They pile up, I'm telling you.  So let's make this a two posts-for-Tuesday day.

Two points about this piece: First, I had no idea that Theodor Adorno had an essay on "Free Time" (and now I've found it--in his book The Culture Industry), and second, I don't think this person realizes that Josef Pieper has raised many of these questions soon after World War Two in his luminous Leisure, the Basis of Culture.  Everyone should read that book, as part of their leisure.

A good guide about civility and discussing things with people who disagree with you. 

A little bit of hopefulness for your day: Strangers seem to "step in" in crisis situations 90% of the time, according to a new study.  Like the men's cologne "Sex Panther" from Anchorman, I suspect they step in 90% time in 50% of the cases, but even if my cynicism is true, it's some consolation. 

A neat piece about a guy trying to sink to the bottom, literally.  (Of course, he is a "private equity investor.")

"I sometimes think of publishing as a kind of imaginary room. I think readers and writers both, when they send in their pieces and read pieces, feel in a way like they are coming together with other live humans in conversation. Economic conditions and also specific personalities and visions created rooms like the mid-century New Yorker, for example, which brought us Hershey’s “Hiroshima” and Carson’s “Silent Spring” and Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time.” We need in these perilous times to create rooms in which writing can grow, and readers can find it, in order to sustain the writer of the future and the as yet unknown ideas they will bring our way."  A really nice piece on the future of writing.  With some excellent links, too.  

Happy Tuesday!