MRW I'm an [elder] millennial and I'm about to live through my fourth "once in a lifetime" economic recession

(via Reddit)

Sometimes I think one reason I work in the humanities isn’t because I want to save the humanities per se, but because it’s payment for how often the humanities save my ass.

Yesterday, on my weekly commute to Philadelphia, I arrived at the train station and saw a familiar sight — but not in a familiar context: the Mennonite children’s choir that often sings at Lancaster Central Market was assembled in the Amtrak ticketing hall. It’s a resonant, beautiful space, one I’ve often thought I’d love to play music in (though I never will).

All these kids were fully dressed in church clothes at 6am on a Wednesday. And they were singing. As I walked in, I knew it would be unconscionable to just pass them by. So I sat on one of the benches, closed my eyes, and listened. I nearly broke down — it was so beautiful. And, of course, given the hour and the state of things, breaking down is always a slight possibility.

After a few songs, the director moved them to another spot. I followed.

Then I got on the train, the sun rising and flickering through the trees as I settled into my morning work.

I hope you find something beautiful to experience in May. It doesn’t have to great art. Just make it good. Let it carry you for a little while. We all need that sometimes.

Here are a couple of clips, if you’d like to hear for yourself:

Livin’ on the LIJ*

*Lenfest Institute for Journalism, that is**

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Interesting quotes

News spirals into obsession. A warning on surveillance. A record of ruin. Universities face the mafia boss. A song ends when its story does. Phish’s festival newspaper. A refuge from war in Pennsylvania. Sleepless hours widening. AI without feeling. Creeping self-surveillance. Happiness in a simple call. Waste born from fear of waste. Time still left — for now.

  • “Turn right at toxic masculinity and continue straight through weakening checks and balances.” —  , Your Handy Road Map to Authoritarianism

  • “Having 29.05% of the news, every single day for three months being only about a single person is ... quite simply pure insanity.” — Thomas Baekdal, How the news lost its mass-market value

  • “We urgently need to modernize our approach to privacy by creating a federal data protection agency with robust investigative powers. But short of that, we still have time to stop the creation of the database of ruin.” — Julia Angwin, ‘This Is What We Were Always Scared of’: DOGE Is Building a Surveillance State

  • “This is my radical proposal for universities: Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and expand your reach not by buying real estate but by bringing education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement. Alternatively, you can try to negotiate with a mafia boss who wants to see you grovel. When these negotiations fail, as they inevitably will, it will be too late to ask for the public’s support.” — M. Gessen, This Is How Universities Can Escape Trump’s Trap, if They Dare

  • “While it is true that an A.I. has no feelings, my concern is that any sort of nastiness that starts to fill our interactions will not end well.” — Sopan Deb, Saying ‘Thank You’ to ChatGPT Is Costly. But Maybe It’s Worth the Price.

  • “Nobody I talked to over the past few months would have known I was recording them, if I hadn’t told them. It’s a little fun, like I’m a low-budget Ethan Hunt. Mostly, though, I just felt like a creep.” — Joanna Stern, I Recorded Everything I Said for Three Months. AI Has Replaced My Memory.

  • “An enormous amount of the waste in government (and what some might call abuse) comes from people trying very hard to avoid the perception of waste and abuse.” — Jennifer Pahlka, The Water is a Mirror: A lot of what you might call government waste is our fault.

  • “Someone was asking me recently, how do you know when a song is finished? There’s a different answer for every song. With a song like “Fast Car,” it’s narrative. It’s a story. And so, once you answer the questions about who it’s about, what they’re doing or where they’re going, and if you’re satisfied with those answers, then you’ve come to the end.” — Lindsay Zoladz, Tracy Chapman Wants to Speak for Herself

  • “There was a striking lack of cellphone usage, both during the show and on the festival grounds. Attendees were encouraged to keep up with the news by reading the Daily Greens, a paper produced and distributed on site.” — Amanda Petrusich, After Forty Years, Phish Isn’t Seeking Resolution

  • “If insomnia is going to be one of your naturals, it begins to appear in the late thirties. Those seven precious hours of sleep suddenly break in two. There is, if one is lucky, the ‘first sweet sleep of night’ and the last deep sleep of morning, but between the two appears a sinister, ever widening interval.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sleeping and Walking (via I’m Not a ‘Gatsby’ Scholar. I’m a ‘Gatsby’ Weirdo.)

  • “Although social media has come to be associated with negative moods, the research on its effects on happiness is actually more mixed, Lyubomirsky says, because it does provide a certain kind of connection. In her own research, Lyubomirsky has found that when people talk to someone — whether in person, by phone or video chat — those simple interactions seem to boost happiness equally, and that they are all preferable to texting.” — Susan Dominus, How Nearly a Century of Happiness Research Led to One Big Finding

  • “Journalism Overcomes Trouble” — Ray Paulick, 'An Amazing Horse': Journalism Overcomes Trouble To Prevail In Santa Anita Derby

PA

Last month’s shuffle

Each month, I put together a Spotify playlist of the songs that caught my ear. Some are familiar to me, some aren’t. Some are old, some are new. The playlist tends to span eras, genres, and sounds. It’s probably not for everyone but here it is!

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