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Dear friend,
Here’s a postcard from Cape May. I wish I were back there right now. Heck, I wish you were there with me when I was sitting on that beach looking out at the lighthouse in the distance, not a care in the world other than what flavor of ice cream I was going to choose at Uncle Charley’s (answer: banana pudding!).
Love,
-m
Here are 5 things I was looking at and loving this week:
PSA: When you learn that companies are designing products now with planned obsolescence — meaning they will become outdated, obsolete, have a limited life span, be built shoddily (on purpose) and/or be harder and more expensive to repair than to replace — you’ll understand why there’s a growing right-to-repair movement. I believe in what Gay Gordon-Byrne says, especially about how repair is central to our sustainability goals. On a related note, shoutout to Baratza1.
These two short films on sewing projects2 have got me feeling all the feels. And both are inspiring in totally different ways.
Here’s something Yuval Noah Harari said that I haven’t stopped thinking about: “…it's becoming impossible to tell the difference between a real photo or video and a fake just by looking at it. The only thing that still holds is, do you trust the institution, do you trust the people behind the image, but you can no longer just trust the image.”
I like Hannah Yoon’s Substack. And how she lays things bare. And no, she hasn’t become less ambitious. She’s simply found some balance and prioritized3 other parts of her life, AND I’d argue, her work is even getting better now as a result — because she knows the whys of doing it, and it’s certainly not to win a contest.4
Read up on Trump’s second new official portrait in months. Stay for the kicker.
They make great coffee grinders. They also believe in the right-to-repair. I’ve made a small fixes on my Baratza Encore over the years, usually costing me a few dollars for a part and a few minutes watching a video on their site or YouTube channel. Currently, it’s not grinding as fine as I want it (ok for Chemex, not for a pourover or Aeropress), so I reached out to their support team through a form on their site, and got a response with photos and questions, trying to help me diagnose the problem. They also asked me to send them photos of certain things back so they could help. Seriously, what other company does this?! (I WANT TO KNOW, shout them out in the comments if you have one!) Anyways, they’ve earned my loyalty; I’ll be a lifelong Baratza user.
Checking out The Quilters doc on Netflix now, since this was an amazing trailer.
An oldie, but still relevant goodie from the Dear Young Photographer days…
But also, seriously, Hannah, congrats on contributing to the Post’s Pulitzer finalist nod for the work in NC after Hurricane Helene.
Thanks for these suggestions Melissa. Both quilting stories were great and Hannah Yoon's Substack resonated. And I've been hoping the right-to-repair would catch on for some time. I remember the days when pretty much everything could be repaired. I hope you enjoyed your time on Cape May. The short time I spent at WorldPride was amazing.
Trump's portrait - Hi Melissa, Interesting that anybody who thinks they're so hip it hurts nowadays has to compare everything to AI. I can think of all kinds of things to say about that portrait, but really, it just doesn't look at all like an AI-generated image to me. But you know, whatever the subject is, it HAS to be about AI somehow. And this from a person who hates AI more than just about anybody. (I'm not real fond of over-worked suck-up portraits of old white guys who think they're tougher than marshmallow fluff either, but that's another story. ) -Carl
PS. Good on you for supporting Right to Repair.