ELSM - Solomon, Shroom Banking, and the Sepia neighbor to our South

Coping with Sunday scaries? This week’s Easy Like Sunday Morning is free for freedom week, so get into what you’ve been missing, and subscribe if you want more of it! We’ve got the Jewish financier who saved the American Revolution, a Fool’s Hope from Lord of the Rings, fascinating stories about fungal banking and Mexican politics, plus a wild narrative about how one’s tastes change during transition. And if you still need to be distracted, here is a thread of Kamala Harris being severely out of pocket. It gives us hope!

The Broker Who Saved America (Reformed Broker) Haym Solomon was born to a Sephardic Jewish family in 1740. By the time of his death from TB in 1785, he had moved to the new world, and financed George Washington’s upstart revolution against the largest empire the world had ever seen. The principal & interest owed to him by the fledgling nation would clear $600,000.00, a princely sum at the time of his death. And America owes its freedom to Haym as much as George, Thomas, and Ben.

A Fool’s Hope (The Reframe) Gandalf put his hand on Pippin's head. 'There never was much hope,' he answered. 'Just a fool's hope, as I have been told. And when I heard of Cirith Ungol--' He broke off and strode to the window, as if his eyes could pierce the night in the East. 'Cirith Ungol!' he muttered. 'Why that way, I wonder?' He turned. 'Just now, Pippin, my heart almost failed me, hearing that name. And yet in truth I believe that the news that Faramir brings has some hope in it. For it seems clear that the Enemy has opened his war at last and made the first move when Frodo was still free. So now for many days he will have his eye turned this way and that, away from his own land. And yet, Pippin, I feel from afar his haste and fear. He has begun sooner than he would. Something has happened to stir him.”

Fungal Banking (Crooked Timber) Just the most amazing concept that I am shocked took me this long to encounter. When it comes to growth, seek to go fungal, not viral my friends.

An Acquired Taste (Eater) A tremendous reminder that human beings can sometimes be little more than 50 hormones in a multi-layered bag, a wild story about how one’s taste can change based on their gender and sex.

Fear and Loathing (and Hype and Reality) in Los Angeles (The Mediator) A sober, if slightly morbid take on life and times in Hollywood during the age of AI. If you’re in the industry, it is a must read. If not, maybe do something happier.

Mexico is Sepia: The (Too) Democratic State Next Door (Foreign Exchanges) We really can’t stop seeing Mexico the way we saw it in Traffic huh? The democracy to our south can teach us a few things, as always.

How will your city feel in 2070? (The Pudding) Given the sweltering, soupy weather the Tri-State area has experienced this weekend, this visualization is as interesting as it is withering. Moscow might be the only global city that still has something approximating a winter by the end of the century.

A Lost Wood (HM Tomlinson - 1925) Fiction! Fiction that discussed how Petrol completely changed the world of Great Britain, from 100 years ago. And given the swamp we experienced over the weekend, absolutely mandatory fiction.

Influencers aren’t getting famous like they used to (Glamour) Are your kids obsessed with being a YouTube or IG influencer? While we’re not churning out Mr. Beast tier influencers anymore, it might be regression to the mean. It’s not like any of us can name a star that was born from America’s Got Talent or The Voice in the last 20 years right?

Long AF Read of the Week 

What is ‘lived experience’? 4200 words on how one’s lived experience is infected by the art one consumes, and the life one lives. Our perspective is changed by everything that changes us. Sartre, Spivak, Beauvoir, William James, and half a dozen others are meditated on to help us understand.

Better days are on the way,tn