My favorite things from March

The best things I read, watched, listened to, and enjoyed over the past month.

Welcome to my Favorite Things. This is my monthly link roundup with the best things I've read, watched, listened to, and enjoyed over the past month. To view past editions, click here.

Read:

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince & Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

As I wrote last month, Order of the Phoenix (book 5) was the first book in the series to truly hook me. The first one that had me fully engaged in the characters and plot. And the final two books in the series have been a masterful crescendo leading up to one of the most powerful reading experiences of my life.

For the final 100 pages of Deathly Hallows, I locked myself in the bedroom with a box of tissues, and did not come out until 1 AM, after a 5-hour-long sob fest. There are chapters in it I can't even think about without tearing up.

I can't remember the last time a book affected me this much. The character development, the intricacies of the plot, the pacing... How did she do it?! I'm impressed beyond words. And as usual after coming out of a long series like this, I was a melancholic wreck after. Didn't want to read anything else. And to be honest, I'm still in a bit of of reading slump. Still feeling that separation anxiety. What a masterpiece this series is. I know I'm painfully late to the game. But better late than never, right?

• Cal Newport - Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

I've also read Cal Newport's latest one, the long-awaited Slow Productivity. My expectations were high, and I was not disappointed. I loved the simplicity of this book. The elegance of the key ideas, and the examples he used to illustrate them. I love how the book can be summarized in three short sentences (Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality. I have them on a Post-It note by my computer), and yet still be very much worth reading. Another modern classic, by one of my favorite thinkers and authors.

• The Stay Grounded Substack

Been bingeing on it for weeks. This is a personal favorite:

Future Grandmasters of The Attention Game

"There’s a tempting feeling of schadenfreude that comes with imaging the big tech monopolies getting devoured by a creation born from their own greed. There’s a poetic justice to the idea of an AI bot swarm overwhelming platforms by being really good at doing all the stupid, menial labor and adjustments they have been demanding from human artists for years."

• Mari Andrew hits the nail on the head with this one:

What's going on with art right now?

"Having a sustainable career in any creative industry often feels like a constant teeter-totter between reminding yourself why you do this all in the first place, and reminding yourself that your $900 health insurance bill is coming up. And that teeter-totter feels even more extreme right now as the once-reliable jobs with a built-in community are disintegrating into all these individual hustles that feel out of alignment with a lot of our values."

• This essay by Henrik Karlsson, on quality over quantitiy in publishing:

When I have a slower publishing cadence my blog grows faster

"Those who argue that you shouldn’t overwork a piece seem to be saying that luck swamps hard work. For me, that is not true. Hard work trumps luck. It is better for me to work hard on a few pieces rather than do more pieces and hope for luck."

Still working hard on changing my own mindset from "gotta keep pushing stuff out on schedule" to taking my time to create things I'm truly proud of. But there's a little miniature tech capitalist, in a hoodie and $1000 sneakers, always sitting on my shoulder and whispering in my ear "work faster". He's hard to ignore.

Listened:

• Molly Crabapple interviewed on the Tech Won't Save Us podcast:

I generally steer away from AI art discussions nowadays, because they mostly just make me angry and depressed. Frustrated over where it's all heading, and over how slow justice is, if it ever comes at all. But I'm glad I listened to this one. Apart from Steven Zapata, I've never heard anyone speak so eloquently about art and AI as Molly does here.

• This episode of the Off The Grid podcast, about escaping the attention economy:

• Gojira - Magma (Current gym music.)

Watched:

• I've discovered the phenomenon that is Sarah Millican

It was love at first joke. I adore everything about her: the accent, the laugh, the shockingly dirty jokes, the way she works the audience. She's a genius. I'm in awe. Have to pause her comedy specials every ten minutes to draw breath. Where has this woman been all my life?

I couldn't possibly choose just one clip for you, so go to her YouTube and choose your own adventure!

• This jewellery sculpture video mesmerized me:

• The Estonia tv series

(For all of you non-Swedes: Estonia was the name of a cruise ship that sunk in the Baltic sea in 1994, causing massive casualties. A national tragedy that I remember from my childhood.)

I'm pretty impressed with it so far. Usually have very low expectations for anything nordic. It's slow, but I like that about it. Makes it feel realistic and respectful. The grittiness of it reminds me of the Chernobyl series.

Enjoyed:

• Carolyn Yoo's zine "How to keep your hobby from becoming a job":

How to keep your hobby from becoming a job

• All of the birds that have started singing these past few weeks

Cranes, wood pidgeons, blackbirds... Feels like finally reuniting with old friends. 🖤😌

• Planning a novel

A trilogy of novels, in fact. It's an ambitious project I hope to work on for several years into the future, and hopefully get traditionally published.

We'll see what I say about that once I'm in the weeds of it, but right now, in the brainstorming/plotting/planning phase, I'm having a blast. So thrilled to be writing fiction again.