VFD Member's Links #1
The first and only free-to-access Member's links.
Welcome to VFD Member’s Links #1. This is the first, and only, free edition. Starting next week, this email will be for paid members only. Want to join? Get 50% off your membership fee (forever!). Deal ends October 31.
This week I have been mostly thinking about gambling. I haven’t been doing it, but I have been seeing it. Australian sports just rifled through its grand final weekends and end-of-season festivities, and there’s no clearer indication of how symbiotic gambling has become with every sport in this country – and with culture in general – than the 15 second ad breaks at every pause, throttling the audience with special opportunities to make big money.
Now, it looks like the rest of the world is catching up. At least in a legal, by-the-book sense. What can you do? Play ball or get out.
Onto the links:
Rod McKuen Was the Bestselling Poet in American History. What Happened?
He sold 60 million books and 100 million records. Why was he forgotten?
Please Stop Making Hot Actors Play Normal People
Every single actor in The Crown is hotter than their real life counterpart by a factor of 50. All this does is create a functionally glossy world of smiling faces.
ESPN Nears Large New Partnership With DraftKings
Media companies are looking for ways to cash in as more U.S. states legalize sports betting. Want an idea of how this ends? Check out Australia.
There’s no better time to witness the drama of baseball’s decline—and perhaps the spectre of its renewal—than October. An upsettingly good read on baseball and boredom in sports.
Just east of Yosemite National Park, a bicyclist was pushing through a 100-mile road race last month when the unthinkable happened. The 51-year-old rider ran, literally, into one of the biggest quandaries of the American West: wild horses.
“I’ve been running a consultancy-based business for years, and I know that there are an alarming amount of people who want to be sold ideas that confirm their biases rather than do the thing they want to do.”
Allegra Goes To New York Comic Con
“I found myself wondering if Netflix execs had, at some point, slid some notes across reading, Make this as different from Comic-Con as possible — after all, we have to promote all our shows there. Including this one”.
How many more pastel-coloured drinks can the beverage aisle handle?
Ironically, the difficult economics of newsletters, along with the declining economy scotching unprofitable side projects, is helping clear the field.
They are you after a couple of bad breaks
He was a teacher. He has a master's degree in English, and he was having a good time talking to me about novels that I should read. He has late stage cancer, and he lost his apartment because he sought care and was unconscious for three weeks, and doesn't have a family that's able to support him, because they're also in dire straits. So he's out here in the park, you know, and sadly, all I can do for him is give him a tent and a sleeping bag and food and water and keep him alive for another day. While our society fails him.
Bonus! This week’s VFD Member Playlist
Don’t shuffle, unless you want to.
عمل مساعدة اليمن بصنعاء