March 2024
This newsletter is a collection of things I have found in the last month that I enjoyed, found interesting, or simply wanted to share.
You can follow me more closely at my personal website or if you or someone you know is looking to buy or sell a home, you can point them to my real estate website.
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs Perform “Fast Car” at the Grammys
Admittedly, this was the first time I heard this song and I can’t recall ever watching a more captivating performance. Champan and Combs borrow all the air available to anyone watching and replace it with a giant lump in their throat.
Here are some of my favorite parts:
- Chapman’s smirk during the intro and her smile breaking through
- Chapman’s watery eyes and her eyebrows furrowing vulnerably
- Oh my god, her voice
- Oh damn, his voice
- Combs’ ‘let’s do it’ look at Champan before the chorus
- Combs’ ‘ah, shucks’ glance away after the first chorus
- Chapman and Combs demonstrative mutual admiration throughout
- Combs joining for the pick-up into the final chorus
- I can’t decide if I think this is a for climactic effect, if he just couldn’t help himself, or if he got lost in the moment. Hopefully all three.
- The cutaway to Jelly Roll and Michael Trotter Jr. having church.
Tracy Chapman Performs “Fast Car” at Wembley in 1988
As the story goes, Chapman had performed earlier in the day. Stevie Wonder, who was a surprise guest, was scheduled to go on and while heading to the stage it was discovered that he did not have the accompanying hard drive containing his synthesized music. Regretfully, without that, he was unable to perform his set at that time (he was able to sort out a solution and performed later). Organizers scrambled to a solution. Chapman went on and performed “Fast Car”.
Up until then, Champan had sold around 250,000 albums. The two weeks following her Wembley performance, she had sold over 2 million.
Population: 1
Eiler’s life as the only resident of a ghost town is truly singular. Each year, she hangs up a notice in Monowi’s only business (her bar) advertising mayoral elections, and then votes for herself. She’s required to produce a municipal road plan every year to secure state funding, and then raises about $500 worth of taxes from herself annually to keep the town’s three lampposts flickering and its water flowing.
“When I apply to the state for my liquor and tobacco licenses each year, they send them to the secretary of the village, which is me,” she explained. “So, I get them as the secretary, sign them as the clerk and give them to myself as the bar owner.”
She also keeps track of the list of nearby vacant residential lots, in case anybody wants to move into one of the decaying buildings and double the town’s population.
Links
- 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
- Our Rodent Selfies, Ourselves
- M. Night Shyamalan’s budget for “The Woods”
- FAA Aviation Maps
- Can “Doom” run on a cell?
- Why Legal Immigration is Impossible for Nearly Everyone
- iFixit’s Apple Vision Pro Teardown
- Jimi Hendrix Stories Told on the Stern Show
- Unified Theory of Fucks
- “It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?"
- A hot wing’s trip through your body
- Are Capybaras fish?
- A compass that points to the center of the galaxy
- How to get a sourdough starter from 1847
- Things Unexpectedly Named After People
- The Definitive Ranking of the Players From the ‘Mighty Ducks’ Franchise
- A single year on Pluto is longer than the whole history of the US
- Meet Heisler, TV’s Favorite Beer That Doesn’t Even Exist
Sign Off
Do not hesitate to reply to this months email to share links, wisdom, or thoughts.
Thanks for reading. Have a great month,
Clay
How kind of you to make your way down here.
A bit about me: I can be interested in anything, for better or worse. I love photography, travel, golf, and baseball. My latest pursuit is learning the guitar. I write a rad newsletter that I publish monthly.