Hither and Thither #27

i heart you

The steadily growing archive of my life, over on Flickr.

division squiggleI am a sucker for things like this. It makes me think of this, which I love and should own at some point. I love the story hidden in the pretend representation of the day to day. One of the reasons I love Welcome to Night Vale too.

division squiggleAre we sure we’re not the post-apocalyptic society we keep dreaming of in books and movies? Because this suggests the grand times have passed.

division squiggleI am always a fan of Captain Awkward (to the point that they’re on the very short list of blogs and podcasts I’ve given money to*). While I adore her long, thoughtful responses, I also love these questions plucked from their search terms. Poor lambs can’t even write an email, but they get good answers anyway.

division squiggleOf course it starts with an R. OF COURSE IT DOES.

division squiggleHoneycrisp cells are twice the size of those of other apples, which accounts for their unique, pleasing texture. And now I feel justified – I think – in dropping twice the cash on these things at Trader Joe’s than I do an an also-lovely Fuji.

P.S. “Eat Like a Man”? What the great galloping fuck does that even mean? Just stop it, Esquire. And earth. All of you, now.

division squiggleIn San Francisco, I emerged from a lovely speakeasy-style bar with a penchant for blending unlikely boozes together (whiskey and gin? other combinations I can’t remember? sure, let’s do it) and had a fierce need for 1 am food. Little did I know that, from my position near Union Square, I was near like a dozen different options for late-as-fuck food, including Indian, diner fare, and other things that form a pleasant haze in my memory. I do love Seattle, though not entirely faithfully; even so, one of the things I’ve always lamented is our relative lack of 24-hour food. Sure, Capitol Hill has Lost Lake now, but we still lag behind.

However, we do have a few things. Here they are. Clip and save.

division squiggleSooooo, between the end of the quarter and darting down to San Francisco for the weekend, I’ve missed a couple link roundups. What this means, though, is a delicious pile of excellent listening I can confidently recommend to you.

Man, 99% Invisible is weekly now, and it’s just the tits. Here are things you may not have realized you were curious about: tunnels under the Berlin Wall, an island named after Busta Rhymes, and a shape you’ve seen a million times and have possibly never thought much about.

A friend recommended A Way with Words to me some time ago; I have, as you have probably gathered, a very full roster of podcasts, so I’m only just getting into it. But from the first moments of this episode, when they talked about the most beautiful word in Icelandic, to when they answered a call with, “You’ve got a way with words,” oh, they had me. They had me good.

I skip the reruns of This American Life about half the time now, as I’ve listened to enough of it at this point that I’ve likely heard it before. However, though I have heard episode 206 before, I listened again. It’s such a hilarious, weird distillation of this very particular kind of microsociety and how very much rests on all of those averaged-21-years-old shoulders. Episode 520 is one of their scattershot collections of stories hung on a loose theme. I was in from the first story, when you get to hear a Calgary resident discover that a distinct point of local pride is shared by at least 100 other towns and cities. The last story has led to a surprising number of conversations about toast in my life this week.

*Others: This American Life, Snopes, the Escape Artists podcasts, Shakesville.