Greetings,

I don’t think Reacher is my favorite show, but it’s one of the shows I most enjoy. If you are a person who has not yet experienced it, the series is about a guy called Jack Reacher (who goes by “just Reacher”). He is very tall, very muscular, and very good at fighting bad guys. He’s a former military investigator who now has no discernible job and travels across the country with a toothbrush as his only luggage. Invariably in his wanderings, he comes across some small-town corruption or big-town injustice and uses his deductive skills/cartoonish brawn to set things right. I think I love this show so much because it’s ultimately a fantasy of justice after a decade-plus of American life where laws increasingly haven’t mattered and getting one over on others is openly celebrated. Elite impunity is nearly absolute, and it trickles down to another several layers of grifters and thieves. In Reacher’s world, he often ends up working with local cops, but his methods are usually extrajudicial. Are you a rich guy who can afford the best lackeys and attorneys to make sure the law can never touch you? Reacher doesn’t give a shit, and neither do his giant fists. He is good at “not letting people get away with things,” and god, I think a lot of us could drink a gallon of that in a single gulp right now.

Here’s some art, ideas, and internet for you:

1. Other than Reacher, the other show I recommend the most is Repair Shop, which is about a thatched-roof workshop in England where craftspeople repair beloved objects that people from across the country bring in. It is in turns soothing, touching, and fascinating. (How will Steve the horologist figure out how the mechanism of that broken antique toy works? Is that broken ceramic vase saveable?) All the episodes are now on YouTube, hat-tip to my husband.

2. Let’s all throw more dinner parties.

3. An appreciation of ordinary abundance.

4. Shade map. I used this to confirm when and for how long light usually hits spots in my backyard.

5. I noticed recently that my newish Pyrex glass measuring cups were already losing their numeric markings. Worse on Purpose confirms what many of us have suspected or experienced: some of the stuff we buy isn’t as good as it used to be. But it’s also a valuable guide to what continues to be made well, to last.

6. Transportation Library and an upcoming New York Bus Festival (see you there??).

7. Some dark humor in this apocalypse early warning system.

8. Looking forward to: Emma! Thompson! Feminist! Iliad!; new Tony Gilroy movie ft. Pablo Pescal as an orchestra musician; new Sharon Horgan show about the fear of losing your edge in middle age, which I totally don’t relate to at all; the looks-bad-but-I’ll-definitely-still-watch-it adaptation of Ali Hazelwood’s first novel.

9. Woke up early this morning and from my bed
   looked far across the Strait to see
   a small boat moving through the choppy water,
   a single running light on. Remembered
   my friend who used to shout
   his dead wife’s name from hilltops
   around Perugia. Who set a plate
   for her at his simple table long after
   she was gone. And opened the windows
   so she could have fresh air. Such display
   I found embarrassing. So did his other
   friends. I couldn’t see it.
   Not until this morning.
   
   —”Grief,” Raymond Carver

Bye,

Laura

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