Why is this Interesting?

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Articles

The Saturday Selection, Vol. 55

2 weeks ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Louis Cheslaw

Every day, WITI’s group chats buzz with fresh links. As part of our Saturday send for paid readers, we round up 11 of the best. It’s WITI, on the weekend. Why are these interesting? Thomas Keller asked me to leave the French Laundry. It turned into my most extraordinary night as a critic (Longreads)The Chronicle’s MacKenzie Chung Fegan was separated from her table, made to wait in a courtyard for Keller, then ultimately informed by the chef that he would like the critic gone from his restaurant.
The Listening Bar Edition

2 weeks ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Louis Cheslaw

Louis here. It’s the final night of my first trip to Japan, and while I could talk about any number of this country’s wonderful, WITI-aligned customs—the services that cart your heavy bags around the city so that you can walk hands-free, say, or the total silence on the subways—there’s a reason I spent my final night returning to a listening bar I’d first visited earlier in the trip.
The Kompakt Selects Edition

2 weeks ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Colin Nagy

Colin here.Philip Sherburne, for my money one of the most important music and culture writers around, wrote an excellent retrospective about Kompakt. The Cologne-based label just celebrated its 500th release. Similar to labels like Ghostly International (from friend of WITI Sam Valenti), Kompakt has had a unique worldview, aesthetic, and a level of con…Keep reading with a 7-day free trialSubscribe to Why is this interesting?
The White Zombie Edition

2 weeks ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Colin Nagy

Colin here. I often get songs stuck in my head that were repeated to me over and over on MTV during high school. One is "More Human Than Human" by White Zombie, which I remember for being a catchy yet abrasive track that took a weird genre and somehow made it famous. Recently, as the song's slide guitar riffs, 95' heaviness, and Rob Zombie's unmistakable growl (yeahhhh) once again found their way into my mental playlist, I was curious to understand the song a bit more.
The Saturday Selection, Vol. 54

3 weeks ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Louis Cheslaw

Every day, WITI’s group chats buzz with fresh links. As part of our Saturday send for paid readers, we round up 11 of the best. It’s WITI, on the weekend. Why are these interesting? How Ukraine lost hundreds of millions on arms deals gone wrong (Financial Times)Desperate to source munitions, Kyiv has paid foreign brokers for weapons and shells that were sometimes unusable or never arrived. Supplements Made Me Lose My Mind (New York)“I was staunchly against psychiatric drugs.
The Saturday Selection, Vol. 53

4 weeks ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Louis Cheslaw

Every day, WITI’s group chats buzz with fresh links. As part of our Saturday send for paid readers, we round up 11 of the best. It’s WITI, on the weekend. Why are these interesting? A (New, Rare) Conversation with Jony Ive (Stripe/YouTube)An hour long chat, and almost universally received as a special one. (Even if some folks are just nostalgic for that Apple advert voice.)How China Is Still Getting Its Hands on Nvidia’s Gear (The Economist)Inside the shadowy business of smuggling AI chips.
The Saturday Selection, Vol. 52

1 month ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Louis Cheslaw

Every day, WITI’s group chats buzz with fresh links. As part of our Saturday send for paid readers, we round up 11 of the best. It’s WITI, on the weekend. Why are these interesting? The $400 Häagen-Dazs T-Shirt (Intramural)Intramural lands on Substack with a banger: Demystifying the Henry Rollins-Häagen Dazs Collection. How Conclave Actually Works (Conference of Catholic Bishops)On Wednesday, it begins.
The AramcoWorld Edition

1 month ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Colin Nagy

This originally appeared behind our paywall. But opening it up to all today. Colin here. I first heard about AramcoWorld at a great dinner party on the Upper East Side in New York, the kind where the conversation went everywhere. An attendee mentioned a very good magazine put out by the Saudi oil company. I looked it up the next morning and subscribed. It was so delightfully unexpected I had to check it out. Founded in 1949, AramcoWorld began as a newsletter for American employees of Aramco.
The Saturday Selection, Vol. 51

1 month ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Louis Cheslaw

Every day, WITI’s group chats buzz with fresh links. As part of our Saturday send for paid readers, we round up 11 of the best. It’s WITI, on the weekend. Why are these interesting? Son of CIA deputy director killed while fighting for Russia (The Guardian)Michael Alexander Gloss, who died on 4 April 2024, was the son of top-ranking US spy Juliane Gallina. Can You Judge a Wine Bottle by its Label? (The Pudding)If the label has an animal on it, the answer seems to be yes.
The Workday Lunch Edition

1 month ago | whyisthisinteresting.substack.com | Colin Nagy

Colin here. We wrote about the Shultz Hour a while back. In essence, it is 60 minutes every week where you can focus and think about your most important tasks, and not be disturbed by anyone—especially your phone. If we're being honest, this is rare. There isn't a lot of slack to the systems in today's workplaces (particularly with things like Slack), and the mind often needs a bit of time to settle in order to do deep thinking.