Slow your roll

Another day, another choice between carrying on and crawling under the covers. If you're carrying on, I salute you. If you're under the covers, I salute you, too. Either way, since we're here, I've gathered some lovely stuff to share with you. Unclench that jaw, ease in and enjoy.

This week's seven spoonfuls of sustenance:

1. You're probably familiar with Andrew Rea, aka "Babish," and you may have noticed his gradual transition away from cooking tutorials toward intentionally goofy product ranking videos, leaning into some abstract humor and maybe saving us a few coins at the grocery store. But lately, he's been letting the pendulum swing in the opposite direction with a new series of cook-along videos (called "Let's Make") where he cooks a dish in real time—maybe it takes an hour, maybe it takes two—with no camera crew, no transitions, no music, and very light editing. The result feels a little like hanging out in a friend's kitchen on a rainy afternoon, just sort of quietly vibing. He'll occasionally set a timer to keep himself from talking for a few minutes, inviting the viewer to enjoy the silence or maybe do some breathing exercises. It's one of the more calming, genuinely meditative (if slightly melancholic) things I've run across online lately, and not for nothing, the French onion soup in this one looks positively sublime.
2. The images of Jupiter and her moons coming back from NASA's Juno mission are quite something to behold... she's a gassy lady (aren't we all) with a tempestuous volcanic surface, all polar cyclones and fiery aurora up above. None of this is news, really, but these photos of her are the clearest we've ever seen, and it's hard not to marvel at how many of them look like Van Gogh paintings.
3. Back here on earth, this sweet baby doing a haka may be the cutest, most heart-swelling thing you see this week. Sound up! (get your haka 101 here)
4. There's this French artist called Ememem who practices flacking—i.e., filling in crumbling sidewalks, stairs, and other public eyesores with gorgeous mosaic tiles. Something about it evokes in me a deep sense of hope among the ruin, just like it's meant to.
5. This, forever, from a Paris Review essay by Dorothea Lasky on losing her mother and looking up to Iris Apfel: "The space of a flea market was an important classroom for me, especially as a young poet. It led me to an expansive understanding of what art could be. It taught me to resist what has already been deemed 'good' art, and a formulaic sense of aesthetics. The chaotic space filled with vintage clothes and objects taught me to trust my own vision of what was beautiful."
6. On the theme of beautiful old things, the great Maria Popova just announced the launch of The Marginalian Editions, a collaboration with the McNally Jackson publishing imprint that will bring a selection of three forgotten, out-of-print books roaring back to life each year. The covers are geometrically delightful and synesthetically satisfying, and the first year's contents span all kinds of scientific subject matter with one common thread: the search for meaning.
7. Next week, maybe I'll share a photo of my cherry tomato plants, which are just about to round the corner on their first harvest. Why take up a spot on this week's list to tell you that, you ask? Let me grab you by the collar and give you a little speech. To the average person, this is not a big deal. To me, a habitual killer of even the friendliest snake plants and succulents, it's nothing less than a breakthrough. A paradigm shift. A sea change. If I can do this???, you can do anything. Take that with you into the world today and every day. We're dingdongs, but we can all grow (and even grow plants!). It's the little things, you know?

Go do no harm and take no sh!t. See you beauties next week. <3

"For an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself."

—Henry David Thoreau

29 April 2025

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