Adjacent 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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