Triple Apple Charger/US Passport Changes/Designer Cities

Nomadico issue #123

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

Triple Travel Charger for Apple Devices

If you’re all-in on Apple products, you might like this 3-in-1 travel charger a reader recommended for your iPhone, watch, and Airpods. The folding magnetic charger is smaller than a phone but can charge up all three of these fast-fading devices every night so you can start fresh in the morning. Selling for $60 now at Amazon. (Thanks to reader Jim from the SpanishAndGo podcast, which I recommend by the way if you’re an intermediate learner.)

Two U.S. Passport Developments

Good news for U.S. passport holders this week. First of all, the State Department is leaping into the modern age and you can now renew your passport online after a successful beta text. Just don’t expect it to be any faster, they warn. Also, Google announced that it’s in beta tests to create a digital ID from your passport that you’ll be able to use at TSA checkpoints. They’re also adding driver’s licenses for many states and commuter cards for public transportation.

New UK Entry Fee

It’ll soon cost you the equivalent of a few pub pints to enter the UK—unless you’re Irish. Most countries will have to apply for and pay a fee of £10. For most travelers that begins in November, but for Europeans it will roll out in the spring. You’ll even have to cough up the fee for your lap baby as apparently this fee to fund enhanced security is required for them as well. This is separate from the upcoming ETIAS €7 fee to enter the EU, so you’ll pay twice if you’re going to both. See the details here.

Cities That Inspire Designers

Where do interior designers like to go when they’re looking for inspiration? This article from House Beautiful runs down 12 places that the people picking out sofas and curtains called out when asked. Some are a bit puzzling to me, but I’ve certainly seen hints of other named spots in Morocco, Colombia, Turkey, and Italy in restaurants and hotels in other places.

What’s in my NOW? — Jerry Papin

issue #187

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Retired and content. — Jerry Papin

PHYSICAL

• Breville Tea Maker – I’m a tea snob and this little wonder steeps tea at the perfect temperature for the exactly correct amount of time for whatever your loose leaf preference is.
• Google Nest Speaker – Background music, alarms, timers, quick answers, reminders – the list goes on. A now indispensable part of my electronic world.
• Dual-heated foot warmer – My home office often gets a bit too cool. If the feet are warm, the rest of me is comfy.

DIGITAL

• Omnivore – My go-to read-it-later app. Uncluttered, easy-to-navigate, all the features I need.
• Perplexity – I use AI for research. Perplexity has cracked the code on doing this better than any other AI on the market. Big bonus: It actually cites its sources with links so you can confirm data/information yourself!

INVISIBLE

I was fortunate to have the epiphany early in life that we should aspire not for happiness (often elusive and always fleeting) but rather for contentment (far more achievable and lasting). It is easier to handle life’s challenges and easier to find moments of genuine happiness from a starting place of contentment.

All the World a Poem / The Spice Companion

Books That Belong On Paper Issue No. 33

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

ALL THE WORLD A POEM IS A BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF POETRY

All the World a Poem
by Gilles Tibo, Manon Gauthier (Illustrator)
Pajama Press
2016, 32 pages, 9.0 x 0.4 x 9.0 inches, Hardcover

Buy on Amazon

Cornflower blue moths and butterflies, drawn in crayon on bits of cut paper line up in formation, as if pinned in an antique butterfly collection. Arctic foxes slink through a wintery forest sketched in charcoal. A seagull soars overhead as a child at the beach listens intently to the roar of the ocean within a found shell. A girl dressed in plaid clutches her lovely hat, which nearly takes flight from a breeze as she stands in a field strewn with sheep. In a bed piled high with cheerful stuffed animals, a boy settles in for bedtime. A mockingbird sits amidst huge yellow blooms.

Last fall my family and I traveled to Montreal for the first time. While we were there, after a breakfast of chewy Montreal-style bagels, we visited the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. I discovered the children’s book All the World a Poem in the gift shop, in its original French. Since my rudimentary French consists of the phrases, “Ou est la bibliotheque?”, (which I used once while in Montreal) and “Les yeux sans visage”, (which I did not use at all), I waited until I returned to the states to order it in English for my grandchildren.

Consisting of simple poems and charming cut-paper collages, All The World A Poem’s whimsical images are constructed from snippets of yellow lined legal paper, Japanese artwork, chunks of what appears to be wallpaper, and enthusiastically tempera-ed construction paper. Scribbled and doodled hillsides dotted with wildflowers, colored penciled evergreen shrubs, and jagged tropical leaves rendered in a muted color palette of slate grey, mossy green, and maize yellow, evoke a subdued, gentle landscape. Not dissimilar to what one might find hung on an elementary schooler’s refrigerator by magnets, All the World a Poem’s illustrations are accessible and familiar, depicting relatable themes of playtime, bedtime, and the seasons. With its childlike, easily recognizable sketches of flora and fauna, paired with descriptive, emotional poems, All the World a Poem is an effortless read, and a great introduction to the world of poetry.

– SD

BREATHTAKING BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATIONS AND PHOTOGRAPHS IN A GUIDE TO THE WORLD OF SPICES

The Spice Companion: A Guide to the World of Spices
by Lior Lev Sercarz
Clarkson Potter
2016, 304 pages, 9.3 x 1.3 x 10.3 inches, Hardcover

Buy on Amazon

I pretty much sprinkle the same thing on every meal. I am admittedly heavy-handed with the cayenne on my own plate and rarely stray from the variety of basils I grow in the summer or bundles of dried rosemary in winter when cooking for my family. I am much more apt to get creative with spices while baking, to savory up my sweets. Lior Lev Sercarz’s The Spice Companion has got me pretty excited to change things up.

This book is an absolute must read for anyone who likes to cook. In it, Lev Sercarz, celebrated culinary expert and master of spices, walks readers through a collection of spices chosen based on the criteria of: 1) can be found anywhere and 2) are essential in certain parts of the world. He opens with a few short essay-like chapters on his own culinary journey, the history of spices, and overviews on procuring, blending, and storing spices, all written in an inviting tone that makes the reader, no matter how novice in the kitchen or rote in their culinary routine, feel excited and encouraged to experiment with spices. They serve as thoroughly informative, enjoyable appetizers to the main course of the collection: the spices.

“Any dried ingredient that elevates food or drink is a spice,” Lev Sercarz writes. His alphabetically organized curation of spices is gorgeously photographed by Thomas Schauer, who also gives us plenty of food-porn shots spanning the lifecycle of spices (from herbs still growing to well-seasoned meals) throughout the text. The spices themselves are shot both whole and deconstructed, each with its own two-page spread. The first page of each is like a mini spice biography or encyclopedia entry, including a botanical illustration, the characteristics, origin, harvest season, and history. Schauer’s photographic spice portraits tumble across the second page, framed by factoids on traditional usage, recommended dish and spice pairings, recipe ideas, and “quick blend” recipe. There is also a great collection of 15 “Classic Spice Blends” recipes at the back of the book.

– Mk Smith Despres

Movie Making

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 105

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

How to make an action film

The DV Rebel’s Guide

The DV Rebel’s Guide is currently the best how-to-guide for making films on a budget. It supercedes the former low-rent filmmaking guide, Rick Schmidt’s Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices, and his followup Extreme DV. This new fantastic manual written by Stu Maschwitz, a co-founder of the maverick special effects company The Orphanage, focuses exactly where budget filmmakers should be. Forget about film, and all its needs. Instead embrace inexpensive HD video and off-the-shelf professional software, like After Effects. This guide rightfully assumes that more than half of your cinematic effort will take place in front of a computer — even on a film without special effects. The good news is that an HD camera and full software suite are tools within reach of a dedicated amateur.

Rebel’s doesn’t cover important artistic issues like gaining self-confidence in your film idea, raising money, fine tuning scripts and honing your hustling skills because these are covered in other books (especially in What They Don’t Teach You at Film School). What Rebel’s Guide does cover in practical depth is the technical aspects of making a quality film for as little money as possible. Even better, it’s aimed at an action film, which most budget guides shy from.

The advice is pithy, spot on, practical, honest, and communicated extremely clearly. It uses lots of photo stills in the book and comes with its own DVD of examples. It very smartly assumes that if you are making a film, you have a Netflix account and will point you to specific example scenes in other films on DVD. And since half of filmmaking is now the work of software, the DVD also includes tutorials and helpful scripts for After Effects. It feels like a workshop lead by someone whose made a few films that look fantastic but cost almost nothing, and that is what it is.

One important point Maschwitz emphasizes: The cheap tricks and rebel attitude he promotes in this book are not only for beginners and starving artists, but are used by the pros when they can. This is another way of saying that, as in other media, the line between the tools and techniques available to amateurs and professionals has been drastically blurred. With skill and moxie, a “used car” budget, and the tools and techniques described in this very fine book, you (the You on the cover of Time!) can make a film qualified for theatrical release. — KK

• The Pickup Truck Loophole
  I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t play one on TV, but I do remember one bit of legal advice that I’ve put to use a few times. Most cities, including Los Angeles, have a definition of what kind of shooting requires a permit. If you want to shoot on public streets or sidewalks, you will need a permit if you “put down sticks,” which is to say, set up a tripod. As soon as you plop a piece of gear on city property, they want you to go legit with the paperwork.
  One popular workaround for this is to eschew the sticks and shoot handheld. Reasonable, but not always conducive to the production value we’re trying to exude. A much cooler solution is to set up your tripod in the back of a pickup truck. This is an amazing trick because it give you both a tripod and a dolly. You can actually drive down the street and get a real classy tracking shot following your talent, all without asking permission.
• Time is your greatest advantage over the Hollywood big boys. If they want it to rain, they rent rain towers at hundreds of dollars per day and make it rain on the day they need it to. A week later it rains for real and they lose a day or move to a cover set. You just wait for the rain and shoot on that day — and your free rain looks way better than their million-dollar rain! The DV Rebel melts down time and re-forms it into production value.
• What’s amazing about filling a room with smoke is that in person it seems so stupid and obvious. But look through your viewfinder and something magical happens. Through your camera, you don’t see smoke. You just see a scene that looks more like a movie. Smoke is one of those dirty tricks that really works. It makes things seem larger than life. It gives your images depth. It gives light a physical presence in your film. And perhaps surprisingly, smoke can actually light your scene for you.
• Watch that scene now. It’s a solid scene, very well directed with a flair that would later become Besson’s trademark.
  You could never shoot this scene.
  But now watch it again, and try this: Don’t watch the scene, watch the individual shots. Pause the DVD on each one, and ask yourself this question: Could I create this shot? This less-than-two-second little snippet in time? Could I figure out a way to shoot that with my little DV camera?
  The answer is yes (or it will be after you finish this book) for all but maybe a few of the most pyrotechnic-intensive shots. No single shot in the scene is so elaborate that you couldn’t dream up a way to create it. And if you can create the shots, you can create the scene.
• When the actor showed up promptly at two in the morning and we were exactly on schedule and ready for him to work, I realized that while we may be rebellious about many things (we had, after all, broken into the building in which we were shooting a gunfight scene using realistic looking plastic guns!), the schedule of the shoot day is not one of them. You own your cast and crew the respect of their time, and you’ll make a much better movie if get all your shots in the can before the sun comes up.
• Be a Rebel, Not a Jerk
  If you’re going to be impacting people’s lives by blocking traffic or lighting assorted things on fire, get permission. But if you aren’t hurting anyone, then make your movie by any means necessary.
• Found Cranes
  The DV Rebel cannot pass a glass elevator, or an open-air escalator, or a tire swing, without pondering how it might be used to create a smooth establishing shot. I once made a dolly shot in an airport by resting my camera on the rail of a moving pedestrian walkway. If you can ride it, it’s a dolly. If you can ride it up and down, it’s a crane.

Mastering the new medium

YouTube: An Insider’s Guide

By internet years, this is an ancient book (2008); Still, it’s the best one I’ve found for exploiting the new medium of YouTube. The millennial generation are not reading books, or newspapers; they are not watching TV, either, and in fact they aren’t really watching many movies. None of these are their cultural center. As far as I can tell their entire discretionary time is spent watching YouTube clips. It’s the source of entertainment and instruction. If you want to reach the young, do it on YouTube.

How? Well this guide is trying to help. YouTube is the newest broadcast/publishing/social medium with new rules and new stars. It will eventually be as important as books and TV combined. What makes a good YouTube station, how do you gets visits, or sell ads? This book is only the first word on those challenges. Since YouTube now offers the option of selling paid subscriptions to niche channels — a development not covered in this book — this is sure to ignite even more newbies to move in. Start with this basic how-to. Let us know when a better handbook comes along. — KK

• Low numbers can be frustrating for new bloggers and video makers. It’s difficult to invest hours into making a video, only to upload it and find a day later that only some 10 or 12 people have watched it. Trust me when I say this, though — we have all been there. If your content is interesting or funny and your shot isn’t completely out of focus, you will gain more views over time. Faking your views will get you called out very quickly, and the majority of YouTubers will lose all respect for you.
• The majority of views on your videos will be lurkers. Lurkers are people without accounts who watch and then move on. Lurkers don’t rate, don’t comment, and definitely don’t make videos of their own. Lurkers are good for views, but not much else. This is why the average video views to comments ratio on YouTube is about 5 percent. Meaning, if you have 100 views, you should probably have about 5 comments; 1,000 views, 50 comments; and so on.
  You want users watching your videos. You want people who will get to know, and support, you. The more invested a user feels in your channel, meaning, the more time and energy they’ve put in to watching and commenting and interacting with you, the more likely they are to pass your link around. Your subscribers, the regular watchers, are the ones who will rate your video every time, even if you’re trying a new style of editing or writing. Your subscribers are the ones who will drop you sweet little private messages when you’ve been gone for more than a few days to make sure you’re okay. This is where the heart of YouTube is and where you find your sense of community.
• Most users get turned down because they simply don’t have enough views or subscribers to qualify for partnership. The good news is, users without enough views or subscribers can continue uploading and may apply again at a later date. In addition to this “popularity” qualification, users with a history of violating YouTube’s terms of use will not be accepted as Partners. Such violations could include uploading content that you don’t own, uploading obscene content, spamming or harassing other users, and attempting to “cheat the system” for more views or subscribers.

• YouTube ads are all paid for on a per-impression basis. Ad rates seem to vary from campaign to campaign, because earnings per view vary each and every month. AdSense ads display next to videos uploaded by Partners. You’ll need to keep your AdSense account in good standing to remain in the Partner Program. This means you should not try to fraud the system by auto refreshing your videos. You should also not click over and over on your own ads; this gives the impression to advertisers that your videos are more popular than they actually are and breaks the contract you sign with YouTube when you become a Partner. (Both YouTube and AdSense have really smart software to detect all fraud techniques, and you will get caught.)
• First, people will unsubscribe if they feel they’re being overtly “marketed to.” YouTube is an alternative to TV. If you make your channel too much like TV, people will go look at another channel.
  Second, you’re not going to make tons of money, just some money, so you may as well still have fun doing it, rather than making video production an unpleasant day job. There’s no point in working toward quitting your day job if you simply replace it with another job that doesn’t make you happy (and doesn’t offer health insurance!).

What you fear/Cobweb Duster/Audience choirs

Recomendo - issue #428

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What you fear 

This might be an oversimplification of the true sources behind our fears, but I appreciate this visual chart of possible unmet needs and the arrows pointing toward a healthy resolution for each fear. Sometimes fear can be paralyzing, and this serves as a good reminder to stay curious about my negative emotions and what truly lies behind them. — CD

Spider-busting extendable duster

The house we moved into a few months ago is overrun by spiders. New webs appear every day. This cobweb/duster has a 100-inch extendable pole that lets me reach the high corners where spiders tend to spin their webs, both inside and outside the house. It comes with two interchangeable heads — the spider web brush tackles cobwebs, while the microfiber duster gently cleans delicate areas. I paid around $13 for it and it’s surprisingly sturdy for the price. — MF

Audience choirs

Something super-magical happens when people sing collectively in harmony. We don’t do it very much any more. Musical genius Jacob Collier is trying to change that with his audience choirs—the audience sings, in harmony, without practice. It can be profoundly beautiful. As example, listen to this concert at the Kennedy Center that begins with an Irish ballad. If that works for you, there’s longer audience harmony at Academy Brixton in London. Other performers, such as Pub Choir, are doing this as well on world tours. If you have a chance, give communal signing a try. — KK

Camp and emergency lamp

I got this idea from the Amish. They have replaced their kerosene lamps with LED lamps powered by a rechargeable battery. That’s not so new; their hack is to power the LED lamps with a cordless tool battery, which acts as a stable base, lasts a super long time (days), and can usually be found charged. Also, a battery is the most expensive part of a light and this is dual use. You can get these units to fit any of the three major tool battery systems. I use ours (for a Dewalt battery) for brilliant emergency lighting and as a perfect camp lamp.— KK

Download all images on a web page

I’ve been using the Image downloader – Imageye Chrome extension for the past year, and it has yet to fail me. This extension allows me to quickly and easily browse and bulk download all images from a webpage. The features I find most useful are the ability to filter images by width, height, or URL, and then save images to subfolders while renaming them. Overall, it does exactly what I need efficiently. — CD

Ten strong suggestions for surviving misinformation

Author A.J. Jacobs created the best guide for navigating our post-truth world. His “Ten Strong Suggestions” include framing disagreements as puzzles rather than battles, assigning percentages to beliefs, and embracing sources that admit mistakes. Jacobs advocates for curiosity over fury, skepticism of individual experts while respecting consensus, and wariness of human memory. This is the opposite of fake news. — MF

What has a child told you lately?

Just One Question #2

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The Turtle Shell

As the family gathered around the hospice bed, the air was thick with grief, each breath heavy with the weight of impending loss. My husband, surrounded by those who loved him most, took his final breath, and the room was filled with the sound of sobs, the deep wailing of a family shattered by cancer. My four children, his parents, his siblings, and the hospice nurses stood vigil, hearts breaking as we faced the unimaginable.

In the midst of this profound sorrow, our youngest son, just 11 years old, looked up at the tear-streaked faces and said, with a wisdom far beyond his years, “It’s OK. It’s just his turtle shell.” His innocent words brought the room to a standstill. He continued, “I don’t know why everyone’s crying. He’s right here with us in the room. I can feel him.”

In that moment, the sobs quieted, the raw pain eased, and a serene calm settled over us. Even the hospice nurse, who had seen countless farewells, said she had never witnessed such a profound moment.

Lori

Whia

My seven year old said to me: the tongue has no bones but it can break hearts.

Sari Azout

Training to be an adult

My son, who is now in his late 30s, posed a question to me when he was about 4. At the time I was working as a coach and trainer of adults. His question was, “You have to train to be an adult, don’t you dad?”

Never stopped being true.

Wynn

Kids are still learning, and so are you

“Dad, I’m new at this”

BG

You Said It Spiritually

My daughter Ary (10) had said something mean to Ray (9) and they were arguing in the back seat. After a few minutes of bickering, Ray says, “Ary, you’re just saying that because you don’t like me.”

Ary was surprised and exclaimed, “I never said that! I never said I didn’t like you!”

To which Ray replied, “Well, you said it spiritually”.

I just laughed, and said, “He got you there, Ary.” It had me thinking, “What am I saying ‘spiritually’?”

Ray Hinish

To a child, it was just an off the cuff observation

My 6-year-old daughter, walking with both of us, cut straight to the bone:

“You and mom have secrets that you don’t know about each other.”

Brian Thomas

The Fun Must Go On

My son was doing something he definitely shouldn’t have been doing, and of course, he ends up getting hurt and starts crying. My 5-year-old daughter, ever the problem solver, shouts like a drill sergeant, “Just lick your finger, put it where you got hurt, and then go right back to what you were doing for fun!”

AG

Dead flowers

While playing with my four year old daughter, she put her hands on either side of my face and stared into my eyes with an unexpected urgency—like the discovery of a lost treasure, I thought.

“Daddy,” she said, never breaking her stare. “Your eyes look like dead flowers.”

Sean Mul

Anger isn’t negative …

My 13 year old has been learning bass guitar and gets extremely frustrated with himself when he can’t master a technique or play as fast as he wishes. He’ll get so angry that he’ll yell in frustration. About 20 minutes later, I’ll hear a joyous and equally loud, “YES!”

Later that evening we had a talk about his anger. I suggested that he give himself a break and not be so hard on himself. His response was, “But dad, I use that anger to get better.”

J. Michael

What’s in my NOW? — Jerry Papin