sari
David Mamet Memo to "The Unit" Writing Staff
David Mamet's memo provides guidelines for the writing staff of the TV show "The Unit" regarding the importance of drama, storytelling, and creating engaging scenes that advance the plot.
by David Mamet
1 highlight
reading, watching & listening to and memos
great writing style. ALL CAPS. shouting on the page.
- I have thousands of photos of my children but few that I’ve set aside to revisit. I have records of virtually every text I’ve sent since I was in college but no idea how to find the ones that meant something. I spent years blasting my thoughts to millions of people on X and Facebook even as I fell behind on correspondence with dear friends. I have ... See more
from Happy 20th Anniversary, Gmail. I’m Sorry I’m Leaving You. by Ezra Klein
Trail Magic
reading, watching & listening to
What I quickly realized is how many yellow blazers there are in the world and that at many times in my life, I too have been a yellow blazer—opting for easier but less authentic and less interesting routes. The podcast is part of a portfolio of things that I put in place in my life to try to avoid being a yellow blazer, to instead push myself to be more like a blue blazer, exploring anywhere I can.
- the ideal of limitlessness consumption serves the modern economy quite well, but it does not serve the person well at all.2 This ideal imparts to us all a spirit of scarcity that darkens our experience: not enough time, not enough attention, not enough capacity to care. But upon what does this spirit feed? It feeds, in part, on the temptation to li... See more
from The Art of Living by L. M. Sacasas
This reminds me of what Craig Mod calls ‘having clear edges’
Edges ground us. Without clear edges we don’t feel like we’re in control.
- Being a founder requires constant calibration between arrogance and humility, optimism and pessimism. You need the arrogance to believe that you have something important to say, but the humility to know most people won’t care. You need the optimism to convince yourself and others (employees, investors, customers) to believe in you. But you need pes... See more
from Things I'm thinking about by sari azout
MWRC Annual Findings V.01_compressed
Annual findings from the Mouthwash Research Center, covering topics such as artificial intelligence, sustainability, and the intersection of convenience and human behavior.
- Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four. If I know that I am going to be interrupted, I can’t concentrate, and if I suspect that I mig... See more
from Neal Stephenson - Why I Am a Bad Correspondent by Neal Stephenson
Reconciling Opposites Jul 02
Reconciling opposites in various aspects of life, such as freedom-order, individual-society, and rationality-sentiment, is explored through various perspectives and philosophical ideas.
both are true and reading, watching & listening to
a beautiful doc with compilations from Lorenzo Servitije, the founder of Grupo Bimbo (and one of the richest men in Mexico) shared by a newsletter reader in response to the “both are true” issue.
I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am.
- Charles Horton Cooleyfrom i am who i think you think i am by botharetrue.substack.com
- I suspect we humans do better with constraints; the Internet stripped away the constraint of physical distribution, and now AI is removing the constraint of needing to actually produce content. That this is spoiling the Internet is perhaps the best hope for finding our way back to what is real. Let the virtual world be one of customized content for... See more
from Regretful Accelerationism by Ben Thompson