If you’re getting into composting, as is now mandatory in New York City, listen to me. This is important. You’re going to think you want the compost bin that you keep on your counter to be cute. Maybe a shiny stainless steel one, or another one with a tight-fitting lid and odor filters you change out every so often. NO. Listen to me. LISTEN. You actually want an incredibly aesthetically mid one that, crucially, you can openwith just one hand. Picture this: you are baking and you’ve just cracked some eggs. You didn’t have the foresight to open the compost bin already because we’re all imperfect and no one can tell the future. Do you really want to put those eggshells with their residual goop down somewhere, rinse off and dry your hands of the goop, open your stupid fucking compost bin, pick up the goopy eggshells again and put them in the compost bin, then—I guess—wash and dry your hands again in order to get the compost bin closed without getting goop on the lid? Madness. NO. Listen. Get the dorky plastic bin you can open with just the joint of your index finger (we have this one) and just commit to regularly emptying it into your large outside bin (which you line and keep fastened shut). Just trust me on this.
Here’s some art, ideas, and internet for you:
“There are only three possible explanations as to why Americans voted for this man: they wanted what he promised; they didn’t believe what he promised; or they didn’t understand what he promised. Pick whichever rationale you want, because it doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason was, it exposed half of the electorate—the 77 million people who voted for Trump—as either fundamentally unserious, decadent, or weak. And no empire can survive the degeneration of its people.”
One of the key ways I personally understand the new administration and recent American history these days is through the concept of “the criminal interview.” The basic premise: the interview is where a criminal decides whether you are safe to attack. "‘Can I get away with it?’ is a major motivation for what people decide to do—or not do. Hence, the interview. This is one interview you want to fail. If you fail, the assailant decides that he cannot successfully, or easily, attack you. Then if he is a criminal, he will proceed to seek easier prey.” This thread, which Jason Kottke amplified into my feed a few months ago, applies the criminal interview concept to the last 30 years or so of American life. The last two months have only borneout its premises further. To the extent possible, become unsafe to attack.
Picture all of the big movie posters from the '80s. The ones with a mountainous collage of all the characters that tells you a tiny bit about each of them but not enough to spoil anything? And still persists today as a style for franchises like Star Wars? Here's the story of the guy who came up with them.
“okay but if you ever see a male creative who had a string of great work and then everything else he did was dogshit, go to the ‘personal life’ part of his wikipedia and look at his relationships.”
Japanese tree jackets to keep damaging pests away.
Looking forward to: the new season of Hacks, which is back TODAY and apparently, thank God, very good; a new cookbook from Samin Nosrat; new Mission Impossible and Wes Anderson (what is it actually about? who cares?).
Holy father I can’t pretend I’m not afraid to see you again but I’ll say that when the time comes I believe my courage will expand like a sponge cowboy in water. My earth- father was far braver than me — coming to America he knew no English save Rolling Stones lyrics and how to say thanks God. Will his goodness roll over to my tab and if yes, how soon? I’m sorry for neglecting your myriad signs, which seem obvious now as a hawk’s head on an empty plate. I keep waking up at the bottom of swimming pools, the water reflecting whatever I miss most: whiskey- glass, pill bottles, my mother’s oleander, which was sweet and evergreen but toxic in all its parts. I know it was silly to keep what I kept from you; you’ve always been so charmed by my weaknesses. I just figured you were becoming fed up with all your making, like a virtuoso trying not to smash apart her flute onstage. Plus, my sins were practically devotional: two peaches stolen from a bodega, which were so sweet I savored even the bits I flossed out my teeth. I know it’s no excuse, but even thinking about them now I’m drooling. Consider the night I spent reading another man’s lover the Dream Songs in bed — we made it to “a green living / drops limply” before we were tangled into each other, cat still sleeping at our feet. Allow me these treasures, Lord. Time will break what doesn’t bend — even time. Even you.
