I hope this finds you well. If you're reading this, I likely asked you for your email. This is what I wanted it for.

No need for introductions, but here's some context; I'm no longer using instagram (how heroic). As a social replacement, I put together a newsletter. Mainly to keep in touch, which is increasingly difficult when you're striving to minimize screen time. I'm becoming a lazy texter and I'm terrible at making time for phone calls. Please forgive me if I haven't answered as of late. I've been busy making this. Hopefully you take something out of this. If not, please accept my deepest sympathies for wasting your time.

I think this will stay pretty unserious and will for suuure lack any substantial originality. For transparency, if you open up any edition of the New Yorker and flip to the "Goings-on" section, you'll be sure to see where the idea came from.

Please, please, I beg of you, email me back if you found anything I shared worthwhile. I'm hoping to stir up a little romance via email.

I've written out some brief guidelines for the newsletter and hope to follow them as closely as possible. Please only take this seriously if you find it funny.

• No ratings - No need to care so much about numbers.
• Long form - Viva la resistance. It's time to reclaim the attention span.
• No robots, nor algorithms - I vow to rely on my five senses, as God intended.
• More context - Here's to hyperlinks, brackets, and background checks.
• Being put on - I will try my very best to give credit where credit is due.
• Cheaper language - I can't afford to sound pretentious, let's get stupid.
• Less exclamation marks - I can't help it, I use them excessively and it's gross!

The style is going to be prone to some choppiness. I appreciate your patience. It's been awhile since I wrote anything worth reading, so I apologize if you find my writing to be a bit stiff, longwinded, or awful.

News I consumed

Hoping to spread the word of good journalism gospel. Here's a little bit of what I'm following right now. I think the following stories help paint an effective tableau of the current state of geo-politics.

Andrew Chang does a thorough job breaking down China's monopolization of rare earth metals in a couple About That videos: How China's oil strategy seeks to cut the U.S. out and How China won the rare earth race against the U.S.

In a similar vein, The Globe and Mail gives some more context to the current state of affairs with China and North America: We are on the cusp of a new world order. Canada must act decisively to shape it · What Carney hopes to gain from a Canadian reset with Beijing · Critical minerals, electricity top of agenda at G7 energy meeting

Digesting war coverage walks a thin red line of being informed and being desensitized. The guy who invented Oculus is now designing fully autonomous weapons of mass destruction — Is the U.S. Ready for the Next War?

Get a load of this — These New Chinese Ships Could Bring a D-Day-Style Invasion to Taiwan

Ever worked a serving job? Know someone who does? "No Tax on Tips" Is an Industry Plant

What Would Free Buses Look Like, Actually?

Something light: My week as a honey badger

Something niche-ish: How Mike Brodie Photographed America's Train Hopping Youth

I want to put you on to The Sprawl. Producing some of the best grassroots journalism in Calgary, their slogan is: Slow news for curious Calgarians. Here is an audio piece by editor-in-chief Jeremy Klaszus, investigating the bureaucratic aspects of getting the current deal for the new Calgary Flames arena.

A phenomenal essay by James Marriott from The Times: The dawn of the post-literate society. James put me on to Derek Thompson. He's got two pieces I recently enjoyed: Everything is Television & Is This the New 'Scariest Chart in the World'?

Music I'm listening to

As stated in the guidelines, algorithms will be avoided at all costs. I've started listening to radio much more frequently. If you have the means, give eastvillageradio a listen. Based out of New York, they provide a wide spectrum of shows, ranging from hour long sets of Ennio Morricone deep tracks, all the way to heavy reggae drum shows. I've been tuning in for just under a year now and I can confidently say every show has given me something enjoyable to listen to.

On a recent trip to Montreal I had the chance to see a local band by the name of Fionavair. Before the set I hadn't heard of them, but the lead singer is a friend of a friend. The bass player, as told to me mid-concert by a different friend, is "one of the best bass players in the city." They have a short but sweet amount of released music. Pine, a track off of their first EP, Gauntlet, is wickedly good.

Movies I'm watching

Please spend some time (if you can) browsing through Terrence Malick's filmography. Most of his movies are worthwhile, some are extremely jarring, but all are visually beautiful. He's got a Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque thriller, a couple of war films, a gritty love story (filmed in Lethbridge), and even a period piece set in 17th century America. A Hidden Life feels like an episode of Planet Earth set in Nazi occupied Austria.

During the filming of Days of Heaven, he supposedly resorted to filming most scenes during golden hour, meaning the crew had roughly 30 minutes to shoot scenes before the sun set. It almost caused a mutiny. It seems to be worth it though, the movie is breathtaking.

I plan on watching The Tree of Life. Send me an email if you want to watch this at my house next week.

Books I'm reading

I recently finished reading The Company by Stephen A. Brown. An ambitious look at the first three centuries of the Hudson's Bay Company and its impact on North America. For some context, I read very little non-fiction but felt that the untimely closure of the HBC made for a good excuse to learn more about the company's extended history. One of my favourite parts was a chapter breaking down what any given amount of beaver pelts could get you at the time. For instance, in the early days 12 pelts could get you a gun, one pelt for two pounds of tobacco, a single pelt for a brass kettle.

Fairly undecided on what I want to read next. Something shorter and digestible. I'm torn between Vineland (Pynchon), On the Road (Kerouac), or Sanctuary (Faulkner). Email me suggestions. Please.

Something new

A little while ago, I read an incredible profile on Grant Petersen, the founder of a small but mighty company called Rivendell, which makes beautiful and practical commuter bicycles. Reading all of this ultimately steered me down a steep trail into watching countless videos of guys modding old lugged steel bikes in their garages. I'm currently in negotiations with a gentleman on Facebook Marketplace, attempting to lowball him on a early-90's Bridgestone MB-1.

Something I made

After taking close to 500 photos of other people taking photos, I made a small photo book with 100 of my favourite photos of other people taking photos. Let me know if you would like a copy, and the next time I can afford to print a batch I will send you one.

Concluding remarks

If you made it this far, thank you. Was it too long? Would you like more? I can't stress how much I would enjoy hearing from you. It doesn't even have to be words. Email me pictures, articles, movies, recipes, songs, or anything really.

Email me!!!!! Please!!!!!

We did it.

Hey guysh. Here's the second one. How incredible.

I managed to completely disregard the formality of the last one and take an unhurried approach. It's a smidge shorter than the last. Not forgetting the guidelines I put in place, I'm going for a drier and more conversational tone than the last one. Let's see if that works.

Here's what I've been up to.

Trivia night

I hosted a trivia night back in December. It was Calgary themed. We served lasagna and Caesars, and I think it went well. People were smiling after, and also said "that was great" after the fact. So I can only hope they weren't lying.

I'll be hosting another trivia, it's on Thursday, March 12th. It's movie and Oscar themed (the Oscars are on the following Sunday). We are serving chicken wings.

Lake O'Hara in winter

Over the Christmas holidays I managed to get out to the mountains with my friend Chris. We skied into Lake O'hara, and stayed at the Elizabeth Parker hut. We had been lucky enough to spend a few nights at the hut this past June, but it was wildly different to see it in the winter.

The 11km approach was easy enough, very gradual elevation with a couple of steep hills near the end. A beautiful day for it. We made dinner, drank ales, and played some cards. We awoke to roughly 20cm of fresh snow, so Chris and I had to break a very heavy trail. The ski back to the car should've taken two and a half hours, but ended up taking close to four.

In a similar vein, I've got a handful of schemes for other outdoor pursuits this summer. Chris and I managed to secure seven days on the west coast trail at the end of August. We've also got a pretty big five day trip booked to Mount Assiniboine via Citadel Pass to help prep for the WCT. Plenty of walking to look forward to.

I hope to write a trail diary. It may read like, "Dear diary... I bought a water bottle lid that can be used as a bidet while camping. I can't wait to drink from it."

Food

Speaking of food. I received a very thoughtful Christmas gift from my girlfriend. A hand mixer. Naturally, we've been making plenty of soup, along with some other stuff. This soup recipe is the best one so far — Creamy White Bean Tomato Soup.

I've been leek crazy ever since my friend Marcello kindly passed along this incredible dish. Since I never wrote it down, here is the no-fear Shakespeare recipe:

• 1 Shallot — minced
• 3-4 large leeks — washed and chopped
• Good amount of mushrooms — sliced
• 3-4 mild sausages — cut casing and break into small bits
• 1 litre of beef or chicken stock
• As much Pecorino or Parmesan cheese as your heart desires
• Optional splash of cream to make her rich rich

After you sweat the shallot in some oil, throw the leek into the pan. Salt accordingly. Once they start to soften, pour some warm stock in — just enough that the leek is covered. Throw in mushroom and soften. Then the sausage next. Continue to add stock as it evaporates, always keeping the ingredients ever so slightly covered. After that, do as you please with pasta shape, cheese, cream, salt and pepper, yadda yadda.

I'm certain I explained this wrong. Marcello will almost certainly leave me a foul voice-note over Whatsapp calling me a bastard.

Kinda looks like shit, but it tastes incredible and hearty.

I'm heading to France in April for a short holiday. Looking forward to eating as many oysters and snails as possible. I'll do a food log for that trip, a pain au chocolat journal at the very least. The trip is also sentimental as I will be reuniting with my dear friends from university. Incroyable.

Ellie

Life updates can't all be joyous, unfortunately. A few weeks ago my family's dog, Ellie, passed away very unexpectedly due to some health complications. Devastating and also heartbreaking. It was a very sudden and painful goodbye. I've lost a dog before, but this one hurts inexplainably more.

I once witnessed her spook herself when she caught a mouse. When she double pawed it like a CPR dummy, the squeak made her recoil and run away in fear.

She was so sweet and precious. God bless her, I love her so much.

What I'm listening to

Primarily I've been surfing the globe on Radio Garden. I'm still pushing radio. A friend I made in Montreal put me on to this app/site, and it's insane. You can find any radio frequency around the world. I listen to Stanford's student radio show (KZSU 90.1 fm) quite often.

Outside of that, I've been listening and re-listening to a few debut albums. Around this time last year, my friend Ben introduced me to Cameron Winter's debut album — Heavy Metal. I didn't get it right away, I thought his voice was painfully coarse, but over the last year I can soundly say this was my most listened to album. My favorite is Cancer of the Skull, or maybe We're Thinking the Same Thing.

After learning that Cameron Winter took heavy influence from Cohen's debut album, and visiting Cohen's grave, I felt the need to give Songs of Leonard Cohen a more serious listen. You should too. I especially love Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye.

After re-listening to Cohen's breakout album, I moved on to giving Tom Waits's debut album, Closing Time, a listen. I've been a Tom Waits fan since I watched Down by Law. Songs like Closing Time and Midnight Lullaby make me wanna drink a strong drink with no ice.

I found some parallels between Waits, Cohen, and Cameron Winter, especially in their writing. Broadly speaking, all three are seemingly unique and earnest story tellers with borderline grotesque voices. Patent pending on a possible future essay topic.

What I'm watching

I made a google doc with a running list of movies I've watched so far this year. Please feel free to join the google doc, make a tab with your name and we can start a digital, cloud based movie blog.

I stopped using Letterboxd all together because I was getting a bit too carried away with logging what I was watching, and frankly putting too much thought into how many stars I'd give a film.

On a timely note, here are some great movies from a couple of Iranian filmmakers:

• A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night — Ana Lily Amirpour
• Taxi — Jafar Panahi
• It Was Just an Accident — Jafar Panahi

What I'm reading

Almost pulled a cornea, at least by my reading rate. Here is what I've read the past few months:

Satori in Paris, Jack Kerouac — My first Kerouac book, couldn't put it down. It moves quite fast. Incredible story where Mr. Kerouac attempts to trace his family lineage through France by travelling from town to town looking for birth records and headstones.

Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut — I crushed this in about a week. One of his more accessible books, more of a historical fiction set around WWII. It's about a fella who was working deep undercover in the SS for the Allies. His most tragic story, from what I've read of his so far.

Vineland, Thomas Pynchon — Picked this up after hearing PTA said One Battle After Another was loosely based on it. Seriously a difficult read. I actually had to go back and re-read the first 150 pages just to make sure I was certain what this guy was saying. It felt like Kill Bill humped The Parallax View and gave birth. Highly recommend!

On the Road, Jack Kerouac — Not much new to add to this book's discourse, apart from the fact that it exceeded the hype. Simply put, an addicting slice of life book about a guy who won't stop driving across America. I felt genuine sadness about the end of the book. The last portion, which takes place in Mexico, made me cry.

Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert — Similar to On the Road, I was sad to finish reading this. If you liked the first Dune, you will most certainly love this one. I would deem it to be almost a political thriller, lots of dramatic diplomacy and back-room dealings.

Naples 1944, Norman Lewis — If you like Anthony Bourdain or Hunter S. Thompson you could like this. Essentially a diary of a British security officer posted in Naples after the Allies had taken back southern Italy from the Nazis. It feels like a very detailed appendices for WWII, written in prose.

News I consumed

A mix of nice longer stuff I've read, mainly evergreen stories, along with a couple humorous ones:

How to think about journalism in a world of experts — A great perspective on what makes sound journalism.

Listening to Joe Rogan

The demise of Zhang Youxia hits different — A notable moment in Chinese military going-ons. Also has some fantastic photos of Chinese military generals shooting LMGs.

Why we forget lessons learned from collapsed bridges, burned towns and financial crises — Very timely as Calgary copes with infrastructure defects.

Thirteen Waters: Tasting Notes from a Sommelier — Super light-hearted article from a water sommelier. I thought it was satire until half way through.

Inside Uniqlo's Quest for Global Dominance — The journalist makes a great case for Uniqlo being the IKEA of the fashion world.

Watch as the rhythms of traffic create a mesmerising score — Cool video.

Guinea's bet on iron ore — For work, I had to ghost write an article for a mining magazine. Here's an article I found when researching the subject of critical minerals.