Articles & Podcasts of Note (Week of 10/21/2019)
- Clear Takeover: How Scientology Doubled its Downtown Clearwater Footprint in 3 Years (tampabay.com): Impressive investigative piece from the Tampa Bay Times on the way Scientology essentially “took over” the downtown of an entire Florida city.
- First Draft of the King James Bible (neh.gov): Always fascinating to learn about how the Bible has been cobbled, interpreted and changed over time (makes me want to revisit Bart Ehrman’s book “Misquoting Jesus”).
- The 5 Kinds of Blockchain Projects (and Which to Watch Out For) (hbr.org): Concise overview of where blockchain adoption by industry currently stands.
- How Four Dishes with Roots in Other Lands Tell a Story of Immigration and Transformation (washingtonpost.com): Gorgeous multimedia exploration of Gumbo, Chili con queso, the California sushi roll and spaghetti and meatballs.
- How to Become the Best in the World at Something (medium.com): Punchline: Get pretty good at several things and the combination of those skills (“skill stacking”) will make you a rare bird indeed.
- Ian Fleming Explains How to Write a Thriller (lithub.com): His core premise: “You have to get the reader to turn the page.” Your prose, pacing and ideas all need to point back to this key objective.
- The Internet and the Third Estate (stratechery.com): Free speech and censorship in the age of global communications platforms.
- JS Bach the Rebel (laphamsquarterly.com): Imprisoned for a month? Prone to week-long benders? Brandished a knife in a street fight? Bach may not have been the pious Lutheran he was made out to be according to a new book.
- An Oral History of Hard Shell Tacos (melmagazine.com): Spoiler alert, Taco Bell didn’t invent them.
- Remembering Action Park, America’s Most Dangerous, Daring Water Park (si.com): “For almost 20 summers Action Park was Jackass-meets-Disneyland for East Coasters—booze, bare butts and broken bones.”
- Should We Pay to Enter Bookstores? (newyorker.com): Interesting question to consider given the value of bookstores vis a vis the inexpensive convenience of online shopping.
- What is Productivity? A Definition & Proven Ways to Improve It (dariusforoux.com): Some great insights from a blogger that has written extensively on the topic.
- Women at Ernst & Young Instructed on How to Dress, Act Nicely Around Men (huffpost.com): 1950s-level corporate advice being doled out to female professionals in 2018. Disappointing.