Syllabus #138

 

Treat yourself to this substack post from Samantha Irby about getting stoney baloney and then answering a phone call from none other than Cynthia Nixon, while on the terlet taking a big ol' IBS anxiety pewp.  I LOLed, I chortled, I guffawed, I almost cried and Andy actually SHUSHED me because he was sitting in the corner with his hood up reading some history tome about the rise and fall of the third reich (for real).  The audacity of that one.  I mean, good on him for confronting the patterns of totalitarianism in recent human history so he can read the writing on the wall and see the terrible path our society is traveling at the mo', but honestly sometimes you just wanna fiddle while Rome burns and laugh about somebody's doodoo stories.  Samantha Irby has Big Doodoo Energy.

Jason Acuña, better known as Wee Man from the Jackass franchise.  What a delightful sounding human.  I mean, you have to assume the guy has a great sense of humor with all the dangerous stunts and depravity he subjects himself to in the name of a good laugh, but all the other stuff?  What a guy.  Looking back, Jackass had a real impact on my development in late high school and early college.  We didn't not get into shopping carts in the Kmart parking lot after hours and shove each other into curbs, and maybe we climbed into empty trashcans and rolled down hills in the snow, and sure there might have been a dumpster or two we dove into.  Sidenote - if you have not watched The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show, hie thyself to Netflix and watch the episode with the Female Jackass sketch.  It. Us.

The reluctantly positive book review is the most persuasive kind.  "I thought this would be complete and utter dreck but it turns out I loved it!" says a lot more than, "I went into this assuming it would be great and it was actually only okay but I stan for this writer so I'm gonna lie through my teeth and complement the copy editing."  

More thoughts about biphasic sleep.  I'm fascinated by this habit and all the cool kids are talking about it.  And by cool kids I mean like, two journalists.   Who are probably very cool but I have a low bar for that, given that I go to bed at like 8:30 and and full-on conversations with my cats, so.  

Spanish Wordle!  Palabrito?  Yo soy una gran jugadora de wordle en español.  I got it on the 2nd try today.  No braggies.

Wordle (ES) #24 2/6 🟩⬜⬜🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 wordle.danielfrg.com

Analog Reading:

Finished Dave Eggers' The Circle.  It was painful to read, and some bits of the last 50 pages or so were so obviously going to happen, but you had to keep reading to see for yourself and it was just awful.  You couldn't turn away and with every sentence you hoped you'd be surprised but your worst fears were just confirmed and man, I can't wait to read The Every.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean.  It was both a love letter to libraries, books, and the people who shepherd them, and also the wild and weird history of the Los Angeles Public Library and the catastrophic fire in their central building, that garnered surprisingly little attention at the time because it occurred on the same day as Chernobyl in 1986.

Hoping to finish The Committed, the sequel to Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer.