The Steve Reynolds Program - Issue #18
Happy late August! This summer was hot and humid and weird and gross and all the other adjectives that don't paint a pretty picture.
In early July, I bought a watermelon that weighed approximately 821 pounds that we still haven't finished. Every summer I get excited about watermelon in season and then get overwhelmed with one-- ONE! But with just this one, we enjoyed watermelon sangria, watermelon margaritas, watermelon granita, chili-lime watermelon, watermelon in a bowl and watermelon off the cutting board in a mad panic to finish off this ungainly beast. Fortunately, I will forget this in ten months and buy another Oklahoma State Vegetable. It's nature's side of beef.
I haven't read much this summer (hangs head in shame). I did manage to get through a couple of non-fiction books for research and actually took notes like a damn student for the NEXT book I'm writing. It's a big switch-up from the first one. Different time, different perspective, different software for it. Maybe I'll wear a different hat while I write too. Where can I get a trilby or, more appropriately for this book, a Stetson for no money anyways?
A Tetrad of Rad Gets
Deactivating Social Media - I've been wanting to deactivate for a while and have done it with Facebook sporadically. This article really hammers home some points about its needlessness. BUMMER is the most awkward acronym this side of Congressional Acts, but I can tell I'm a little less angry without reading a Twitter feed. Besides, newsletters are the hip and happening thing now. Speaking of...
Gastro Obscura - An offshoot of Atlas Obscura, the website devoted to the weird and unique places to visit around the world, this site (which I read in newsletter form in my rickety creaky old-timey Yahoo email inbox) is devoted to food lore and culture around the world. Atlas Obscura's newsletter is a bit of a downer these days, what with the no traveling to other countries and even other states*. But Gastro's still provides flights of fancy. For example, one recent email contained articles on how Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada, the Nazi connection to Fanta soda, Wisconsin's boozy dessert drinks, the grim history of a sour Scottish candy, the only European tea plantation and Okinawa black sugar. So cool!
Taskmaster- How do you turn off your brain? There comes a point in the day where the world is too much. My choice is this British show (an American version put out a few episodes but with neurotic American comedians onscreen I can't escape that much). The premise is five "comedians" (usually standups but some TV/radio cohosts as well) do silly tasks (e.g. pop a clothesline of balloons)and a cranky host judges who did the tasks best. The prizes are things the comics brought as a task themselves and are probably promptly given back right after tapings, the drive to win is sublimated by the desire for flair. It all makes for pleasant, inconsequential charm. The exact opposite of 2020.
Shel Silverstein's Country Songs - Every kid's favorite poet also had a great career writing songs--sometimes silly, sometimes heartbreaking and usually both silly and heartbreaking-- for some of country's greatest acts and also Dr. Hook, a band that is neither country nor great. I put together this Spotify playlist of songs by him. Go ahead, guaranteed 66.67% success rate of songs you'll like.
By the way, how are you? Do you have any recommendations for me? Let me know.
*TANGENT-- did you see that Governor Stitt DID NOT TELL US recommended information and actions from the national government via Dr. Birx? How EVIL is this inaction? It's not easy being a rational person and living in this place where people think Rush Limbaugh is cogent.
Plugs!
Way I See it is still for sale online and in shops in the Oklahoma area.
I wrote an essay for ArtDesk magazine. It's a shorter read than this newsletter.
I was a guest on The Lost Ogle Podcast. If you like to hear me say "uh" and "yeah" a lot, you're in luck!
If you're on Facebook and someone asks where the H I am, tell them I'm here and tell them to get off there!