My Favorite Things

I actually don't consume as much as I used to, or as much as I'd like. But I think there is something to being able to articulate why you like a thing - it's not just about cultivating a sense of good taste or being "cultured" per se, but actually being present in the world: engaging with the things around you in a way that creates new thoughts, new neuronal pathways, new life instead of just letting things flow right through you like a 5-hr tiktok marathon. That is, it's more about the process of building taste than having taste, the way being alive is different from living, or having experiences is different from experiencing.

I know I tend to like things that happen to:

• be risk-taking, even if not fully fleshed-out or well-executed (e.g. Attack the Block)
• OR are brilliantly executed even if the idea's not that original (e.g. Mad Max Fury Road) - I'm way more amenable to a dumb bro comedy that does exactly what it sets out to do than Oscar bait that only ever had awards in its sights
• actually care about the characters (vs using them as mouth pieces for something the writer wants to say)
• use simple over complicated prose, though I *really* appreciate a brilliant stylist like Madeline Miller; similarly I don't mind avant garde or abstract but The Holy Mountain is probably my upper limit before it becomes more of an distant appreciation than real resonance with me
• touch all the "tastes", as we say in Chinese cuisine - savory, sweet, umami, bitter etc
• tend to be "small" rather than "big"; I think you see more of the universal in a little story about a divorce than an epic space battle about the fate of the world, for example

Blogs

For blogs, I tend to like either "just really great prose" or hyper-analytical deep dives into social phenomenon. I also value taste-curator-type blogs that are just superb link round-ups, since they're my entry point to more good reads. Some of the ones I read semi-regularly, or at least watch out for include:

• astralcodexten - the granddaddy of them all. The venn diagram of "stuff he writes about" and topics that interest me is basically a flat circle
• Humans on the Loop - awesome guests, touches a lot of my interest areas in complexity science, human-technology co-evolution, the "weirdosphere"
• avabear - just a beautiful lyricist
• read max - super fun substack on current trends, great roundups
• Experimental History - Adam Mastroianni's substack, a highly entertaining, renegade science communicator
• joseph heath's substack, see also this archive - Canadian philosopher and social scientist, I stumbled on him through this fascinating review of the Culture series
• the psmiths - my fav book reviewers, stumbled on them through this review of Cyrus the Great but they have so many bangers
• freddie de boer - he's a bit of a hot-taker/cranky leftist guy but he just has so many good turns in phrase in his rants (e.g. against therapy culture)
• Eric Neyman's blog - some fascinating analytical dives in social phenomenon like social behavior curves
• exurbe - history blog, cannot recommend this piece about the Renaissanceenough
• marginal revolution for tyler cowen's prolific links
• Escaping Flatland - Henrik Karlsson
• Anna Gat's Interintellect substack - awesome weekly link roundups
• The Browser - top five reads from around the net
• Garbage Day - funny internet news
• filmcrithulk - one of my fav film reviewers, though I don't always (or even often!) agree with his takes
• abigail nussbaum - tv and film reviewer
• jger15 on Hackernews - I literally have this user bookmarked, they're always posting great longreads and on HN of all places

Podcasts

I listen to a lot of podcasts - 688 according to my PocketCasts! (Probably about 50 regularly, I'm not *completely* unhinged 😆). I like the "interesting guest" genre the most, but my podcast diet is actually dictated most by schedule and activity: news, tech, business in the morning; science and productivity stuff when exercising; pop culture, humor, history stuff during chores; more thoughtful, reflective podcasts at night.

Some of my favs:

• Dwarkesh's podcast - I just appreciate the depth and insight of his interviews
• The Ezra Klein show - he has a real skill for framing complicated issues in an accessible way, and he actually challenges guests to really explain and defend their positions
• Conversations with Tyler - interviews interesting guests, Cowen is a superb question asker
• Minds Almost Meeting - Agnes Callard (philosopher, representing humanities) and Robin Hanson (economist, representing STEM) shoot the shit about topics as diverse as Taylor Swift and the nature of protest
• Very Bad Wizards - similar thesis where a psychologist and a philosopher talk about some paper or trending topic, but in a funny way
• Behind the Bastards - extremely funny history podcast about the unknown assholes in history
• Dan Carlin's Common Sense and Hardcore History podcasts - rarely releases and the episodes get infamously long but he's just SUCH a good storyteller!! the aspect that interests me most about history is what it was really like to live in X times and he is so good at taking you there
• Death, Sex, and Money - thoughtful interviews with ordinary people about the titular
• The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes - very digestible, incisive
• Intelligence Squared - a little too fast-paced for me sometimes and can sound more like a point-scoring debate than exploratory, but nice entry point to topics I hadn't thought about
• The Gray Area - philosophy podcast about recent topics in culture, politics, tech etc
• Tim ferris's podcast - dislike the product shilling but I often like his guests and the wide-ranging nature of his interviews
• Rocking our Priors - new-ish podcast from Dr Alice Evans, a social scientist whose substack I like
• The Rational View podcast
• Real Health Radio - niche podcast about health, very analytical person
• Sean Carroll's Mindscape - a bit meandering but cool topics
• Decoding the Gurus - really interesting podcast that debunks popular thought leaders, who are often podcasters themselves
• My First Million - interviews with founders
• Love Life with Matthew Hussey - my favorite dating podcast, mostly because it's less about attracting men and more about building yourself as a person
• Pivot - tech news of the day
• Make Me Smart - business news of the day
• Odd Lots - similar to Make Me Smart but longer
• Mamamia Out Loud - for the girls! fun, pop-culture-y
• Well-fed women - great women's health podcast
• Overinvested - deep dives into movies, tv, books
• the extra inch - my fav tottenham hotspur podcast 💀

Books

In no particular order, a few books that've left an impression on me (so high on both childhood bias and recency bias):

• Finite and Infinite Games
• Studs Terkel - Hope Dies Last, Hard Times
• Sebastian Junger - Tribe, War
• Daniel Quinn's Ishmael
• When Breath Becomes Air
• Olivia Laing's The Lonely City
• A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch
• Ted Chiang's Exhalation
• Homage to Catalonia
• For Whom the Bell Tolls
• My Beautiful Friend
• Defying Hitler
• Somebody Else's Century: East and West in a Post-Western World
• David Wojnarowicz's Close to the Knives
• The Road
• Never Let Me Go
• Wuthering Heights
• The Phantom Tollbooth
• The Grapes of Wrath
• Little Women
• Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
• Never Let Me Go
• Jeannette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
• The Uncollected David Rakoff
• Ursula Leguin's The Dispossessed
• James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time
• Captive Prince
• Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything
• The Worm series

See also my (not-terribly-up-to-date) Goodreads: link

Movies

Favoring indie and foreign movies here, in the hopes they get more love. I've seen more acclaimed movies but for some reason or other, these speak to me personally:

• Happy-go-lucky
• Tampopo
• Yi Yi
• Comrades, Almost a Love Story
• This is England (similar: Trainspotting, Dead Man's Shoes)
• Toni Erdmann
• Amores Perros
• World of Tomorrow
• It's Such a Beautiful Day
• Y Tu Mama Tambien
• Minding the Gap
• Bad Education
• Amelie
• Two Days, One Night
• 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
• Gattaca
• Before Sunrise
• Eighth Grade
• Tangerine (similar: Florida Project, Scrapper, Fish tTank)
• Blue Ruin
• Submarine
• Life Is Beautiful
• City of God
• Tokyo Story
• The Lives of Others
• Leviathan (Andrei Zvyagintsev)
• A Fantastic Woman

See also my letterboxd profile: link