7.8.2021

The 33 Project

Morning.

1/ Exit Scam. Loved listening to this podcast. I think the creators did a great job explaining the crypto world while still keeping the story moving and entertaining. I expect an announcement that it’ll be made into a film in the next 6 months.

2/ This is a great, and unsettling, piece by May Jeong. May’s a writer I’ve met and really enjoy reading. She always delivers on these large, complicated and often deeply depressing stories. I highly recommend this piece as well as pretty much everything else she’s written.

Jeong’s writing style is extremely readable. This particular piece is on the deaths and darkness surrounding Fort Hood army base in Texas. She does an excellent job inserting herself in just the right way. Here’s an example:

Driving into Killeen last fall, what greeted me was a deer, roadkill, that had been severed in half. Next I passed Club Dreams, where Specialist Shelby Jones was shot, bled out, and died last March; then Guns Galore, where Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan purchased a semiautomatic pistol that he would use to kill 13 people in 2009. A soft October wind carried the first chill of the season. During the day, though, it was still hot enough that if you dropped a beer bottle, the contents appeared to dry on contact. The vast emptiness that is most of the state can make you feel inconsequential, as if you could disappear and no one would know you ever lived. Traveling in the time of plague, trying to build rapport with people from six feet away, was enervating. So much of reporting is opening yourself up to chance, and there I was, compulsively locking and relocking the rental car door. On most nights, I had nightmares.

3/ This is a great instagram account focused on female + non-binary storytellers. Lots of great visual content and quotes. Been enjoying scrolling through it and digging into their recommendations.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading and I’ll be back next Thursday.