balancing what they buy and how they spend their time with global issues of sustainability — suggesting a healthier human habitation of the planet.”
The New Republic: “The Cancer in the Camera Lens: Far from shining a curative light on the Trump administration, the media has become engulfed by his empire of stupidity”
The New York Times: “The Pandemic May Mean the End of the Open-Floor Office”
MIT Sloan Management Review: “How Swarm Intelligence Blends Global and Local Insight” (This is so cool)
Qualtrics: “The Other COVID-19 Crisis: Mental Health”
The Verge: “Slack CEO: Microsoft Teams is not a competitor to Slack”
Slack’s CEO might claim Microsoft Teams isn’t a competitor, but it says the opposite in its SEC filings. “Our primary competitor is currently Microsoft Corporation,” says Slack in a recent 10-Q filing.
WaPo: “What we can learn today from the victory of the Osama bin Laden raid”
Wired: “Jaguar Envisions Car Design for a Post-Pandemic World”
WSJ: “Cruise Ships Set Sail Knowing the Deadly Risk to Passengers and Crew”
WWD: “Hermès Hauled in $2.7 Million in One China Store on Saturday: Sources”
Yahoo!: “'I do not do special teams. Ever.' Will Ferrell pranks Seahawks during teleconference:
Got some reading suggestions? Post them in the comments section, and I might include them in the next newsletter. Have a book to promote? Let me know in the comments or email me.
What I’m watching
If you need a well-reviewed, feel-good movie written and directed by a woman, The Half of It, Netflix’s take on Cyrano de Bergerac, is all you need.
Saw a rerun of the 2014 NFC Championship Game on TV, and it was nearly as thrilling as it was live. Come to find out, the whole game is on YouTube. You’re welcome.
NPR called Blinded by the Light a “relentlessly upbeat coming-of-age dramedy.” Ann Hornaday — remember what we've said about Ann Hornaday, right? — says it’s “warm, funny, humane and deeply sincere.” A good time was indeed had by all.
Got suggestions? Post them in the comments section, and I might include them in the next newsletter.
What I’m listening to
“Corona Virus Alert” by Bobi Wine and Nubian Li from Uganda is bouncy, optimistic fun.
We all need to learn this song so we can sing the chorus every night after dark—and here it is mashed up with “Space Jam.”
There will be feasting and dancing
In Jerusalem next year
I am going to make it through this year
If it kills me
Watching Mountain Goats videos led me to the video of this song, which has a drop that is now encoded in my DNA. It’s a song about insecurity and longing, but the sonic payload lets you know how angry she is at herself. If you don’t know Mitski’s “Your Best American Girl,” oh boy; play it loud and be still. I know this isn’t new, and I don’t care, because joy explodes out of this catharsis of recrimination.
Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I think I do
And you're an all-American boy
I guess I couldn't help trying to be your best American girlYou're the one
You're all I ever wanted
I think I'll regret this
Car Seat Headrest is doing some cool stuff in Making a Door Less Open, which dropped Friday. I love “Hollywood.” Check it out.
Got suggestions? Post them in the comments section, and I might include them in the next newsletter.
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