- Does one need to provide spoiler alerts when discussing offhanded phrases in relatively obscure, 67-year-old novels? I would think not, but consider yourself warned regardless: Towards the end of Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana, a disgraced British pseudo-spy is court-martialed in absentia. The spy, who was half expecting to be “shot at dawn,” instead survives the court-martial, and receives a permanent job offer, apparently on the recommendation of a naval officer who he had never met. The spy, asking why he received the naval officer’s recommendation, is told that “at sea one learns to take the long view.”
This struck me because of Natasha’s essay about sailing a building, which got me thinking about further implications of the house-as-ship analogy. The long view is not one I’m predisposed to taking; perhaps I should be thinking more seriously about the length of the voyages I’m on. - Looking for a Story is a book about John McPhee; I have not read it yet, but I enjoyed this interview with the book’s author.
- Here’s a video tour of the Neoliner Origin, a hybrid sail/diesel cargo ship. A surprising amount of the (honestly awkward) tour focuses on the passenger cabins, which seem to be targeted at eco-tourists looking for a fancy (€5,500.00 round-trip) and memorable way to cross the Atlantic. The ship’s main purpose is to transport roll-on, roll-off cargo, of which it can carry 265 TEU. Its first transatlantic trip occurred last month, though its aft sail sustained some damage and needed to be repaired at dock in Baltimore. The ship’s sails, which are made by a French company called Chantiers de l’Atlantique, are probably its most interesting aspect; the demo videos and descriptions on their website are worth poking around at.
- An informative, short, and very grainy video on glass annealing.
- A good essay on a career as a “minor” writer; this more or less reflects my current ambitions 🤜🤛
- A while back I bought a bottle of Smith & Cross, a Dutch-blended Jamaican rum, in order to make some delicious (and dazzlingly strong) Kingston Negronis. Kingston Negronis contain sweet vermouth, and recently I found myself without a bottle of vermouth but wanting to make a drink with the Smith & Cross. I had a lime — a stroke of luck — and ended up making a Mega Daquiri, which contains equal parts Smith & Cross, lime juice, and Angostura bitters, to the tune of (no joke) an ounce apiece. It was maybe the strangest cocktail recipe I’ve ever tried, but almost immediately I wished I had a second lime.
- Apropos of the obituary I believe I wrote for D’Angelo a few weeks ago, here’s Questlove’s pre-release review of Voodoo.
- Apropos of nothing, I just wanted to remind you that “lonely Tylenol” is a palindrome.
- Deasil, sometimes spelled deosil, is a borrowed Gaelic word that functions like “clockwise” but really means “the way the sun passes through the sky, as seen by looking to the south from the Northern Hemisphere.” The opposite of deasil (which is to say “counter-clockwise”) is widdershins.
- I've mentioned Lester Beall, and the posters he made for the Rural Electrification Administration, previously; now my favorite of these is available as a tee shirt on the SOW merch store. Come get it!
Thanks as always to Scope of Work’s Members and Supporters for making this newsletter possible.
Love, Spencer