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Reading magazines on libby

Libby is and forever will be THAT GIRL and I recently discovered you can subscribe to basically any magazine via the newsstand feature. I am really enjoying flipping through NYmag and trashy celeb mags like Us Weekly on my phone—it feels like all the guilty pleasure of scrolling though social media but infinitely more fun and less draining. I also like reading food mags and the New Yorker!

@jbsparkle

Feb 4, 2025

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reading old new yorker articles from the archive

I really like reading the New Yorker and have done so for about a decade. I no longer live in New York but I still read the Tables For Two section excitedly first thing every week and try to get through the majority of the articles. However, there are sooooo many more in the backlogs and the iPhone app is actually quite optimized with previous published pieces so I like to sift through the internet to see what people recommend from the past, and also use their Sunday Archive emails to delve into old writings. It's cool to see people like J.D. Salinger or Truman Capote writing articles for them back in the day. One I recently loved was the original publishing of the Brokeback Mountain short story in the fiction section. As a Wyoming native I found the descriptions of the landscape and energy to be so richly written.

@chawksss

Sep 24, 2024

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Subscribe to magazines

Spending the💰guilts me into getting through them. It’s nice to get something fun in the mail and support writers. I subscribe to The Baffler and The Drift and The New York Review of Books refuses to stop coming to my house. Would love to learn what other folks are subscribing to but I will say that I personally think the New Yorker allows articles to go on for too long.

@zetus_lupetus

Oct 21, 2024

Top Recs from @salad_valet

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Breaking free from spotify

i canceled my Spotify account over the summer and have spent the last few months rebuilding my digital music library on a refurbished iPod Touch. reading critiques of the app (and it’s enshittification), i realized i wasn’t even sure of my own musical tastes and preferences. i had stopped picking for myself, stopped seeking out new music, ceasing to know how to choose what i wanted or articulate what i like. breaking free from the algorithm has been such a joy! i’m borrowing gobs of music from the library, rebuilding my old playlists, and consuming more music than i have in years. and better yet, my data isn’t being tracked by Spotify and i own what’s in my personal library. further, my receptors are more open when i’m out in the world exposed to music, searching for recommendations in an organic way.

@salad_valet

Jan 16, 2025

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The anti-capitalist nature of pi.fyi

i’ve been trying to articulate why i enjoy this space so much. yes, the UX is reminiscent of Tumblr and the early days of the internet. and there’s genuine sincerity and vulnerability on here that makes it feel really cozy and real, which i haven’t felt online in at least a decade. but i think what’s undergirding my love of this space is how anti-capitalist it feels. most of the recs everyone shares are vibe-checks, quality of life shifts, meditations and offers, music and movies, just plain good art. i don’t feel compelled to buy anything when i come here. i feel excited and pumped to be a cheerleader, find connection, find common ground. and FWIW the recs i’ve shared that have gotten the most traction are my suggestions for leading a less capitalistic / consumerist life (quitting Amazon, getting off of Spotify, building community to take care of you and your things). all of this is to say, i love it here and i love you guys.

@salad_valet

Feb 7, 2025

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Quitting amazon

hear me out—this one might feel impossible, but i quit purchasing items on Amazon in 2018 and cancelled my GoodReads account shortly after. i did some serious reflection and realized i’d become super reliant upon, and frankly, quite used to the instant gratification of purchasing something and knowing i’d have it within a day. that’s not normal. the labor practices, economics, and environmental impacts of getting what you want from the internet delivered quickly and right to your door are skewed. i was filling a void in myself with mindless purchases. i’m aware that they service a huge swath of the internet (Amazon Web Services), own Whole Foods and Abe Books, and will likely take over more businesses we like and rely on. weaning off and avoiding entirely is very very hard, but it can also be a measured decision. that said, i know that it is a privilege to abstain from Amazon. i am able bodied, i don’t have kids, i have access to a car, i live in an urban environment with access to a lot of stuff at my fingertips. but making the choice to break out of the Amazon loop has ultimately been better for my pocketbook and better for my relationship to these mega-tech-companies that have their fingers in everything. in contrast, i’m becoming more interested in alternate economies, like bartering and sharing. i love the idea of having commonly shared tools and items (tool libraries are very cool). we don’t need to own it all, we have each other. interested in exploring more? the zine pictured below is a great start, and summarizes a much larger book by the same author on how to resist the leviathan that is Amazon.

@salad_valet

Jan 22, 2025