Issue #005 — And what is the use of a book…
Discover more from Bennett’s Five Links
Issue #005 — And what is the use of a book…
... without pictures or conversations?
Are you still working from home? Barely keeping in one piece? Hang in there - you’re not the only one - it might feel like everyone else has their shit together but remember you just see a tiny window into their lives. See below, for example.
Have you seen this excellent educational video on the coolness of wearing a mask by genuine dude, Paul Rudd?
It’s very hard to do these satirical-cool things well and I thought he nailed it!
I really enjoyed this New York Times dive into ‘The Home Edit’, which I wasn’t familiar with before reading the article. It’s essentially a brand riding in the wake of Marie Kondo’s tidying-up-magic, but in a more relatable way.
The Home Edit’s success would be singular were it not for the fact that this decade has already ushered in a home-organization brand with a Netflix show and best-selling book: Marie Kondo. When Kondo famously encouraged followers to shed parts of their lives that no longer “sparked joy,” she was essentially peddling a form of self-help. It was a promise laid bare even in the title of Kondo’s book: “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” The Home Edit, by contrast, isn’t trying to sell you an improved life — they’re selling you permission not to improve your life (at least outside of your closet). Highly stylized home-organization content is only half of the Home Edit’s output on social media. The other half is the founders’ quotidian ups and downs, which they document on Instagram Stories. These vignettes illustrate what the founders describe as their “low-bar lifestyle”: their contempt for working out, the trouble they have getting their children to sleep, their neuroses (Teplin has an exhaustively documented fear of battery acid). This has earned them such a dedicated audience that even supporting cast members, like Shearer’s mother, Roberta — an impossibly regal figure who routinely, to borrow internet parlance, “throws low-key shade” at her daughter — get stopped in airports by fans asking for selfies. On the brand’s website, alongside organization merchandise, they sell T-shirts with sayings such as “Surviving Not Thriving,” “Caffeine Until Cocktail Hour” and “Champagne Is Basically Sparkling Water.”
Instagram is Coming for Your Sock Drawer
This next link is a long one, but I loved every minute of it.
The short version is: most of us know by now not to post photos of our boarding passes to social media. Ex-Prime Minister Mr Tony Abbott learnt this lesson through 1-to-1 tutelage by an anonymous millennial hacker.
It’s a great read and if you have time I suggest you go through the whole thing.
At this point I was fairly sure I was looking at the extremely secret government-issued ID of the 28th Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, servant to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and I was kinda worried that I was somehow doing something wrong, but like, not enough to stop.
When you browse Instagram and find former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's passport number
(via @JamesCroft)
And a good news story to finish off.
Back in July of this year, seemingly cool-dude Cale Monteath posted on the City of South Perth Noticeboard about his lost cat, Kitsy. It was a heartbreaking call out for help to find Kitsy, who had gone missing after a recent storm. Whenever I see the ‘lost cat’ posters occasionally stapled to power poles I always get a little sad, because you just know that cat ain’t coming back. And Cale’s cry for help was so genuine - he clearly loved and missed his ‘little man’.
Cale posted again in August asking for information that could lead to the rescue of Kitsy - even offering a reward.
But he really broke my heart in September. Again, desperately begging for help to find his beloved Kitsy. He wrote:
KITSY IS STILL MISSING!!!
It's been about 2 months now that he disappeared. Here are a few more recent pics of him. He went missing from south Perth area on the 5th July. He is such an amazing little guy he's ultra friendly and how a huge fluffy tail like a fox. Also on his left ear at the top is a small rip or tear and that is the sure way I would know it's him. I will do anything to know where He is as this is breaking my heart.
Don’t worry - I said this was a good news story so you can probably see where this is heading. Yes, two weeks after Cale’s final plea and more than two months after the storm that scared him away, KITSY WAS FOUND!
Yes, a ginger cat with a tiny tear in the top of his left ear wandered into Hayley Tuaru’s backyard and she kindly asked the local community if anyone had lost a friendly cat. Someone saw her post and had the presence of mind to tag Cale, and voila - Kitsy made it home.
What a whirlwind ride this has been. I’m truly stunned — there’s no way I thought that cat was gonna make it back alive. I wonder what adventures Kitsy has to share about his time away from home.
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Bennett.