StoryShedding: #13
A somewhat fortnightly digest from StoryShed Media for May 31, 2026
BACK INTO THE FRYING pan of a fresh early summer and wow, what’s not blowing up? …can we get something more like a…
Warm Bake > Hot Take
This section of StoryShedding is reserved for long, thoughtful, smoky gazes into what’s going on and why that might be not worth the incessant pain of knee-jerking hot takes.
To wit:
Mike Sowden nails it. Mmmmmm, warm baking over hot taking.
So here’s a story and it’s not about me, but in a way it is (probably the way nearly all of us approach a story):
About a month or so ago I was waiting to check out at a Walgreens drugstore on East Lake Street and a young Black woman was behind me on the phone. She was talking to her caller about something that connected with me—in a surprising way. “I haven’t been able to buy new clothes in over three years! Everything is wearing out!”
Willing to bet she and I are not alone in this plight. The dough has not been rising yeast has been dead for three years. Or more.
I’d be remiss not mentioning another soldier in the Battle of Hot Take Forest:
This is juggling an armload of Michaels and Mikes, but maybe there’s something to this beyond what the eye immediately perceives. Michael Estrin can nose out your random hot taker in an L.A. second.
And get in line, you pissy little twiddler!
What Is the Sound of One Substack Clapping?
“We apologize for the lack of hands this past month. Assume the one pounding the desktop is doing so in joyful agreement.”
—The Management
It’s true: StoryShed jumped from Season 11 to Season 12 very spritely and didn’t take adequate time to read through others’ Substacks. But there were a couple interesting things to touch on and return to later, pulled from the restack bin and elsewhere.
“There used to be a professional layer between most people and raw information,” writes Hana Lee Goldin of my amazing new Substack find Card Catalog. “Librarians, researchers, editors, fact-checkers: people whose entire job was to understand how information was organized, who produced it, what motivated them, and where the gaps were in any given source. You didn’t need to think much about any of that, because someone else already had.” Hana gives you tips on how to be your own librarian! In the 21st century!
I’ll be reading this entry well into late June, testing my new knowledge and grateful for the gifts Substack gives.
***
Lastly the esteemed Jason Feifer rocked my “old person world” with this inspiring bit, particularly how if you’re still alive you’re nowhere near the end and still in the middle of things.
“When you’re in the middle of something uncertain, frustrating, or unfinished,” Feifer writes, “try asking yourself these three questions…” 1. “What did I think this season was for?” 2. “What has this season actually taught me?” and 3. “What might this be preparing me for next?” To Feifer, a “season” he means: “This isn’t it yet. Real life begins later. But our entire lives could feel like that. Ask anyone who’s wildly successful, and they’ll always tell you: Nothing ever feels like a finish line. There’s always something ahead.”
That could mean a career trajectory, a relationship, a family issue, or anything—anything really—that’s is part of your life.
I like his last question: “What might this be preparing me for next?”
Because it’s a great segue into…
“Into the Shack” is now Story Stackin’
I’M AN IDEA GUY. Old school, mass-producing, never-ending, full of ideas. However, I grew up in an environment where that wasn’t overtly encouraged, but I persevered. Of course. That said (which, what does that even mean any more?), StoryShed needs collaborators BIG TIME. Historically I’m awful at that.
So, a brief rant, if you’ll allow me.
I will need to move out of my apartment before year’s end. It’s not likely I’ll find a new job at my age and, while I’ve applied for social security benefits four years before I intended to (gee thanks, idiot regime), I fully intend to take StoryShed Media as far as I can for as long as I can, and that means making money. So the connection to apartment is: “What if where I lived was where I worked, like, a studio or artists cooperative, or …”
Going forward, Story Stackin’ will introduce a move I’m warming to: The Lab. It would be a creative shop, but there’s no way I’m doing it alone. I got fired up about it mid-month and need to put together a business plan, but The Lab would be a money-making arm of StoryShed Media. (Hopefully without sucking all the fun and life out of my fun and my life.)
Stick around. More to come.
The Morning Muse
WHERE O WHERE ART thou, my Muse?
I thought it was maybe something I said (or failed to say). Usually me “working” doesn’t particularly inspire her/him/they/Amorphous Blob of Amusement and Wonder.
You have to be rested, healthy (no pain, odd itching, or nervous tics), not burdened with worry or care, and somewhat excited about at least your immediate future. That has not been the case for 2026 since last snowfall or ICE OUT.
Ahem.
So, without further ado, here’s the Morning Muse from the past [couple] weeks:
HOLY MOTHER OF SPLOD
Steamin’ Pilates diaper
Into the ruddy gloom of May
atomized, forgotten
Of course there were no Carthaginians at the time
placating without renovating that ends in desiccating with no hope of rejuvenating—the aim of the GOP in stripping away the protective waxy layer on middle class’ eventual earning power, therefore causing them to dry out and ultimately perish
Tiger Beat magazine for aspiring seniors with a spring in their step
candlelit spinners for twins
bugby
Psycho dredge
diamond nudies
a plague upon both your spouses
not now brown cow
For what we’ve endured, we thank you O Muse.
Thought for the Week
“Of all creatures that breathe and creep about on Mother Earth, there is none so helpless as a man. As long as heaven leaves him in prosperity and health, he never thinks hard times are on their way. Yet when the blessed gods have brought misfortune on his head, he simply has to steel himself and bear it. In fact our outlook upon life here on earth depends entirely on the way in which Providence is treating us at the moment. Look at myself. There was a time when I was marked out to be one of the lucky ones, yet what must I do but let my own strength run away with me and take to a life of lawless violence under the delusion that my father and my brothers would stand by me? Let that be a lesson to every man never to disregard the laws of god but quietly to enjoy whatever blessings Providence may afford.”
—Homer from The Odyssey, Book XVIII, translated by E.V. Rieu, 1946, Penguin Books (USA).
Tuneage for You
“Real Man” Todd Rundgren (1975; live on the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test) <3
Thanks so much for the shout-out, Michael!
Bravo 👏