The Saturday List — July 25, 2026
What I'm Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering This Week
Welcome back! It was just shy of one year ago, July 26, 2025, that we decided to launch this newsletter. We missed a couple editions here and there, before settling into a groove on November 8; we haven’t missed a week since.
That makes this the 38th consecutive edition of The Saturday List.
Let’s celebrate — after the Subscribe button, of course — with what I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering.
AND, as we continue tweaking the format of this here newsletter, we’re starting to add a section called “Finally” at the end; something that serves as the nightcap. So you’ll see that below.
Watching: My Interview with Sean McGinnis from The Manager Vault
Sean McGinnis and I go back…a few years. He is an executive, currently working in the Cleveland area, and he — along with co-founder Ashley Walton — has created a site called The Manager Vault.
Let’s face it, managing people is one thing, but leading people is entirely another.
We talk about this, and the type of advice he and Ashley share twice a week on their site, in an hour-long interview in a recent episode of my podcast, The Vandy Program.
Reading: Magnificent Humanity by His Holiness Pope Leo XIV
One of the sites I subscribe to is Word on Fire, which offers Catholic programming in video and in print. They were one of several groups that reprinted Pope Leo XIV’s Magnificent Humanity, which was his first “Papal Encylcical,” published in the Spring.
It features a foreword from Word on Fire founder Bishop Richard Barron and will certainly make you think about the role of technology in our lives now and in the future.
I’ve begun diving into the book, but the subtitle is On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. An excerpt from very early in the book — and again I’ve just begun reading — brings up the “Tower of Babel” in the Book of Genesis:
“We must, then, avoid the ‘Babel syndrome,’ namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance.”
Listening to: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
What? Who? What kind of name is that?
Ah, if you’re uninitiated, here’s a really underrated band from that dates back to 1987 (!) and continued to produce bangers into the 90s. From the United Kingdom, I present Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.
First up, one of their biggest hits — but released only in the US and Australia — is “Grey Cell Green,” off of the album God’s Fodder (1991).
The band’s biggest alternative hit, reaching #1 on Billboard’s US Alternative chart, was “Not Sleeping Around,” off of the band’s album Are You Normal? (1992).
I’m sure you’re wondering: hey, Dave, what’s your favorite Ned’s song? I’ll answer that this way: off of the 1995 album Brainbloodvolume, here’s “Stuck.”
Rediscovering: Dawn of Def Jam: Rick Rubin Returns to His NYU Dorm Room (a Rolling Stone Film)
This is a 10-minute joyride. Life was…different back in the 1980s.
Rick Rubin is a legend, and you can see where it all started.
Finally… Ryan Fox — Winner of Golf’s Open Championship — And His Origin Story
This video popped up on Facebook this week, and it was created six years ago. Note that the DP World Tour of golf changed the headline of the video, as Ryan Fox won the (British) Open Championship golf tournament last Sunday.
It’s a neat 13-minute look at Fox as a golfer who grew up in a family of New Zealand sports royalty; It’s also a fun snapshot of Kiwi life, too.
Make it a great weekend, and a great week ahead!
Dave