Greetings again lovely email friends, it’s Mo here again with more things of interest. Speaking of which, last week’s email prompted the most out-of-office replies ever… not interesting ‘we’ve all gone to the pub’ ones, but boring ‘I’m in meetings all day’ ones. Guys, c’mon. Your out-of-office replies are supposed to help those that email you overcome the disappointment of you being incommunicado. So sprinkle a little interestingness… maybe one or more of the below?
🧱 Miniature Walling Festival: I feel it’s important for you to know that the Dry Stone Wall Association of Ireland runs a miniature dry stone walling competition. I also feel like one of you sent this to me, but for the life of me I can’t find it. So if you did, thank you. Ten points.
🗣 What Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist tell us about talking to strangers: In 19th century novels, the characters that take up space in your head make up only a small fraction of the population. Instead, most dialogue portrays complex personal relationships between characters who know each other. But these novels are also full of forgettable, unnamed characters who speak a few, forgettable words. These anonymous men and women typically speak a sentence or two and then disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.
😱 This talk isn’t very good. Dancing with my inner critic: Steve Chapman shines a light on his inner critic—that whisper in his ear that constantly tells him he isn’t good enough and that he should never try anything new or risk making a fool of himself. [thanks, JL!]
💣 Can YOU Fix Climate Change? Never before in human history have we been richer, more advanced or powerful. And yet we feel overwhelmed in the face of rapid climate change. So why don’t we just like… prevent it? Well, it’s complicated. See also: Fast Fashion Is Hot Garbage.
💌 Marie Antoinette: French queen’s censored love letters revealed with X-rays: Careful what you scribble down: in a couple of centuries some bastard scholar will be unravelling it. During the throes of the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette expressed her love for Swedish count Axel von Fersen. Modern scanning technology has successfully distinguished the ill-fated French queen’s ink from that of von Fersen, who scribbled over her text in what was probably an effort to protect his close friend and probable lover.
👓 George and Ann: Pondering one of the strangest marriages in fiction. it’s nice to think that John le Carré’s portrayal of their marriage is not given the attention it is due because it is so strange, to the degree that if you start talking about it you will never stop. [thanks, TA!]
💰 Does economics have a problem with women? The excellent Tim Harford reports that the Royal Economic Society published a report surveying the gender imbalance in economics. The picture is not encouraging. Academic economics remains a largely male activity, and the more senior the job grade, the more male-dominated it is. Further, over a quarter of a century, the pace of progress is not inspiring. It’s also bad news for economics. The economist Diane Coyle, professor of public policy at Cambridge, puts it succinctly: “It’s not possible to do good social science if you are so unrepresentative of society.”
📸 Out in the Street with Joel Meyerowitz: A strong interview with the legendary photographer. Meyerowitz is an artist in the old sense: not trying to tear everything up but instead focussing his perception intensely upon his subjects.
🛫 The Trouble With Airports, and How to Fix Them: Obviously, fixing airports is moving the deckchairs around. That’s not why this is here. What’s more interesting is to think about how spaces—built, civic, shared, public—need to evolve to meet contemporary needs. I’m particularly interested in airports, not only because I’m a serial people-watcher, but also because they are machines for loading people onto aircraft. And yet to work well, they need to be much more attuned to the needs of the people they handle.
👹 The three-headed monster we must now defeat: mental illness, stigma, and suicide: So it’s no surprise I’m including this, as I clatter on about it all the time. What’s more surprising is where this article turned up: namely Military Times Magazine. Its author, Gregg F. Martin, PhD, is a 36-year combat veteran and retired two-star general. He also lives with bipolar disorder and is a mental health advocate. Here he is, behind enemy lines as it were, calling upon military people to work together to understand one of the most misunderstood and stigmatised human experiences.