Smorgasbord! Links Roundup
Castles in the Sky #30
Castles in the Sky is a weekly dose of truth, beauty, and humor to combat intellectual loneliness and existential boredom.
In addition to this newsletter, I send out essays, memoirs, commentary, and fiction, all of which you can find at the archive.
Smorgasbord (n): A luncheon or supper buffet offering a variety of foods and dishes (such as hors d'oeuvres, hot and cold meats, smoked and pickled fish, cheeses, salads, and relishes).
When I was a kid, my mom used to do this funny thing every once in a while. On days when neither she nor my Dad felt like cooking anything, and it wasn’t a good time to go out to eat, she would rile up my sister and me with a “smorgasbord!”
My Mom would lay out fifteen or twenty different “small plates” on our dining room table. There would be a fruit plate, tea sandwiches, and some mostly empty to-go boxes. Smorgasbord was an event. Instead of enchiladas or lasagna or some other one-dish dinner, my Mom would take some time to put out a dozen or so options, and my sister and I had the freedom to eat as much or as little of everything as we wanted.
As we got older, we realized that this was my Mom’s way of cleaning the leftovers out of the fridge. But it always felt special to us because of the care my Mom took in putting it out and how fun she made it for us.
For a while, I’ve wanted to offer a smorgasbord issue of Castles in the Sky. As I’m writing, there are a lot of videos, articles, and ideas I bookmark to write about, but they linger for a long time and I can never figure out how to integrate them into an essay or story. So what I’ve done here is taken these things and served them up individually for you to enjoy.
What follows are ten things in different formats, lengths, and vibes that I think contain the truth, beauty, and humor needed to combat intellectual loneliness and existential boredom. I have organized them in order of how long they’d take to consume, from shortest to longest. The first is a TikTok video that lasts less than a minute, and the last—my favorite—is a great long-form essay that will take most of an hour to finish by someone I think is one of America’s greatest living writers.
Let me know what you think and, as my mom used to say, bon appetit!
Original Stayin Alive dance - Aubry Fisher x Vik
Format — Video (Originally from TikTok)
Length — 37 Seconds
Why I Included This — (Appetizers come first—start with something light.)
There are a lot of people who denigrate TikTok and TikTokers by dismissing it as just “videos of people dancing.” I get it. I was once similarly skeptical of the vapidity of watching people dance for 45 seconds at a time. Then I came across this short video of two guys dancing to Stayin Alive by the BeeGees and I got it.
I’m not a dance aficionado, and I don’t know much about TikTok effects, but there is something particularly magnetic about this video that I can’t put my finger on—most of all it seems like these guys are having a blast. And it made me think that, of all the things people could be spending time watching online, videos of people having a blast dancing are a pretty good way to fill your feed.
THE BARBER RUINED MY HAIR
Format — Video (YouTube)
Length — 2 Minutes 59 Seconds
Why I Included This — You know sometimes when you’re sitting around with friends, and someone shows a YouTube video, and it turns into you all taking turns pulling up your favorite YouTube videos to show each other? This is my go-to video for that situation.
I don’t know who this guy is or what his deal is, and I don’t remember how I found this video, but it is one of my favorite videos on the internet. It is a masterclass in storytelling and keeping high energy. (Warning: in the end credits, as part of another segment, he reads a racial slur in a comment he received.)
The Egg
Format — Short Story
Length — About 1,000 words or 4 minutes of Reading
Why I Included This — This is a short story by Andy Weir, the author of The Martian, among other things. I’m including it here because it’s good and it’s so thought-provoking. It’s a short story that—in less than five minutes—presents a compelling and comprehensive theory of life, death, meaning, the afterlife, and the universe. And it does so with every little explanation. Read it here.
Inside Lenny Kravitz's Brazilian Farm Compound | Open Door | Architectural Digest
Length — 6 Minutes 7 Seconds
Format — Video (YouTube)
Why I Included This — Look, there’s two things I am sure about. First, I don’t have any “guilty pleasures.” When I like something, I like it. Second, I love my life—I don’t often daydream about being someone else or how fun it would be to have someone else’s life.
That being said, the closest thing I have to a guilty pleasure—something I like despite the fact I think it’s silly—is the Open Door series on the Architectural Digest YouTube channel. They follow celebrities around where they live. I can’t get enough of it. It’s like MTV Cribs but a little classier.
The best one I have seen is Lenny Kravitz’s Brazilian Farm Compound. It is exactly as cool as it sounds. Lenny Kravitz, the rockstar, has a massive estate in Brazil that serves as an artist’s retreat and working organic farm. On the one hand, he is super chill, but on the other hand, the estate is just so over the top.
A lot of times when I watch the Open Door videos, I wonder, “why did they do it that way” or “it would be better if they did this.” But man, Lenny Kravitz knows how to live. I have no notes on this one. (Maybe I’d have a bigger personal library.) And I love my life, but based on this video, if I had to be anyone but me, Lenny Kravitz is near the top of the list.
Six Recent Studies Show an Unexpected Increase in Classical Music Listening by Ted Gioia
Length — About 1600 words or 7 minutes of Reading (not counting the time you spend clicking on the links)
Format — Article (Substack)
Why I Included This — I love Ted Gioia's writing in general, but he does two things exceedingly well. One is intense deep dives, but the other is a kind of lighter musing, where he writes about something in an exploratory way and sprinkles tons of other digressions and allusions throughout. This is the latter.
When I read this, I came for the message on consumption, music, centralization, and generational change, but I stayed for the dozen or so amazing links to different musical performances he gave throughout the article. Click the link above or read the essay here.
Marc Rebillet Creates Music Live with Special Guest Rico Love | Sway’s Universe
Length — 20 Minutes Total, but the link to the good part starts at 8 Minutes 41 Seconds and lasts about 5 Minutes.
Format — Video (YouTube)
Why I Included This — Sway is a former MTV host and now host one of hip hop’s most influential radio shows, Sway in the Morning. He frequently has singers and rappers on as guests and it’s customary that they show their talent off by freestyling—meaning they improvise songs or raps on the go. If you like rap. R&B, or improvisation in general, binging videos of people freestyling on Sway in the Morning is a great way to pass an afternoon. I like them all, but Marc Rebillet’s is my favorite.
When this was filmed, Rebillet was an ascendant YouTube star famous for long music sets he would improvise himself in his bedroom using only a looping machine. The mixes were raucous, charismatic, funny, and pretty sexually charged. He brought that energy here to Sway in the Morning. The link above starts in the middle of the video, just before Rebillet starts his set.
The only context you need to understand the video is that the first part of it is Rebillet being interviewed by Sway, and winning over everyone in the studio with his overwhelming goofy charisma. When the set starts, the equipment he’s using is not totally functional, and he’s making it all up on the fly. Enjoy!
The Revenge of Wen Jiabao
Length — 3,300 Words (About 14 Minutes of Reading)
Format — Article
Why I Included It — I was living in China when this story came out. I was teaching fourteen-year-olds how to think and write like American English speakers. The Supreme Leader of China at the time was a guy named Hu Jintao, who had an unassuming presence compared to current leader Xi Jinping—so much so that some of my students would jokingly call him (in Chinese) ”Grandma Hu.”
There was one politician who was larger than life. He was the only regional politician I knew of. His name was Bo Xilai, and he was famous for two things: presiding over Chongqing, an economic miracle in interior China, and bringing back “red songs,” extravagant CCP propaganda music and marches. Many saw Bo as a power player who was ascending to be one of the next big leaders, if not the next big leader.
At the time, in China, there were also still a ton of newsstands. On almost every corner, there would be a little hut selling dozens of different newspapers and magazines. One Monday on the way to work, I noticed Bo Xilai’s face on damn near every single paper at three different newsstands I passed. He had been arrested. Overnight he went from being a superstar to an “unperson,” excommunicated and out of power. Even my notoriously tight-lipped students remarked on it in class that day.
I was curious as to why, and that’s why I was so thrilled when Foreign Policy published this story. It’s about the downfall of Bo Xilai: a story of hubris, intra-party intrigue, intergenerational rivalries, and revenge. Read it here.
Running 43km along a hidden railway line
Length — 23 Minutes 57 Seconds
Format — Video (YouTube)
Why I Included It — I don’t know why I watched this at first, and it’s hard to explain the appeal here. This sense of, “Why am I doing this? What’s this all about?” is even a huge part of the video, which comes from one of my favorite YouTubers, Beau Miles, an Australian professor. He is a big fan of do-it-yourself and being outdoors.
The documentary is about an old rail line that runs through the part of Australia he is from, and Beau’s decision to one day run all the way along it to see what’s there. It’s at times funny, charming, and awe-inspiring. I can’t watch it without wanting to go for a run and look at my neighborhood in new ways.
BOOKSTORES: How to Read More in the Golden Age of Content
Length — 37 Minutes 50 Seconds
Format — Video (YouTube)
Why I Included This — I share Max Joseph’s love of new bookstores, although I arguably love used bookstores more. I’m also a big fan of his documentary work (and if you’ve been subscribed for a while you might remember me writing about his documentary on LCD Soundsystem).
This documentary about reading more books is so good. It’s definitely edited in a YouTube-friendly way because it’s almost forty minutes long but it flies by. It chronicles Max’s journey to figure out how he might read more and to find some of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. If you like to read, wish you had more time to read, or enjoy beautiful bookstores, you’ll get a kick out of this.
Why You Should Care About Cricket by Wright Thompson
Length — About 10,000 Words (or 42 Minutes of Reading)
Format — Article
Why I Included This — If I had organized things here in order of which was my favorite, this would have been first.
I think that Wright Thompson is among the greatest living writers in America. Unfortunately, not many readers I talk to know of him because he is a sports writer. This should change.
This is the first article of his I read, which he wrote in 2011. After reading it, I immediately wrote him an email that said something like, “writing something like this is why I want to be a writer.” This story is a masterpiece. The overarching theme is that ESPN pays an embedded sports journalist born and raised in Mississippi to travel with the biggest cricket star on the planet—who may also be the best cricket player of all time.
Read the story here (better on desktop than mobile due to 2011 formatting).
Crowd Work
In standup comedy, crowd work is when the comic speaks directly with the audience. I want to hear from you! Heckles and cheers go here.
Which of these did you like the most? What would be in your content smorgasbord?
The bookstore video was my fav. Thank you for including it in the smorgasbord!!
Charlie I loved this Smorgasbord so much! I actually meant to comment sooner but ended up watching a lot of the content you shared and didn't make it to the bottom. I'm a big fan of the gradual increase in watch time, made it feel less daunting. Also inspired to try and read for half an hour a day so I can start building up to my 1000 books. The story about your mom made me smile too, it's been fun to learn more about her with your different essays.