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5 Quick Things

5 Quick Things #246 🍋

walking everywhere, reading in the nooks, summery delights, & Plato's cave

Tsh Oxenreider

Jul 8, 2022

Hello!

I hope you’ve had a good week. I’ve got a very full Friday, starting in about 30 minutes and lasting more or less until dinnertime, mostly regarding an online conference about classical education I’m participating in. It should be great!

Also, if you’re a Commonplace subscriber (and thank you!), I’d love you to join this week’s conversation about what’s on your current Good List. Y’all have such good stuff to share.

Alrighty! Let’s get right to the links.

*Still Life with Bowl of Citrons* (late 1640s), by Giovanna Garzoni

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. 🎧 New episode of A Drink With a Friend! 🎧 It's good to remember the good things in life, especially when the news is heavy. And since art has a season, in this chat Seth and I share our summery music, movies, TV shows, and books we’re into right now — because good art tells good stories, even when they're lighthearted. Also: it's time for our annual summer break! We’ll return with new episodes sometime mid-August.
2. Gracy Olmstead’s work echoes so much of my sentiment about hyper-locality, really living where you live, and why place matters in a time when so much is done online. Her latest piece on her family’s year without a car (with kids) hit on these ideas some more: “Walking teaches a child patience. Let’s be honest—it teaches adults patience! We’ve all grown accustomed to instant gratification when it comes to transportation.”
3. Finding time to read while parenting can be a monumental task, especially when you’ve got littles. This new dad has some good ideas.
4. Spencer Klavan is a really smart dude, and his show Young Heretics often gives me a lot to think about. I liked this recent episode where he connects the dots between Plato’s allegory of the cave and Zuckerberg’s Metaverse (here’s just the audio).
5. And finally, speaking of walking everywhere (see #2), this was both inspiring and a delight.

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry (listening to the audio version this go-round… super good)

Quotable 💬

“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s a day you’ve had everything to do and you’ve done it.”

— Margaret Thatcher #

Where would you most want to visit? 🤔

There was a method to my madness in asking last week’s poll question… I’ll let you know what that is soon! No matter, though, the results are interesting and confirmed an idea I’ve got. (Poor Turkey is there with less than a percentage; I guess the graph creator doesn’t warrant it worth a label there.)

Find this week’s poll here.

Quick Links 🔗

Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔

Who are you grateful for? How could you let them know this weekend?

Have a good one,

Tsh

p.s. A bunch of awesome things.