Hi Friends,
Greetings from Brooklyn!
Last weekend, I took my parents to my second favorite US state: Vermont. It’s like a piece of the French alps squeezed between New York and New Hampshire. Fantastic restaurants, pungent cheese and Airbnbs the size of airplane hangars. What more could you want?
Florian
🔧 The Art of Maintenance: Sailing around the world feels like the ultimate heroic act that only fearless humans have attempted to do. And yet, in his brilliant piece The Maintenance Race, Stewart Brand tells us a relentless obsession with maintenance might be the most vital skill. This is guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat.
🌍 Climate 101: Zopeful is a short email-based course that takes you through the fundamentals of climate science, where we are today, what are the likely scenarios for the planet and what might we do about it. If you’re looking to dig into the topic but aren’t quite ready yet for the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this newsletter is for you.
✍ Masters of Copy: John Emory Powers is considered to be the father of modern advertising. The copy below is one he wrote for Murphy Varnish in the 1880s. Notice the use of plain language, the short and punchy sentences and the use of logic to land the point. Copywriting is an art and a craft that to this day doesn’t receive the credit it deserves.
Lateral Thought
“What’s so hard about that first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.”
Joan Didion