Grokkist Press
Reading Room
Snackables
Things we found elsewhere and pass on: a film, a tool, an essay, a corner of the old internet. A few lines on why, then off you go. New ones join the shelf as we find them, newest first.
19 Aug 2022
A brief, entertaining adventure into how swear words gain and lose their offensive qualities over time. Many words we consider crude today were once part of everyday conversation, and what counts as obscene has morphed over the centuries from the blasphemous to the scatological.
Read the note ↗19 Aug 2022
Charles Cornell is the very embodiment of 'lighting up' when you talk about the thing you love. Here he breaks down what's going on thematically in Michael Giacchino's score for Ratatouille — a masterclass in how music tells a story underneath the story.
Read the note ↗3 Aug 2022
Omozoc makes soothing stop-motion videos of beautiful hand-crafted creations. One 72-second woodworking video is stitched together from 791 undoctored photos — hypnotic and lovingly made.
Read the note ↗3 Aug 2022
If you enjoy short, well-researched and sometimes witty explanations of obscure facts and trivia, Half as Interesting is a YouTube channel worth adding to your rotation — obsessive deep dives into things you'd never thought to wonder about.
Read the note ↗3 Aug 2022
Tom Critchlow's top-notch five-part series on the theatre of office work, and what improv acting can teach us about 'performing' modern knowledge work. An absolute must-read for indie consultants in particular.
Read the note ↗3 Aug 2022
When human grudges get architectural: feuding brothers, thwarted lovers and a lot of deliberately spoiled views. An entertaining assortment of our smallest human pettiness made manifest in bricks and mortar.
Read the note ↗13 Jul 2022
An Instagram account where a dad turns his kids' drawings into surrealist photography — the results are delightful and deeply unsettling in equal measure.
Read the note ↗13 Jul 2022
Cult Tennis is a series of mini-documentaries about weird and interesting corners of the tennis world. This one is about a real guy who faked the existence of his entire professional career, and exactly how he pulled it off. In other news, it might be time to re-watch Catch Me If You Can.
Read the note ↗13 Jul 2022
A misfit achieves the highest honour in mathematics. School didn't suit June Huh and he avoided maths entirely — until a chance encounter in his sixth year of college. Particularly notable for its insights into his thinking process, and his view that self-discipline and willpower are overr
Read the note ↗13 Jul 2022
A panel of entertaining professional musicians deconstructs the live and recorded versions of Silk Sonic songs to work out what makes them such a vibe. (An Evening With Silk Sonic was hands-down my favourite record of its year.)
Read the note ↗29 Jun 2022
Urban photographer Roman Robroek takes photos of decay where once there was luxury, and stillness in places that once burst with life — reflections on transience and changing times, like an abandoned five-storey Art Nouveau palace in Italy.
Read the note ↗29 Jun 2022
earth.fm is an interactive world map of natural soundscapes — press a spot on the globe and drop into a real recording made there. The embed is the uncanny song of the Albert's lyrebird, an Australian bird that mimics whole forests; wander on to a seagoing albatross, or a thunderstorm in s
Read the note ↗