Bird Mail 022
Laguna Beach, CA
February 2020
I’m Bruce Layman and this is Bird Mail, a collection of internet ephemera picked for you and delivered to your inbox every other Tuesday. If you’re new here, welcome! If you’re wondering why you got this email and don’t want to read any further, that’s okay, you can unsubscribe at the bottom of the page with one click.
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I can—and have—listened to John Roderick tell stories for hours on end. He’s led a wild life as the rambling—in travel and in words—front man of The Long Winters and he is never shy when talking about his battles with alcohol, drugs, depression, Bipolar II, or creative struggles.
A few years ago he took the stage at the XOXO festival and, without any real notes, gave a fantastic talk on what he called the myth of no effort. I watched it around the time it came out, but I revisited it recently and a lot of what Roderick had to say stuck with me.
I love writing Bird Mail for y’all. On occasion, it feels pretty easy: I find something and immediately know it’s for the newsletter and the words for the bullet come out exactly as you read them. More often, it is hard. I write and rewrite and edit down and delete whole items and even when I hit ‘schedule’ I worry about what I picked for you this issue. That said, I don’t think I would do it if it were easy every time. I like finding things that are far from each other and trying to put them together and make sense of this weird and wonderful internet that we’re all part of.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying, thank you, for this little place in your very full and very busy inbox. I appreciate it and will keep doing the work if you’ll keep reading.
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A relative newcomer to my inbox is the excellent why is this interesting? newsletter by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. It is a well-researched look into wide-ranging topics that often impact modern life. Some of my favorite issues are the Monday Media Diets. It should come as no surprise that I like to see what other people with interests far from mine are consuming and where they find things. My favorite media diet so far has been that of Verena von Pfetten. I especially like her trick for replacing the constant pull of email on her phone. 🦈
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Around the time I graduated from college, I fell into the internet menswear fashion world—RIP Tumblr—and started learning about sprezzatura, soft-shouldered jackets, and Goodyear welts. I discovered Alden boots, Barbour jackets, and Drake’s ties. As a kid, I was often clothed in the well-made basics of Lands End and L.L. Bean. Much to my chagrin, L.L. Bean wasn’t real considered cool but I wore it anyway. Fifteen plus years on, there are still several L.L. Bean clothes still kicking in my closet and bonus, they actually are cool now. L.L. Bean has gotten so cool in fact, that they’re on the runway at men’s fashion week for the first time ever this year (with the help of Bird Mail favorite Todd Snyder. High Snobiety digs into why L.L. Bean may have ended up not being as cool in the U.S. despite it’s flash of popularity in the Japanese streetwear world.
One last piece of menswear for this issue, Oi Polloi—what a fantastic name for a site—highlighted the many magnificent outfits of Tintin. Unlike most cartoons who are stuck wearing the same outfit for every. single. episode. Tintin manages to look like he’d fit in on the cobbles of Pitti Uomo. Though he might need more western-wear if he were to fit in this year.
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If you need a pick-me-up after reading anything about the current state of the world, this coyote/badger duo will lift your spirits.
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I’ll leave you all with this short poem from László Krasznahorkai, translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet. It is worth it to click the ‘Read the original in Hungarian’ just to see what it looks like in its native language.
Your friend,
Bruce
If you enjoyed this issue and aren’t already getting Bird Mail every other Tuesday, you can join the small, but growing, group of birders here to get more—but not too many—emails about design, bicycles, art, technology, and anything else on the internet I find worth adding to my collection. If you want to share Bird Mail with someone you know, simply forward this email to them.