Here, I am king

This is a shockingly beautiful thing by Jason Farago about art and power. Everything about this piece is a delight: the design of the site, the looking-closely-until-it-hurts, the pace and momentum of the writing.

Jason writes about art in the time of Shah Jahan, the 17th century Mughal emperor (that's the chap that commissioned the Taj Mahal), and zooms into one painting of him in particular. This makes for my favorite writing; pointing at things and falling in love.

But the ending of this piece is what slapped me awake:

...if you want to last forever, make something beautiful.

I know this is bonkers but I can't help but wonder if this piece is somewhat inspired by Newsletters though—the snapping of new chunks of text into view, the beginning of sentences with "...", the pace of it—it all reminds me of...me?

Perhaps that's an absolutely bonkers thing to say out loud, but it would be super neat if this beautiful thing was inspired by something I made. And if not, then it's equally neat that we kind of made something similar by happenstance.