Hi all,
writing to share two recent-ish pieces.
But first a bit of housekeeping: for practical reasons I’ve switched this newsletter from Tinyletter to a platform called Substack, which apparently works better. It shouldn’t cause any problems on your end, but if it does please let me know.
Okay, onward.
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Recent-ish Piece #1: “Collision Course”
I wrote for the Guardian “long read” section about: the massive spike in US pedestrian fatalities over the last 10 years; the stagnation of progress on pedestrian fatality rates worldwide; the promises of Silicon Valley and automobile manufacturers that better-designed cars can solve the problem; and the fear among road safety experts that these hi-tech visions distract us from more immediately workable solutions.
On one hand, this was a whole new set of writerly subjects for me. On the other hand, the piece felt like a natural extension of my longtime fondness for walking and antipathy for American car culture (in which I am very much a participant).
As often happens after I crash-course my way into a new subject, I’m hoping to put my new knowledge to use soon in some more pieces about cars, roads, walking, etc.
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Recent-ish Piece #2: “Whitney and the Fear of Being ‘Too Indie’”
I wrote a short piece for The New Yorker about the Chicago band Whitney: specifically, about how I fell in love with them after first writing them off as too “indie,” in a particular contemporary sense of the word. Includes conversation with the band, and a brief description of a performance at Shuga, a vinyl-only record store. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything about music, and I had a lot of fun.
Sidenote: For years I’ve watched the vinyl revival from the sidelines, with no personal interest in participating. Browsing at Shuga completely sucked me in, for all the commonly cited reasons (the physicality, the large-format album art, built-up exhaustion with the infinite choice of streaming). For my birthday last month I bought myself the first Belle & Sebastian record on LP, and I’ve just picked out a turntable to play it on.
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Okay, that’s it for today. I’m writing a lot (at least by my usual glacial standard) at the moment, so I should have more to report soon. Getting emails—of any length—in response to this newsletter is one of the most enjoyable parts of my working life. No pressure.
Thanks, —Peter