This is discouraging.
Why that hotly-tipped band you love might not be touring this year
Rising Canadian prog duo Crown Lands won
flip.it
@Renee
I write about baseball — mostly the Colorado Rockies. (Fandom is weird.) In addition, I’m a professor of English and a lifelong reader always looking for the next great story.
rockiespitch.comHas favorites — 14 sources in 90 days
Also a writer — 1 original piece this quarter
This is discouraging.
Why that hotly-tipped band you love might not be touring this year
Rising Canadian prog duo Crown Lands won
flip.it
This one made me think.
Our Longing for Inconvenience
People are pining for old technologies—CD players, VCRs, Walkmans. What’s behind our longing for inconvenience?
newyorker.com
Finally, some good news!
Solar will be largest power generator in "much changed" world by 2032, but battery storage is the big mover
BNEF's latest annual New Energy Outlook details a "much changed" global market, spurred by energy security and huge uptake of cheap solar and batteries.
reneweconomy.com.au
This one’s from me. I wrote about the Rockies purple home run coat.
Tuesday Rockpile: The Rockies and the amazing purple-colored home run coat
Colorado Rockies news and links for Tuesday, May 26, 2026
purplerow.com
Joey Votto is the best.
Joey Votto’s post-retirement life: Sushi chef, yoga instructor, world traveler
Votto has traveled extensively since retiring in 2024, and while he's embraced new experiences, he still has plenty to say about baseball.
nytimes.com
Joshua Rothman on being “ordinary.”
Why Is It So Hard to Be Ordinary?
We’ve been trained to strive for greatness at all times. Is there a positive case for being ordinary?
newyorker.com
An easier way to begin a garden.
Grab Some Seeds. Throw Them at the Soil. You’re a Gardener Now.
Welcome to chaos gardening, a laid-back way to turn a patch of ground into a riot of color.
nytimes.com
Sean Trende writes about his son.
realclearpolitics.com
Paul Bloom connects selling a book to *Moneyball*.
Moneyball for book publishers and Substack writers
Why it will never work
smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net
The taco’s [sic] joke among Rockies fans is long-running. Ben Clemens has missed that layer to it. Still, lots of good stuff here.
Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week, May 22
High-scoring games, inside-the-park homers, and even some crafty veterans.
blogs.fangraphs.com
Some flash nonfiction for your Saturday.
Somewhere on a city street | Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction
three pink roses sit out on a peeling window sill. No bigger than the tip of my thumb, they’re tucked in tiny thimbles of water. It’s a day when we walk back slowly from the community center, late summer heat, a strange, sticky silence on the streets. It starts to rain, not quite drops, but the air’s so humid something has to fall. My little sobrina—who’s not really, but she calls me tiá because, she says, “estás aqui”—sniffs the petals, just at her eye level. She touches each one with curious 4
brevitymag.com
Jessica Winter reviews the receipts Belle Burden alludes to in *Strangers*.
What’s Missing from Belle Burden’s Best-Selling Memoir, “Strangers”
Belle Burden’s “Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage” tells the story of her divorce and resulting financial imperilment. A review of court documents complicates her narrative.
newyorker.com
Always read Howard Bryant.
The NAACP’s boycott call is a wake-up moment for the American Black athlete | Howard Bryant
In a country where their rights are being attacked from all sides, it’s time for Black college athletes to utilize their power
theguardian.com
James Poniewozik’s review of the final Stephen Colbert *Late Show*. Gift link.
Stephen Colbert’s Last Show: Laughing Well Is the Best Revenge
The “Late Show” cancellation was a disappointment. But a surreally lovely final episode turned it into a cancellebration.
nytimes.com
The growing localization of digital technology.
The EU Is Going Through a Trump-Fueled Breakup With Big Tech
France is already moving on from Zoom and Microsoft Teams in favor of homegrown alternatives. Other countries are quickly following suit.
wired.com
For those of you who enjoy vinyl.
My Mother-in-Law’s Records
My current vinyl collection comprises 52 albums that belonged to my late mother-in-law and most of it sucks. “Sucks” is too harsh. It includes a smattering of classical and opera, a few out-and-out duds (Andy Williams), and quite a bit of Broadway, a genre I love, although not as indiscriminately as my mother-in-law. (L’il Abner? WTF, Dorothy?) I don’t own a turntable, but in late 2020 my ex-husband decided these records should reside with me and so they reside with me. I loved my mother-in-law
ihavethatonvinyl.com
A review of Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s memoir.
A Searing Memoir of Being Raised by Radicals on the Run
Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s parents were leaders of the Weather Underground. His new book traces how their revolutionary ideals collided with their family life.
nytimes.com
The author discusses popular creativity books with a focus on writing.
Why the Best Writing Advice Is Often the Weirdest
Writers are fed a bevy of mantras—“show don’t tell,” “kill your darlings”—which provide the security that there are rules, but little else. A new book by Lucy Ives offers a more expansive view of writing advice.
newyorker.com
The story of what happened to an attempt to make tax filing easier and much cheaper. Gift link
Free, Easy, Dead: The Difficult Birth And Predictable Death Of IRS Direct File | Defector
Like the universe itself, the United States tax code is ever-expanding, and no one can claim to know its exact size. There are statutes enacted by Congress; implementing regulations issued by the Treasury Department; rules from the Internal Revenue Service explaining how other rules apply to specific circumstances; and a patchwork of court decisions that…
defector.com
I’ll inject some sports into the conversation. My Purple Row colleague Skyler Timmins wrote this one, and I think it speaks to the tedium of rebuilding pretty much anything, not just a sports franchise. (I also think there is too little understanding that building things takes time. AI will exacerbate this problem, I fear.)
Wednesday Rockpile: The Beautiful, Blessed Boredom of the 2026 Colorado Rockies
Colorado Rockies news and links for Wednesday, May 20, 2026
purplerow.com
My first Seabird post. I thought I’d start with a classic that I used in a composition course last year. Even though the math has changed, it holds up, I think.
eleanorfarnsworth.com