2024.05.DisappearingMoment
Something you can do for the people you love is prepare a letter of instruction. Like other elements of estate planning, it makes mourning a bit easier. No one has to guess what you want if you tell them. In my experience, one of the worst aspects of mourning is fighting about the deceased person’s values. (Thanks, predatory family members!)
A self-directed eulogy can serve a similar purpose. If something happens to you, it helps the people you love understand how you want them to remember you. What motivated you. The person you aspired to be. It's like working backward from the conclusion.
In reckoning with John Grabski III's death, Steve Albini considered his own mortality. His thoughts comprise a working eulogy:
"When my time comes, I hope I can follow his example. I hope when I die I go like John, embroiled in the middle of things, surrounded by people I love, doing the things that matter most. I hope I leave a mountain of shit unfinished, that I have a pan on the stove, a phone call waiting and a pencil in my hand. I hope I'm man enough to be thinking about tomorrow."
Inspired by Albini, I created a new type of slash page. My website now includes a page with my self-directed eulogy. I plan to update the page as my motivations, aspirations, and conclusions change.
Welcome to May 2024’s Disappearing Moment, an inventory of my experiences. I hope you enjoy it.
Podcasts
Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) (I Loved It): Equal parts Mystery Show and (early) You’re Wrong About. Host Jamie Loftus is in my Top Five.
Nerdy Software
LibRedirect has a great name and performs a useful service. It redirects you to clean, non-predatory, community-created interfaces for popular websites. (Fuck Google.)
Free Font
Andika is a free and open font family. It has clear, distinctive letterforms, designed for beginning readers. Andika makes learning to read less painful.
Bougie Products
I’m older now and like a little more luxury in my running shorts. I buy from Rabbit when it has sales and closeouts.
Personal Finance and Investing
Buying a car or making another big purchase in the next few years? Get to know money market accounts. The Money Market Optimizer spreadsheet helps.
Reading
Brian Bennett, “AI Citations” (I Liked It): Fuck Google. The company is getting more corrupt and predatory and OpenAI-like each year. It’s taking the rest of us with it.
Maciej Cegłowski, “The Lunacy of Artemis” (I Loved It): Fuck NASA. It is moribund, an even less relevant and innovative Disney.
Brandy Jensen, “The Polycrisis” (A Personal Favorite): Funny, realistic, and encouraging. Come for the titillation and schadenfreude, stay for the ethical wit.
Scott Vandehey, “Write Alt Text Like You’re Talking To A Friend” (I Liked It): Good general advice. Easy for me to follow in this newsletter because you are my friend.
Interesting Capitalists (in Memory of Steve Albini)
- Stacey Abrams, politician and author
- Adam Aron, silverback Philadelphian, lost it at the movies
- Sally Bergesen, founder of Oiselle, running clothes by and for women
- Warren Buffett, investor,, epistoler, camel through the needle’s eye
- Zuzana Čaputová, attorney, environmentalist, President of Slovakia
- Chai Ling helped lead the Tiananmen Square protests. Now she’s an entrepreneur.
- Laura Deming is gonna live forever, baby, remember her name
- Esther Duflo, Nobel economist
- Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins wants governments to work for everyone
- Eve Ewing is, like Albini, Chicago’s best. She hosted two of my favorite podcasts, Bughouse Square and Guaranteed.
- Sean Forman, sports statistician
- Limor Fried founded Adafruit
- Atul Gawande, a favorite writer, a surgeon, and an entrepreneur
- Jennifer Grancio (Engine No. 1, now TCW) Trojan-horsed Exxon
- Hal Hartley, my favorite filmmaker
- Michael Hobbes, podcast host
- Toomas Hendrik Ilves, former President of Estonia, Jersey boy
- Jony Ive, designer, best known for his work at Apple
- Bill James, baseball analyst and my most longstanding role model (Albini is second)
- Erika James, Wharton School Dean
- Lina Khan doesn’t trust trusts
- Jim Yong Kim, doctor, nonprofit executive, university president, banker
- Matt Levine, humorist
- Des Linden, my favorite celebrity
- Strive Masiyiwa, entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist
- Isa Chandra Moskowitz, cook book author and restaurateur
- Satoshi Nakamoto, humorist
- Greg Nuckols, weightlifter and science communicator
- Laura Olin, my favorite newsletter writer
- Pierre Omidyar, wacky philanthropist
- Jonathan Ping, my favorite personal finance writer
- Thomas Ptacek, white hat
- Matthew Quick, author and Eagles fan
- Jane Bryant Quinn, legendary personal finance writer
- John Ray, fixer
- Jeroen Rijpkema , sexy banker
- MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist and novelist
- Michael Seibel, venture capitalist and mensch
- Jenny Toomey, rock star and foundation executive
- Gina Trapani is the coolest
- Peter Unger, humorist
- Amanda Urban, award-winning literary agent
- Yanis Varoufakis, badass economist
- Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, former president of Latvia and psycholinguistics scholar
- Alison Wade, my once and future favorite sportswriter (please leave Substack)
- John Waters, artist
- Emanuel Xavier, ballroom child, Nuyorican, activist
- Jay Xu, museum director
- Janet Yellen “understands what it means to people and their communities when they have good, decent jobs.”
- Muhammad Yunus, Nobel-winning microloan promulgator
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy, hero
- Salome Zourabichvili, Georgia's current and final popularly elected president
Thanks for spending a few moments with me. I look forward to corresponding again next month.
Brett
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No large language models were used in the production of the Disappearing Moment newsletter or website (inspired by RFC 9518 Appendix A ¶ 4 and Tantek Çelik).