Everyone recover from Americamaxxing?
Well, whether you have or you haven’t…time for the weekly debrief. Here’s what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering this week.
Watching: An Interview with Matt Sieger on The Vandy Program
As I’m not one to shy away from controversial topics on my podcast, The Vandy Program, I recently connected with Matt Sieger, an expert on the intersection of sports, religion, and culture in San Francisco.
Matt is a retired sportswriter who has written a couple of books, and one of them served as the backdrop for our discussion: The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978.
If you’ve been following the story of the 2026 San Francisco Giants, you might wonder about the connection between the 1978 team and this year’s squad; as we dug in on the parallels, it became pretty apparent that the clash of ideals was between the religious members of the team and the city’s liberal culture. (And, believe it or not, winning fixes a lot.)
It’s a fascinating issue that’s about more than just religion and homosexuality; should players be forced to support something that they believe is not in line with their religious beliefs?
Reading: ‘The End of Reading Is Here,’ Rose Horowitch in The Atlantic
The whole article…is something to behold. Rose Horowitch studies the fact that we — as a society; she focuses on Americans here — are not reading. “The End of Reading Is Here” is the name of the article. And it’s pretty crazy. Two excerpts follow and the above link is a “Gift Article.”
(I guess I’m trying to do my part with this newsletter on a weekly basis; but still, this is a sobering article.)
Listening to: Bonnie Tyler (1951-2026)
We lost Bonnie Tyler this week. Consider the staying power of her music: three songs are still culturally relevant today. Here they are. Rest easy, Bonnie. And thank you.
Here’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”…
And “Holding Out for a Hero”…
Finally, “It’s a Heartache”…
Rediscovering: A 1995 BBC Documentary on Currency Traders
This pulled me in instantly. It’s a combination of nostalgia, the energy of an actual trading desk, and the fact that the BBC followed three traders, on three continents, for an entire day — and the blind luck that that day turned out to be rather crazy — that made this one of those videos that can’t be explained.
Plus, there’s ubiquitous cigarette smoking and Reuters terminals and pagers. And bad music.
It continues to be a pleasure to deliver this newsletter to you; this was our 36th consecutive edition of The Saturday List. Make it a great week, will ya? We’ll see you next Saturday.
Dave
Hey
Dave: I've seen the stats too. Yet they don't coordinate well with stats like booksellers are doing okay (and there are more of them) and the libraries are packed. Huh ...