PicoBlog

Editor’s note: You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C. A version of this post was emailed to subscribers on Saturday, June 27, 2020. The Ledger offers free and paid subscription plans. Sign up here: Big news out of Bojangles’: The Charlotte-based chicken chain has quietly dropped the apostrophe after its name. The company will now be known simply as Bojangles. The apostrophe after the “S” always seemed like a mystery, just hanging out after the name like an unnecessary appendage — unlike Wendy’s and McDonald’s, whose possessives always seemed neater and more straightforward.

Om Shanti Om, very fittingly, begins with the eponymous song from Karz (1980) being shot by its director Subhash Ghai (erstwhile known for making cameos in his own films). We see Om Prakash Makhija —  a fan with big dreams cheering for Rishi Kapoor as he dances. A junior artist with dreams of stardom, he has an epiphany — and suddenly it's Om in Rishi's shoes, dancing to ‘Om Shanti Om’ and belting out the lyrics as a youth icon.

This entire interview with investor Chris Davis by William Green is very inspiring but one concept that really resonated from a coaching perspective is the idea of life being organised by 10000 day blocks. 10000 days is roughly 27 years 20000 days is roughly 54 years 30000 days is roughly 81 years Chris divides life into three 10,000-day stages: The first 10,000 days are for exploration and trying new things.

A behind-the-scenes peek at the books I'm writing, a heaping helping of other books I've read and loved, and anything else floating around in my head. By Becca Freeman, Co-Host of Bad on Paper Podcast and author of THE CHRISTMAS ORPHANS CLUB. No thanksncG1vNJzZmialZiworLRnpymmZ5jwLau0q2YnKNemLyuew%3D%3D

Hi, all! Today an excerpt of my book is live at the New Yorker. I was amazed and amused that a fact-checker called my husband to ensure that he can, in fact, light a fire without matches (reader, he can!). I hope you love it!!!!! Sorry if you hate it!!!!! Here it is: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/all-good-sex-is-body-horror Should this excerpt make you want to pre-order the book, you can do so here. Although I have yet to learn why, exactly, it’s common wisdom that pre-orders matter so much, everyone seems to think that they do: https://us.

Bite-sized book reviews by distinguished and engaging writers, direct to readers‘ in boxes. Editor Ann Kjellberg is a multi-decade veteran of The New York Review of Books and founder of the literary magazine LIttle Star By Ann Kjellberg · Over 7,000 subscribersNo thanks“Book reviews and essays by writers both established and upcoming, commissioned by Ann Kjellberg, who also edits the journal "Little Star."” “I'm looking forward to reading "Middlemarch" again with this group and love Mona Simpson's direction!

As promised, I am now starting to use this Substack for more content than just my transcripts and sources. I have a few articles waiting down the pipeline, including a few book reviews. To kick things off, I have a review of the wonderful work by Professor Peter Frankopan. Please enjoy, and do pick this up if this seems interesting! The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan starts off with a preface that I think perfectly encapsulates both the premise of this work and of problems in historical teaching more broadly.

I like thinking about culture war topics from the perspective of forecasting and so Melissa Kearney’s new book, The Two-Parent Privilege, seemed like it would be a good background for a new project. There are a lot of people talking about how America has bifurcated into two societies. People in the upper middle class have college degrees and own their own homes, and working class Americans do not. But Kearney argues that one of the biggest distinctions is that the children of the upper middle class have fathers and the working class does not.

I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger (Grove Press, 2024). Award-winning novelist Leif Enger has a knack for writing about journeys—strange, improbable journeys that leave his characters changed in unforeseen ways. In his first two solo novels, his protagonists made these journeys; in his third, Virgil Wander, his protagonist stayed put while someone else made a journey in his direction. But in his latest, I Cheerfully Refuse, he’s back to his old formula, which—so great is Enger’s talent—still feels fresh and new.