The Last Word On Nothing

We’ve done this before, talked about the books and films and everything else we’ve liked. Here are our lists from years gone by. And if you should be so moved, we also offer books we ourselves have written.

Ann:  I like lemon ginger scones.  They are buttery, a tiny lemon bite and a bigger ginger bite, and a quiet antidote to you-know-what. 

Christie:  Fat Gold is genuine California olive oil and it’s delicious! It’s made by independent producers, and each shipment comes with a delightful little zine, and each batch is unique. 

Kate:  I’ve been telling everyone about these easy but cosmically delicious beet, arugula, and goat cheese grilled cheeses. You could roast your own beets, but you don’t have to; I get mine pre-roasted in the produce aisle. Prepare for a life-altering experience. 

Ann:  Oh Kate! You’re making me remember the cosmically delicious beet and halloumi recipe which consists of cooked sliced beets and sauteed sliced halloumi, the slices of beet and cheese alternating in a stack that falls apart as soon as you try to cut it.  But I don’t see halloumi in the store any more; of course, I don’t go to the store any more either. 

Ben:  Does “everything” refer to food? It seems like that’s where we’re heading. Well, I recently attended a dinner/book-signing event here in Spokane featuring the chef Hank Shaw and nabbed his new cookbook, Hook, Line, and Supper (bet you’ll never guess what it’s about). So far I recommend the salmon piccata.  

Cameron:  I am breaking from food to say that it is my new favorite thing to run while listening to podcasts. This is not something I’d ever thought I could do–I thought I needed music! Exciting, loud (but not too loud), upbeat running music! But it turns out that podcasts are also really great in a different way, it’s like running with a great conversationalist who won’t notice if you’re breathing hard. Old favorite: Emerging Form, co-hosted by LWON’s own Christie Aschwanden. New favorite: Otherppl with Brad Listi. Just today I did a long run and listened to his conversation with George Saunders and came home feeling much better about the world. And also wanting to eat a huge breakfast. 

Helen:  Sewing. I really like sewing these days. It’s so much faster than knitting. Oh, is this supposed to be about buying things? Well, here’s my favorite source of fabric: Swanson’s Fabric, a specialty thrift store in western Massachusetts. Follow the owner on social media for many strong opinions about textiles, clothing, and capitalism.

Jane:  A deck of beautiful tarot cards. Last summer, a friend mailed me a set just because she thought I might enjoy them, and she was right — it’s been a calming ritual to shuffle, draw, and reflect in the mornings before I begin work. Earlier in my life I might have dismissed such a thing as too woo-woo, but I’ve been thinking of it as an alternative to journaling: the meaning of the card(s) I draw often reveal feelings or worries simmering right under the surface, and allow me the space to sit with them before diving into whatever else I need to do that day.  

Craig:  When I walk through the house I can feel air passing across my face and hands, reminding me I’m very much alive. That’s something I like. 

Eric:  I second what Craig said, although I would also add sounds, like birds (they still have a lot to say in the winter!), or the wind. Or rain. Lately we’ve been having a lot of rain — shocking I know, in this, the northwestern corner of the Pacific Northwest — and I’ve taken to opening the window in the evening so I can hear it dance on the roof. Much to my family’s chagrin.  

Emily:  I liked waking up to snow on the foothills this week. We rarely get snow at this elevation and even a light dusting of snow is thrilling. I also liked the silly new Netflix series “School of Chocolate,” which I binged after I got my booster shot. (Note: I just realized I was supposed to post this on Wednesday, when we talked about the TV we like, and I feel like I’ve stumbled into the wrong party.) It features the Instagram-famous French chocolate artist Amaury Guichon and a group of aspiring chefs who were clearly chosen for their emotional lability as well as their pastry skills. In my favorite episode, one team attempts to attach an enormous, slippery chocolate dolphin to a towering chocolate pedestal and fails spectacularly.   

Richard: Maybe this comment belonged to the “Films/TV” discussion on Wednesday. But it’s not really a recommendation. It’s more an “Oh, wow” moment. No: moments. While watching Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary, which rethinks the Lindsay Michael-Hogg Let It Be documentary about the then-Get Back-titled/retroactively-retitled-Let It Be Beatles recording sessions, I’ve found that I can’t get two non-musical moments out of my mind. I can’t get many musical moments out of my mind, either, but because these two particular moments are non-musical, the pleasure they provide is, while just as gratifying, peculiarly sublime.

That they both happen to occur within the first hour of the first episode of the eight-hour, three-episode entirety is due to the fact that I haven’t progressed past that point; I’m absorbing this feast at a pace a slug would consider Mach Speed-level.(That reference to Mach hereby justifies the inclusion of this Beatles-centric passage in a science-centric blog.) (Which is not to say that I haven’t previously included Beatles-centric entries in this science-centric blog: Petula Clark Turns 80; I Saw Them Standing There.) 

Where was I? Oh, yes: episode one, hour one, specifically 13:20, when the Beatles notice a Buddhist meditating on the far side of the studio, and John says, “Who’s the little old man?”, and Paul says, “Clean, though.” They’re riffing on a scene from their movie A Hard Day’s Night, some five years earlier. The instantaneous yet unacknowledged conjuring of a 1964 joke in a 1969 context encapsulated, for me anyway, the kind of impregnable psychological continuity common to friends who share formative experiences: Here’s who we were/are/will be. We have no choice. 

The other moment: Get Back has attracted a lot of attention for its visual and audio clarity. Regarding the visual clarity, you only need sample…anything. Regarding audio clarity, you also only need sample anything, but if you want to know how wildly precise the audio is, go to 54:33 in the first episode and listen for the rustling of the paper that Yoko’s holding. And then listen for the further rustling of the paper at 54:36, and notice that it’s now emanating from the right side of the screen…after you’ve barely noticed the rustling earlier, let alone noticed that it was then, consistent with its position in the image, emanating from the middle of the screen.

I can’t wait to discover what revelations 54:37 might hold.

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Photo of dried drops of Coca Cola, by Alexander Klepnev; and dried star anise seeds, by Sanjay Acharya, both via Wikimedia Commons