🦊 Salman Selects — June '24

4 links, 3 books, 2 quotes, 1 artist

Hey friends,

I often share links and art in my newsletters alongside a featured essay, but I have sometimes found they make the newsletters run a tad too long. Today, I’m trying out a new approach where I publish a monthly newsletter entirely dedicated to sharing my favorite finds with you. (I’ve also created a new sub-Section for them in Substack, “Salman Selects”, so if you’re not a fan of these curation newsletters, you can unsubscribe from them specifically and still get my other editions by managing your subscription.)

Just for fun, I’m sharing them in a 4-3-2-1 format: 4 links, 3 books, 2 quotes, and 1 artist.

Let’s get into it!

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4 Links

20 Minutes of Calm with Zen Master Henry Shukman (Tim Ferris Podcast) — I don’t listen to podcasts these days. Since I stopped commuting, and started taking walks without devices, there’s no space for them in my life. But this episode found me nonetheless. And I’m so grateful it did. Months ago, I was sitting on a plane headed across the country after an intense week (to say the least—there was a Jenga pile of work, health, and family challenges that had sent my anxiety through the roof.) I tend to experience stress mostly in my stomach, so the notion of being trapped on a plane for six hours made me even more anxious. There it was, that funny feeling: I was getting stressed about being stressed. I tried to play some music to calm myself, then I saw this podcast in my saved episodes, like a light shining in the darkness. I hit play. A few minutes in, I was breathing better. Ten minutes later, I was relaxed. This interview is excellent in that it includes both a guided meditation and a follow-up interview about Zen, koans, and other wonderful topics. Highly recommend this episode, or perhaps saving it for another time when the world feels like it’s falling down around you.

The Case for Not Sanitizing Fairy Tales (Haley Stewart) — It is vital that we let children read fairy tales and folklore, including and especially with their gruesome themes and lessons. Stewart writes, “We are eager to smooth over a child’s fears with comforting falsehoods.” But by doing so, we only hurt the children. We deprive them of a chance to prepare for what awaits them out in the real world. School bullies can be so cruel—worse than the most ferocious mystical dragon. As C.S. Lewis said, “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” (Side note: This advice applies to writers, too, not just parents. E. B. White reminds us must be careful not to “write down to children.”)

Heat Death of the Internet (Gregory Bennet) — I read this back in April. It still echoes in my thoughts. A sobering read, only because it is so accurate: “The first page of Google results are links to pages that have scraped other pages for information from other pages that have been scraped for information. All the sources seem to link back to one another. There is no origin. The photos on the page look weird. The hands are disfigured. There is no image credit. … You want to watch a TV show from your youth so you check a streaming service, but it is not there, so you check a second streaming service but it is not there, so you check a third streaming service and it is not there. You search for it on Blu-ray but it doesn’t exist, so you search for it on DVD but it is out of print. You find a seller on eBay who has it, but the listing reads ambiguous as to whether it is the real thing or a burnt copy. You message the seller and they reply with an automated response thanking you for your interest.”

Status and the Illusion of Progress (Lawrence Yeo) — Great read on the tyranny of status. “Status is one of our greatest poisons. Because the pursuit of it is the very antithesis of knowing yourself. Anytime you play a status game, you take on the perspective of an outsider looking in, judging who you are based on whatever metric or position you’re chasing. You give credence to the belief that you’re not enough, and that there’s something you need to achieve to finally accept who you are. But of course, any chase of this nature has no end, given that your very participation in this chase means that self-acceptance isn’t possible.” (Side note: You can read my own take on status in my essay, Status Police, in which I explore the importance of breaking out of the box of societal rules, and embracing your inner voice.)

(BTW: To the solitary member of the pedantic police force reading this who feels compelled to inform me of the fact that the “4 Links” section technically contains more than 4 links if you include the side note links (and the one in the following sentence): I only have this to say to you.)

3 Books

Cathedral (Raymond Carver) — You may have heard of the title story in this collection, but it is matched in quality by all the other tales in the book. Each one would capture me within a few sentences, and before I knew it the tale was done. I’m not sure what took me so long to get to this, but I suspect I’ll be going back to it again and again.

The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis) — It’s difficult to describe this book. The plot is summarized like so: “The writer finds himself in Hell boarding a bus bound for Heaven.” It is one of the most fascinating stories I’ve read on the question of what happens in the afterlife. I found it quite odd and difficult to get through at first, but really enjoyed it by the end. The writer’s journey guides us through many questions about what heaven and hell is, who deserves to go there, what God really wants from us, and so on. Though it is often described as a book intended for Christians, it can also be read simply as a fictional novel (as I, a non-Christian, did), since many of these themes and questions are universal.

Make Something Wonderful (Steve Jobs) — This is a short collection of lectures and talks from Jobs himself. I have always found his talks inspiring, and this is a fantastic collection. (To pair with this, I highly recommend watching The Lost Interview with Jobs, filmed after he was ousted from Apple and before his return. It is incredibly insightful and inspiring.)

2 Quotes

Terry Pratchett on the creative process:

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”

Tyler the Creator on why you should share your work more than once:

“I know a lot of people who make things who don’t stand proudly by their stuff, I don’t know if they’re too cool or they don’t want to look thirsty, but they’ll put a song out once on their stories — and that’s it.

You went through something. You figured something out in a structured format. You recorded it. Not just one take. Parts and parts. You edited it. You mixed it. The label paid some kid to make an album cover and they made the cover. It’s a whole thing.

And then you mean to tell me that you’re going to be passive and just put it on your story once? Are you crazy, bro?

I’m still promoting an album that came out a year ago. I put too much time and energy into this finished project just to put it on Instagram and forget about it. No. Promote. Let people know. Be proud of what you made.”

1 Artist

Irene Meniconi is a wonderfully talented watercolor and ink artist. Her subjects are animals, which are, as you might know, my favorite subject as well. I love her work.

I’ve been learning to paint with traditional watercolors (sharing my journey and lessons in my @salmanscribbles Instagram account), and recently began working through her Line & Color watercolor masterclass. I’m having a ton of fun with it—I’m so inspired by her unique style which marries the loose playfulness of watercolor with the detailed beauty of fine-liner ink.

Irene just released two more masterclasses, which you can view here. If you end up taking any of them, let me know! I’d love to work through them together and/or share notes.

You can see more of Irene’s artwork gallery, classes, and pieces for sale on her website: irenemeniconi.com, and follow her work on Instagram @irenemeniconi.