Good morning, friends!
Every Sept. 11, I share Colson Whitehead’s article, Lost and Found, which was published two months after the Twin Tower attacks.
The article is a moving tribute to New York City and the Twin Towers, but it’s also about how our identities are shaped by our own, personalized memories of the places we live.
“There are eight million naked cities in this naked city — they dispute and disagree,” he writes. “The New York City you live in is not my New York City; how could it be?”
We topple, and we rebuild. If you visited New York City before September 2001, your New York looks radically different than mine. I used to walk past One World Trade Center every day on my way to work, and that building is a crucial part of my personal skyline, but it may not even be part of yours.
Colson writes:
“The twin towers still stand because we saw them, moved in and out of their long shadows, were lucky enough to know them for a time. They are a part of the city we carry around. It is hard to imagine that something will take their place, but at this very moment the people with the right credentials are considering how to fill the crater. The cement trucks will roll up and spin their bellies, the jackhammers will rattle, and after a while the postcards of the new skyline will be available for purchase. Naturally we will cast a wary eye toward those new kids on the block, but let’s be patient and not judge too quickly. We were new here, too, once.”
PROFILES.
— The actor portraying Mark Zuckerberg [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The NFL’s most cryptic quarterback
— The beer baron who rebuilt his empire on windshields
— Pop’s breakout star
THE PEOPLE.
The actor portraying Mark Zuckerberg: Jeremy Strong is famous for taking acting to almost absurd extremes. He reads everything, stays in character for months, and researches until he knows things no one has even asked him to know. And there’s a reason for the madness. Strong says he feels “abject fear” on every job, and preparation is how he earns the confidence to walk through it. His most recent challenge: The Social Reckoning. (GQ)
The NFL’s most cryptic quarterback: Jalen Hurts is one of the NFL’s hardest people to read — and that may be by design. The Eagles quarterback has been benched on college football’s biggest stage, drafted as a backup, questioned as a leader, and still managed to win a Super Bowl. But Hurt’s philosophy is to take ownership, keep working, and “do a thing that can’t be denied.” (GQ)
The beer baron who rebuilt his empire on windshields (gift link): Carlos Brito spent three decades rolling up the global beer industry into AB InBev, almost quintupling its market cap along the way. In 2021 he walked away and took over Belron, the company behind Safelite, Carglass, and Autoglass. The thesis is that a windshield is no longer a piece of glass: cameras, coatings, and safety-system recalibration turn every crack into a longer, more expensive job. Last year Belron fixed more than 17 million vehicles and booked $7.8 billion in revenue. (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Pop’s breakout star (gift article): Olivia Dean went from busking on the streets of London to winning a Grammy and selling out arenas. Her biggest hit almost never made it out of the studio. A self-described “crippling perfectionist,” Dean worried her hit single “Man I Need” was too pop and almost talked herself out of releasing it. Eventually, she decided to ignore what she calls her “pop shame” and just let the song be joyful. It became her first billion-stream song and first No. 1 on U.S. pop radio. (WSJ)
👉 The Profile is the perfect gift for any occasion! Give a gift subscription to a loved one through the link below:
✨Order the paperback edition of HIDDEN GENIUS below:
