Your Mid-Week Experiment
Check out a first-person account from the Clinton White House
I appreciate those of you who read my essay about what life would be like if Superman were real. I’m not a big fan of all these comic book movies, but they’ve made me curious about the regular people in their universe. You know the movie I want to see? What life was like during the Snapture. Would I be mad that the presence of capricious humanoids with god-like powers had resulted in the disappearance of half of all life on Earth? Would I just get used to it? Please, please show me any movie in a superhero universe without any superheroes. I bet it would be cool. If you haven’t yet, give it a read and let me know how you think life would be different if superheroes were real.
Know what else would be cool? Being the first one from your campaign to set foot into the White House. My friend Jeff Eller did just that in 1993 and wrote about that rare experience for you.
“Some Basic Things About Writing Novels” (Margaret Atwood)
Do you have an executive voice? This actually isn’t bad advice. (Harvard Business Review)
Remember my dad, Phil Stanford? I wrote about his vindication in a high-profile murder investigation (he wasn’t a suspect, just a prominent critic of the official investigation) that became the subject of a hit podcast called Murder in Oregon. Now he’s back with another hit podcast called Murder in Miami that casts him in a more comical light. Get this: He drops out of big-time journalism, moves to Miami, and becomes a private investigator for a firm that was really a front for drug smugglers. After you listen to him try to explain a series of choices that horrify me 40 years later, you’re going to be surprised that his body didn’t end up in the Everglades, and not just because that’s exactly what happened to the guy whose job he took at the PI firm.
Anyway, right now Murder in Miami is ranked higher than Planet Money and Pod Save America. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.
Made this—> Hawaii-style garlic shrimp (The New York Times)
“Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.” (Cory Doctorow)
“In the novel, the true things often run around like children under sheets, playing at being ghosts. Otherwise we would ignore them. Not now, we would tell them if they arrived without their sheets.” (Alexander Chee)
“My work in presidential junk uncovered petrified fruitcake, but nothing classified” (Sarah Bird)
“Ezra Klein Interviews Dan Savage” (The New York Times)
Ironically, this song off RAYE’s debut album is, well, thrilling.
“Matt Gaetz, Political Arsonist, Has New Powers. What Will He Do With Them?” (Robert Draper)
I loved To Leslie, and I’m ride-or-die with Marc Maron anyway, especially on the controversy surrounding her nomination for Best Actress.
Thanks to Noom, I lost 40 pounds over 2020-21 and have kept it off since then. Click on the blue box to get 20% off. Seriously, this works. No, this isn’t an ad. Yes, I really lost all that weight with Noom.
We set up a merch table in the back where you can get T-shirts, coffee mugs, and even tote bags now. Show the world that you’re part of The Experiment.
We’ve also got a tip jar, and I promise to waste every cent you give me on having fun, because writing this newsletter for you is how I have fun.
Buy the book Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick banned from the Bullock Texas History Museum: Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of the American Myth by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and myself is out from Penguin Random House. The New York Times bestseller is 44% off and the same price as a paperback now!