> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://adjacent.media/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Talking Interest Rates with Ricardo, Dolly Parton's Superpower, We're All Living in Lake Amerika
- URL: https://adjacent.media/weekend/2026-08-29-weekend/
- Published: 2026-08-29T11:07:21.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-29T11:07:22.000Z
- Description: This week: the daily grind of studying menswear collars and patch pockets, a physicist’s case for why Big Yard birdwatching and glow pigments matter, the messy economics of Dolly Parton’s literacy program, and a computer that famously does almost nothing.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #weekend

This week: the daily grind of studying menswear collars and patch pockets, a physicist's case for why Big Yard birdwatching and glow pigments matter, the messy economics of Dolly Parton's literacy program, and a computer that famously does almost nothing. Also: interest rates with an actual economist, and a conversation-pit revival Milan can't quit.

---

#### [Talking Interest Rates with Ricardo Caballero](https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-interest-rates-with-ricardo)

Krugman sits down with MIT's Ricardo Caballero to think through why interest rates have stayed stubbornly high — the wonky, honest version where two economists admit some of their old models don't fit anymore. A rare chance to watch expertise revise itself in real time rather than defend a position.

*Paul Krugman (Substack) · 15 min*

#### [Dolly Parton's Superpower](https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/dolly-partons-superpower?ref=adjacent.media)

An autopsy of how one country singer built the last genuinely bipartisan institution in America — and why that was harder, and stranger, than it looked. Klippenstein digs into the mechanics of consensus-building that made the Imagination Library untouchable across the culture war.

*Ken Klippenstein · 12 min*

#### [We're All Living in Lake Amerika](https://open.substack.com/pub/compactmag/p/were-all-living-in-lake-amerika)

A dense, discursive dive into old issues of Telos that lands on something sharp about American cultural fragmentation. The kind of essay that takes its time getting anywhere — but where it ends up earns the detour.

*Compact · 18 min*

#### [The 3 Bad Types of Humanities Professor](https://open.substack.com/pub/tedgioia/p/the-3-bad-types-of-humanities-professor)

Gioia writes from inside the wreckage of his own academic idealism, and it shows — a confession about what killed his love of the university. Anyone who's sat through a seminar that felt more like a hostage situation than an education will recognize every type.

*Ted Gioia · 10 min*

> “I possessed the fervor of a cult member recruiting newbies at the Greyhound bus station.” — *Ted Gioia*

#### [How Chemistry Can Keep Glow-in-the-Dark Pigments from Fading](https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/08/how-chemistry-can-keep-glow-in-the-dark-pigments-from-fading/?ref=adjacent.media)

A genuinely delightful piece of applied science writing — the same phosphorescent pigments that made Stephen Sprouse's Debbie Harry jackets iconic are now the subject of serious conservation chemistry. Fashion history told entirely through the lens of molecular decay.

*Ars Technica · 11 min*

#### [The Mactini: A Computer That Does Almost Nothing](https://hackaday.com/2026/08/27/the-mactini-a-computer-that-does-almost-nothing/?ref=adjacent.media)

Someone built a real, working computer out of a BBC joke about Apple's obsession with miniaturization — and the build log is funnier and more thoughtful than the meme it's based on. A small, perfect piece of hacker absurdism that doubles as commentary on form chasing function.

*Hackaday · 8 min*

#### [The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher](https://open.substack.com/pub/kenlamberton/p/the-big-yard-notes-from-a-pajama-514)

Ken Lamberton's backyard birding dispatches are unhurried nature writing that needs no hook beyond "here's what I saw this month, and here's what it meant." A heat dome, a hummingbird, eighty species — noticing, done slowly.

*The Big Yard · 9 min*

#### [You Actually Don't Need to Go to Medical School to Become a Fashion Designer (Although It Does Help)](https://kensakata.substack.com/p/you-actually-dont-need-to-go-to-medical)

An unexpectedly moving essay that opens on a hospital ward round and pivots into a meditation on craft, discipline, and what different professions borrow from each other's rituals. A strange premise executed with real precision.

*Kensakata · 13 min*