08.24 | re-approaching normal?

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
– Mark Twain

✉️ letter #40

Oops, I didn't expect to only publish this all the way at the end of summer, but I'm learning to just be happy I'm pushing anything out at all. I saw this Onion headline recently and thought "heh, it's me."

Anyway. This summer was the first summer that actually felt back to normal for me, and part of it was that I finally booked a travel itinerary that reflected how I like to travel: a lot.

There’s just something about living out of a suitcase for a month. I can’t tell you how excited I was to go to - and even better, work remotely so I didn't actually have to use up vacation days - from a variety of places in Europe for the whole month of July… only to run into... well, the absolute craziness of air travel.

I guess with all the under-staffing here in American airports, just about any little weather event is enough to force a million people into getting stuck in transit. I ended up arriving at my destination a full 36 hours or so later than I'd originally planned. This would not be the only transit mishap I experienced on the trip, but it definitely was the longest!

Still, I had a great time. I went from Cambridge to London to Oxford to Berlin to Budapest to Edinburgh... and even managed a very quick lunch stopover in Dublin to see some former co-workers. There are many things I'm thankful about in my life besides the "not having to do Transatlantic travel with the technology of a century ago (R.I.P. Jack)" I mentioned in my video...

But one I am most thankful for is how many people I've gotten to know from how many different places. Speaking of transatlantic travel though, two fun facts I discovered while going down a big ol' rabbit hole of historical tidbits about the UK-to-USA sea route:

Did you know how much data on shipwrecks is available on the web? It was unfathomable! *badumppshhh* This site - wrecksite.eu - even will pull up a list of the shipwrecks that happened on this day, whatever day of the year it is!
The Golden Age of Piracy (arrrrhhh) occurred when Sun spots caused the Earth to cool down by about one-degree, thereby causing a 70-year lull in Caribbean hurricanes. Hard to know what would have happened with pirates and global trade if the Sun had still been hot... and hard to know what will happen now that the Earth is only getting hotter.

I'm not going to use this space to talk too much about how trip went because - fingers crossed - I will turn all the random things I filmed into vlogs in the near future. So for now, here's me and my almost aborted attempt at starting out.

exploring: travel woes in summer 2023

There’s just something about living out of a suitcase for a month. I can’t tell you how excited I was to work remotely from a variety of places in Europe for the whole month of July… only to run into well, the absolute craziness of air travel this summer.

elaine is xyzelaine

🌱 newsreel for a different world

Polish scientists recently found out that walking just 4000 steps a day is enough to help you extend your life. That 10k number was just something that Japanese advertisers came up with ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Then again, walking more just seems to add on benefits so... I guess I'll keep trying to hit those miles? [Medscape]
Mangroves, which hold 5x more carbon than tropical forests, can be both a climate solution and an economic boon to the countries that foster them, a recent study has found. Now just to make those countries foster them. [Mongabay]
Unexpectedly, India is one of the few countries in the world that's on its way to achieving the climate goals it set during the Paris Accord, having reduced its carbon emissions by 33%. [Salon]
As of this post, several terrible climate-related disasters have befallen the Pacific. The latest is the shocking fires in Maui, which have killed at least 36 people and displaced thousands. If you're looking ways to help the inhabitants of this beautiful island, here's a list of places that are accepting donations. [Hawaii Now].

🎵 song of my week

I somehow managed to miss the news in 2022 that Death Cab for Cutie came out with a new album! I still haven't found the time to listen to all of Asphalt Meadows, but I have listened several times to this specific song:

I Dreamt We Spoke Again - Death Cab for Cutie (Louis the Child Remix)

I also found out they're playing next month here at Madison Garden in New York. My little emo heart is squealing.

✨enjoying: one final piece of pop culture fun

I ended my latest video with a reference to James Cameron's Titanic movie, which btw was one of the first modern Western movies to be shown in China since it reopened. Jiang Zemin himself apparently recommended that everyone in his politburo watch it.

In the new season of NPR's Rough Translation (which is all about love), one of the first stories you hear is about a cultural anthropologist in China that interviews young factory workers about their views on relationships, and it turns out a LOT of them identified with the character of "Jack."

Not because he was a strapping hero of a lad, however, but because he represented to them a "diaosi (pubic hair)" loser who stumbles into a moment of glory, but then fittingly dies in the end. It felt like something realistic they could potentially come across - a whirlwind romance with a higher status woman, that ends up not being able to overcome the differences in class after all. It's really worth a listen.

When We Talk About Love Stories : Rough Translation

We leap into the gap between love stories and real life. And hear a sneak peek of Rough Translation’s newest season! Subscribe here to Gregory’s substack.

NPR

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