Edith Zimmerman

Edith Zimmerman (EZ) is a writer and illustrator who runs the comics section Spiralbound and illustrates the sobriety newsletter The Small Bow. She was the founding editor of The Hairpin, and she now publishes a newsletter called Drawing Links. Edith here. My mom and I just got back from a vacation to Sanibel Island, Florida. The area is famous for its shell-filled beaches, and on our last day there, we went to the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, which we’d been driving past and talking about daily. The whole museum was great (I’d had no idea that shells were so fascinating), but for me the best part was a small exhibition that I almost missed, about something called sea silk.Why is this interesting?Sea silk is a fiber made from the tufts of giant mussels (or, noble pen mollusks). These tufts—called byssus—can grow up to 2 1/3 inches, and their fibers are unusually strong and light. People have been collecting byssus since antiquity, to spin into thread and weave it into fabric, known as sea silk. Garments made of sea silk are prized for being both light and warm, but sea silk’s real allure is that when it’s submerged in something acidic, like cow urine or lemon juice, it turns from a dull brown into something that glitters like gold in the sun—and retains that quality permanently. Supposedly a pair of sea silk gloves were so light and fine that they could fit into half a walnut shell, although that seems likely to be apocryphal. I’m a knitter, and this all appealed to me immediately. I described the exhibition in a comic that I shared in my own newsletter, and which is included as the comic of the day below. I wish I had taken more photos of the exhibition itself—it doesn’t seem to be listed on the Shell Museum’s website—but it was arranged by a woman named Joyce Matthys, who’s an expert shell collector and a member of both the Oregon Shell Club and the Sanibel Shell Club. She ended up collecting byssus herself and making a tiny pseudo-garment, which she displayed in the exhibition, but I’m getting ahead of myself...In the exhibition, Matthys said that she was the only person outside of the Mediterranean believed to be currently making any sea silk. She also mentioned an Italian woman, named Chiara Vigo, who’s been making sea silk in Sardinia for decades and is known as the last living sea silk master. (The noble pen mollusks from which the byssus is harvested are endangered and protected, so it is likely a dying art.) Vigo is also the proprietor of the Byssus Museum, in Sant'Antioco, which doubles as her workshop. The BBC ran a story about her in 2015, and I liked this quote she provided: "The byssus is the soul of the sea. It is sacred.” She apparently gives byssus bands to newlyweds, pregnant women, and others. There are photographs of sea silk on Vigo’s Instagram account and on her website, although for me they tantalize more than satisfy. I want to see it moving and glittering! Other photos of sea silk garments online are similarly frustrating, like the plain-looking brown glove featured on Wikipedia’s sea silk page.  In the Shell Museum exhibition, Matthys included a photo of her own sea silk creation alongside a photo she took of it in direct sunlight. This came pretty close to capturing the glitter, but I still wanted to hold a whole ream of it, somewhere outdoors. Also to knit with it. It all began to remind me of the Rumpelstiltskin story, in which a young woman is temporarily gifted the ability to spin straw into gold. Maybe the ineffability is part of its appeal. (EZ)Comic of the Day:Here’s my comic (it takes some personal turns toward the end, feel free to skip past those): Quick Links:A hat made of sea silk was auctioned in New York last fall. Its estimated price was $5,000 - $8,000, although the auctioneer told the Guardian that this was just a wild guess (and: “we’ll see how well-informed the market is”). I can’t tell how much the hat ended up selling for, although it might be still available? (EZ)That Guardian story also had a nice section glossing over sea silk’s appearances in history: “According to the sixth-century historian Procopius, the Byzantine emperor Justinian I gave a gift of a sea silk cloak to five Armenian satraps. ... The British admiral Horatio Nelson wrote of his intention to send his lover, Emma Hamilton, a pair of gloves made from byssus. Jules Verne chose to dress his narrator in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Dr Pierre Aronnax, in ‘sea-boots, an otterskin cap, a greatcoat of byssus lined with sealskin.’” (EZ)Byssus also reminds me of golden orb spider silk, which feels similarly perverted and decadent, in a kind of musty way. What else can we turn into fabric? (EZ)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Edith (EZ)Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

Why is this interesting? - The Sea Silk Edition

Edith Zimmerman (EZ) has been a writer I’ve enjoyed for a long time. She draws/writes an excellent newsletter called Drawing Links and contributed an amazing Sea Silk Edition for WITI back in January (plus lots of her other comics featured in our emails). We are very happy to have a peek into her reading and consumption habits today. - Colin (CJN)Tell us about yourself.I’m a writer, and last December I quit my job to start a personal comics newsletter called Drawing Links. It’s mostly stories about my life, with links to other things. I also illustrate the recovery newsletter The Small Bow, which AJ Daulerio, formerly of Gawker, started in 2018.  From 2010-2013 I ran The Hairpin (RIP), and from 2018-2019 I worked at The Cut. I’ve been running a small comics site on Medium called Spiralbound since 2017, although it may be on its last legs. (We were Medium-funded for a while.)  The three biggest stories I’ve done online are probably the stock-photo compilation Women Laughing Alone With Salad (2011), a drunken Chris Evans profile for GQ (2011), and a goofy Imgur comic about menstrual cups (2015).  Describe your media diet. I’m really into newsletters. I started mine in part because people seem to be having a lot of fun making newsletters. My favorites are The Browser ($5 a month, links to cool stories), Money Stuff by Matt Levine (finance news told in a funny way), Nonzero (on meditation and politics), Logan Sachon’s Got Distracted (short, funny essays about her life), Jillian Anthony’s Cruel Summer Book Club (not a book club, more about heartbreak, jokes, and personal growth), and Ian Leslie’s Ruffian (links to cool stories — his and others’ — told in his pleasant British voice). And many more.  I skim stuff on Feedly: Arts & Letters Daily, MetaFilter, Marginal Revolution’s daily assorted links, The Outline, The Point, The Conversation, The Morning News, Cup of Jo, Kottke, Slate Star Codex, Vox, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic. I’m a knitter, and my favorite yarn blogs are Mason Dixon Knitting, Yards of Happiness, and Kate Davies Designs. I also love Andrea Mowry on Instagram. My favorite podcasts are Reply All and EconTalk. On Patreon, I pay for comics from Gabrielle Bell, Julia Wertz, Sarah Glidden, and Rita Sapunor. I love them. And I leave Twitter open throughout the day, but I don’t have a method there. A big part of my media diet has been following the links that people share in the Why Is This Interesting Slack room (an invitation to which comes with contributing). It’s been an invaluable source of information, community, and camaraderie for me, especially now.  What’s the last great book you read?Tyll, by Daniel Kehlmann. It’s a novel about a German jester living in the 17th century. I feel like I’m my own version of the main character, telling my tale wherever I go: Have you heard? Have you heard? Have you heard about Tyll? What are you reading now?I checked out a digital copy of Gift From the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, from the Brooklyn Public Library last week, and it’s lovely. (Side note to say: The BPL has amazing digital content right now, including virtual storytime for kids, multiple times a day.) I also recently started the first book of the sci-fi series Hyperion Cantos, per fellow WITI contributor Chris P’s recommendation. I love it, too. I’m excited to meet the Shrike. What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?I get print copies of The New Yorker and the Buddhist quarterly Tricycle. I like to read Tricycle while I eat (which is probably not very mindful), and I like to read The New Yorker on the subway, but maybe I will figure something else out now.   What should everyone be reading that they’re not?Monica McLaughlin’s antique jewelry newsletter, Dearest. It feels like a distillation of human existence: humor, pain, strangeness, attention to detail, cruelty, effort, and beauty, all told in a fun, light way, with striking images. What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone? Maybe Lectionary, which features different Bible passages daily. I want to read the Bible, and a friend recommended Lectionary as a way to start. I haven’t actually looked at it in weeks, though.  Plane or train?Train. What is one place everyone should visit? Maine’s Acadia National Park. Or Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery (which is currently still open to visitors). Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into. I tried qigong for the first time last week, via YouTube — qigong is a traditional Chinese practice of movement, posture, gentle stretching, and breathing — and I currently have … well, okay, only a few qigong-related tabs open, but they’re really neat.  Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Edith (EZ)Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

Why is this interesting? - The Monday Media Diet with Edith Zimmerman 

Edith Zimmerman is a writer and artist. She publishes the newsletter Drawing Links and illustrates the sobriety/recovery newsletter The Small Bow. In the past she ran The Hairpin, and her last WITI contribution was on knitting with sea silk.Edith here. About a week ago, an Instagram account I follow shared an old painting: “Watson and the Shark,” by John Singleton Copley, from 1778. The painting depicts a naked youth floundering in the ocean while a huge shark approaches to bite him. Nearby, several men attempt a rescue, but it seems a little dicey. The boy looks back at the animal, wild-eyed. What happens next??I was riveted by the painting and later sketched my own version. I also did some googling—and the picture is totally famous, so apologies to everyone who’s already in the know—but I loved its backstory and wanted to share. Edith’s versionThe scene was based on a real event: in 1749, in the waters off Havana, Cuba, a 14-year-old cabin boy decided to go for a dip in the ocean while his ship was in port. As he swam, a shark bit his leg and dragged him under. The shark released him but then bit again, this time severing the boy’s foot. Nearby sailors—horrified—came to his rescue in a skiff, reportedly just before the shark’s third strike. (At “the very instant he was about to be seized the third time,” per a description of the painting published when it was first exhibited, “the shark was struck with the boat hook, and driven from his prey.”) The boy’s leg was later amputated from the knee down, but he otherwise recovered fully and went on to have a long and successful career in business and politics. His name was Brook Watson. Twenty-five years or so later, Watson apparently got in touch with the painter John Singleton Copley to commission a picture about the encounter. What resulted was “Watson and the Shark.” (There’s much more story here—the painting was unusual for its time and basically helped earn Copley admission into the Royal Academy of Arts—but I’m skipping that for the sake of brevity.) By all accounts, Watson loved the picture, and in his will he bequeathed it to Christ’s Hospital, a charity school in England, saying he hoped they would “allow it to be hung up in the Hall … as holding out a most useful Lesson to Youth.” (The lesson presumably being: never go for a swim! Just kidding: actual insight can be found at Artstor, although the ultimate moral isn’t totally clear.) The school later sold the painting to Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art, where it currently hangs.I ended up scrolling through Copley’s earlier portraits, too, and was similarly blown away. Something about the subjects seemed so real to me, as if they’d existed just yesterday. (For instance: her, him, her, him, and her.) Also, a cute guy in one picture who looked like a saucy bartender turned out to be… Paul Revere.  In any case, be careful in those waters! (EZ)My renditions of some Copley portraits. Definitely go check out the originals! Quick Links: “Watson and the Shark,” by John Singleton Copley [Wikipedia] (EZ)The National Gallery’s American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, a PDF (EZ)“Cape Cod’s Waters Are Getting Very, Very Sharky” [The Atlantic] (EZ)“Don’t Call Them ‘Shark Attacks,’ Scientists Say” [NYT] (EZ)“Three Ways to Survive a Shark [Encounter]” [WikiHow] Possibly the most stressful WikiHow I’ve ever read. (EZ)[Sponsored Link] Noah here. Another shout out for my company, Variance. We are building a PLG CRM to help software companies grow their customers. There’s a new post up on the blog about the various organizational antipatterns we see around customer data. Get in touch if you have questions or want to learn more. (NRB)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Edith (EZ)—Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

The Shark Painting Edition

Edith Zimmerman (EZ) is an illustrator, writer, and WITI contributor (Shark Painting and Sea Silk). She publishes the amazing Drawing Links newsletter, which you should definitely subscribe to. Edith was kind enough to let us re-run an edition from earlier in the month that we think you’ll enjoy. - Noah (NRB)Quick Links:On the commash (NRB)An interesting answer from the maintainer of the open-source library curl on why he does it. (NRB)The End of Infinite Data Storage Can Set You Free (NRB)--WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.Authorship. Writing is a big part of many jobs, but it’s often a challenging endeavor that requires time, effort, passion, and perseverance in order to do well. In the latest episode of My Rookie Moment, seven McKinsey leaders walk us through their journey to authorship and offer tips for writing (and life). Whether you’re exploring the idea of writing a book or curious about the creative process, be sure to check it out.--Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Edith (EZ)—Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).