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In this week’s essay, John discusses the Pomodoro Routine (among other productivity routines), why he especially needs a meditation pillow, and how a particular teacher captured his heart.  Notebook Entries:Notebook 75, pages 8 and 9. September 2021OReinstating the Pomodoro Routine…Starting Marshall again…Write Brice…Send Laura the larger project list…Work on budget to get accounts in orderMeditation pillow upstairs.Notebook 18. December 6, 2009InstapaperAlpha SmartRichard Hugo on poetryDegrees of Gray In Philipsburg.Notebook 18, page 105. June 4, 2011Visit to Mr. Mead. He was playing piano as we entered. [During our conversation, he asked]: do you find your work fulfilling? Do you have a close circle of friends? Questions about life and living it well…References:Getting Things Done - David AllenThe Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey The Questions That Will Get Me Through the Pandemic - John Dickerson43 Folders - Merlin Mann The Hardest Job in the World - John DickersonEssays of E.B. White“Merlin Mann” - Tina Essmaker for The Great DisconnectMore about Ernest “Boots” Mead“Because Buying New Running Shoes is More Fun Than Actually Running” - Merlin Mann for 43 FoldersAtomic Habits - James ClearThe Creative Habit - Twyla TharpFree Agent Nation - Daniel Pink“Sharon Salzberg On: Openness, Not Believing the Stories You Tell Yourself, and Why the Most Powerful Tools Often Seem Stupid at First” - Ten Percent HappierWant to listen to Navel Gazing uninterrupted? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock ad-free listening to Navel Gazing and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/navelgazingplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Cheyna Roth.Email us at navelgazingpodcast@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get your tickets for Amicus Live in Washington DC here. In the second part of our series on Amicus and at Slate.com, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern are back on the originalism beat. This week they’re trying to understand the mechanisms of what Professor Saul Cornell calls “the originalism industrial complex” and how those mechanisms plug into the highest court in the land. They’re also asking how and why liberals failed to find an effective answer to originalism, even as the various “originalist” ways of deciding who’s history counts, what constitutional law counts, which people count, were supercharged by Trump’s SCOTUS picks. Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap, highlights how the Supreme Court turned to originalism to gut voting rights. In 2022, the US Supreme Court’s originalism binge ran roughshod over precedent and unleashed Dobbs and Bruen on the American people - Mark and Dahlia talk to a state Supreme Court justice about what it’s like trying to apply the law amid these constitutional earthquakes. In today’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Dahlia talks to AJ Jacobs about his year of living constitutionally, and she confesses to an attempt to smuggle contraband into One, First Street. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates is arguably the strongest voice of his generation on the role of race and identity in American politics and culture. He’s the author of several books, including “Between the World and Me,” “We Were Eight Years in Power,” and “The Beautiful Struggle,” and the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant and a National Book Award. For this week’s episode, we feature a conversation between Coates and host Jason Johnson, recorded live at the recent Cascade PBS Ideas Festival. They discuss everything from the diss track battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, to the campus protests over the Middle East, to the limits –and necessity– of participating in electoral politics. Guest: Award-winning writer Ta-Nehisi CoatesPodcast production by Kristie Taiwo-MakanjuolaWant more A Word? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/awordplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Bryan talks to Lucas LaRochelle, the creator of the online platform Queering the Map. Queering the Map is a community-generated digital archive and map of LGBTQ2IA+ experiences around the globe. They dig into the map’s beginnings, stories from the platform, and how this archive has been able to share queer joy, sorrow, and possibility across continents and in 23 languages. Podcast production by Palace Shaw.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s essay, John discusses an onboarding memo for his assistant Laura, and recounts his early days living and working in New York City.   Notebook Entries:Notebook 75Onboard memo for LauraNotebook 3, page 44. May 1991June 17 start job. Good stuffNotebook 3, page 46. May 1991Tips on buying renting in NYCAsk about broker20s and 30s East side. Murry HillLive on no major avenueInterest bearing account for security depositMedeco locksNotebook 4, page 15Scared standing on 34th and Broadway$6 cab fareNotebook 4, page 42Getting lost in the villageReferences:The Little Brown Book of Anecdotes by Clifton Fadiman Medeco Locks“Here is New York” by E.B. White“Silly Job Interview” - Monty Python John Cleese on Creativity in ManagementHerbie Hancock: Miles Davis’ Essential Lesson On MistakesWant to listen to Navel Gazing uninterrupted? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock ad-free listening to Navel Gazing and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/navelgazingplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Cheyna Roth.Email us at navelgazingpodcast@gmail.com HostJohn Dickerson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this, the first part of a special series on Amicus and at Slate.com, we are lifting the lid on an old-timey sounding method of constitutional interpretation that has unleashed a revolution in our courts, and an assault on our rights. But originalism’s origins are much more recent than you suppose, and its effects much more widespread than the constitutional earthquakes of overturning settled precedent like Roe v Wade or supercharging gun rights as in Heller and Bruen. Originalism’s aftershocks are being felt throughout the courts, the law, politics and our lives, and we haven’t talked about it enough. On this week’s show, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern explore the history of originalism. They talk to Professor Jack Balkin about its religious valence, and Saul Cornell about originalism’s first major constitutional triumph in Heller. And they’ll tell you how originalism’s first big public outing fell flat, thanks in part to Senator Ted Kennedy’s ability to envision the future, as well as the past. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Outward producer June Thomas joins hosts Bryan Lowder and Jules Gill-Peterson to chat about the very gay new series from Starz, Mary and George. They talk 16th-century sex and sexuality and share their prides, provocations, and the gay agenda for May. Read What's Fact and What's Fiction in Mary & George from SlatePodcast production by Palace Shaw. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: solidarity?College campuses across the country are grappling with protests and occupations in the name of a free Palestine. Many hundreds of students, faculty, and outside community members have been arrested in tense clashes with police — called onto campuses by the universities themselves. Student protestors have shaped public discourse on matters like war and the environment for many decades. But without a clear, sympathetic goal, they can also lead to political backlash that far outlasts a four-year degree. So are today’s student protestors instigating change in Gaza… or teeing up a crackdown on speech and protest here at home? Prof. Steven Mintz of UT Austin joins us, and urges a cautionary look at the history books. If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.comPodcast production by Maura Currie.Want more Hear Me Out? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/hearmeoutplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s essay, John discusses the art of attention and how to develop the skill of slow-looking. Notebook Entries:Notebook 75, page 8. September 20211016 Notebook 1, page 54. June 1990-       Magna carta 1215 at Salisbury-       Girls skipping-       The Haunch of Venison-       Chris References:Georgia O’Keeffe MuseumA Little History of the World by E.H GombrichArtist Jeff Koons“The Art of Divination: D.H. Lawrence on the Power of Pure Attention” by Maria Popova for The Marginalian“Gabfest Reads: A Woman’s Life in Museum Wall Labels” for Political Gabfest One Woman Show by Christine Coulson“Grammy-winning artist Jason Isbell talks about the craft of songwriting and his latest music” for CBS NewsA Journey Around My Room by Xavier De Maistre“Just think: The Challenges of the Disengaged Mind” by Timothy Wilson, et.al for Science“Our Rodent Selfies, Ourselves” by Emily Anthes for the New York TimesOne Man’s Meat by E.B. White Podcast production by Cheyna Roth.Email us at navelgazingpodcast@gmail.com Want to listen to Navel Gazing uninterrupted? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock ad-free listening to Navel Gazing and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/navelgazingplus to get access wherever you listen. HostJohn Dickerson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you hear “boy band,” what do you picture? Five guys with precision dance moves? Songs crafted by the Top 40 pop machine? Svengalis pulling the puppet strings? Hordes of screaming girls?As it turns out, not all boy bands fit these signifiers. (Well…except for the screaming girls—they are perennial.) There are boy bands that danced, and some that did not…boy bands that relied entirely on outside songwriters, and those that wrote big hits…boy bands assembled by managers or producers, and quite a few that launched on their own.From Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers to New Kids on the Block, the Monkees to the Jonas Brothers, Boyz II Men to BTS, New Edition to One Direction, and…yeah, of course, Backstreet Boys and *N Sync, boy bands have had remarkable variety over the years. (In a sense, even a certain ’60s Fab Four started as a boy band.)Join Chris Molanphy as he tries to define the ineffable quality of boy band–ness, walks through decades of shrieking, hair-pulling pop history, and reminds you that boy bands generated some of our greatest hits, from “I Want You Back” to “I Want It That Way,” “Bye Bye Bye” to “Dynamite.” Help him “bring the fire and set the night alight.”Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices